March 2024 from Paul & Penny

Dear Family and friends,

My precious mum went to be with Jesus on January 28. In mum’s final days and weeks, as siblings, we were honoured to support each other to achieve mum’s goal to go to be with Jesus from her home in Brisbane. Since then, we have been navigating the complexities of both grief and relief. For 2+ weeks, I helped my siblings clear her home of her belongings. Her memorial service was a beautiful tribute to a life well lived. I returned to be with Paul in Chiang Rai on Feb 22.

My mum taught me how to live and to love, I will miss her more than words can say, however I agree with the words my sister wrote in her tribute to my mum at her celebration of life service, “… most of all, we will miss her faithful daily prayers for us all. I believe that will be the biggest loss of all.  We will need to follow her example and pick up the baton for our next generations.”

This week on March 6th, we will celebrate a significant milestone – 25 years of serving in Thailand. Plenty of lessons learned, lives changed, joys and some really difficult times too. We’ve stayed … and we are more than glad to continue on in our adopted country.

Several folk have recently asked us about our future (mostly as we are close to/and just one of us,   over retirement age). We plan to stay in Thailand, we do not have a plan to move on. Our home is Chiang Rai and we love living here. We love reaching out into our community, particularly to those affected by HIV, offering empowerment, encouragement and support through income generation projects. We enjoy being mum and dad to our grown Thai kids who keep coming back for help or advice with this and that. Our youngest, Arnie, is only 11 years old. He’s finishing up grade 4. In August he will start fifth grade! We enjoy our eldership roles in YWAM, journeying alongside emerging leaders and cheering them on in their pursuits.

Those of you who have tracked with us for many years, will remember our first Thai baby who joined our family, Dukada. She came to us, 6 weeks after her premature birth, and lived with us for three years, then was adopted to a family in Germany. We were sad to have had very little contact during her childhood years. However, since her 18th birthday, we have had regular contact via WhatsApp. She is now 23 and has invited us to her wedding in Germany. So, we are excited for her and are making a plan to celebrate with her and her fiancé in Germany on their wedding day, June 22.

Colleen and her elderly mum, Shirley, along with the twins, Mercy and Faith, will move on-site onto our property with us in May. They need more support and we feel we can offer that by having them living on-site. Thanks for your prayers for them and us as we make this adjustment. They have been living in their own home until now.
Thanks for standing with us in prayer.

For those who support us via Australian Mercy, if you are having any issues with giving gifts to help us do the work we do, or for some reason are not receiving your tax deductible receipts, please let us know on email and we will definitely help sort it out. Or if you’d like to know how to give to our project or join our personal support team, please reply to this email.    We value your partnership.

Sending our love and gratitude to you.
Paul and Penny