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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

We have much to be grateful for…

Almost all our Thai children will be able to join us for Christmas.

We are so grateful even Foon, who is finishing up his university studies next year in the USA, and is now home for Christmas. It is Foon’s first time back since he left after high school more than 3 years ago.

Nui will come home from Cambodia where she is serving with YWAM, she recently made a two year commitment.

Jono began his one year service with the Thai Army on Nov 1.
Bom and Bam are still studying at a local Chiang Rai university. Bom recently proposed to the love of his life and they plan to be married after they graduate next summer.

We are excited for Yanee, that, after trialing DTS (discipleship training school) at YWAM base in Chiang Rai for three weeks, she was invited to stay on with all the other students to complete whole 12 weeks of DTS lecture phase.

Our mission founder, Loren Cunningham, a great hero of the faith went to be with Jesus on October 6, but his vision lives on. We were inspired more than ever to continue on and never give up, as we watched the livestream of the inspiring celebration for the life of Loren Cunningham.

We hope to send, with our next newsletter, a family photo that we will take on Christmas Day with all our Thai kids home together.

With love, Paul & Penny.

Dear friends, We are grateful for our health and that our lives are full of opportunities to impact our community, invest into the lives of our grown kids, speak destiny, influence, praying for/with younger leaders, encouraging colleagues to stay on track and refocus when needed. Our daily goal is to be intentional to take time to listen to God’s voice, then obey and never give up. Arnie’s adoption process continues. The paperwork from Thai government arrived, after our successful court appearance on March 22nd.  HOWEVER, we thought this would be the final step, stating we are officially his parents, BUT… several days ago, after a visit to social development office, we have found there is more to the process. We now need to go to the social welfare department head office, in Bangkok. So, would you pray with us, that these next steps, will also go smoothly and quickly? As we had planned trips to Australia and America to visit family WITH ARNIE in the next year. At this time, we have no idea of the length of this process with social development, but we have an appointment with them this next week on Tuesday, May 30. We know God puts orphans in families and He is FOR this process, so we are asking for a miracle and we chose to look up to Jesus and not look at our circumstances, believing God is not surprised by this. He will make a way.  Thanks for believing in our lives, thanks for partnering with us, by giving to our cause, by praying, helping to keep us accountable and by encouraging us. We appreciate you, our team of partners, our family and friends. Peace, Paul & Penny