Dear Friends,

Greetings!  As the year comes to an end, we want to take this time to reflect on the year passed and share our hopes and plans for the new year to come.  We have just shared our first Thanksgiving with extended family in five years, and are reminded how grateful we are for how much we have been blessed by friends and family over the years.  We also want to acknowledge the many ways God has been faithful.

Many of you know that we are coming to the close of a six-month “home assignment” in the US.  After each term is spent “out in the field,” International Ministries missionaries spend a period of time sharing about their work at American Baptist churches around the US, as well as re-connecting with family and friends.  We have thoroughly enjoyed our time spent both with family and the churches we have visited.  We appreciate very much the interest and support that we have felt from so many. 

First, we’d like to give you an update on our family.  Our oldest daughter, Rachel, is currently in her third year of study in anthropology at Eastern University, outside of Philadelphia, PA.  She is very active on campus as a student chaplain, teacher’s assistant, and working in the Admissions Office.  Rachel has had an interesting summer and fall which included a 3-week stay in an Akha village, a missions project with missionary children at a conference held outside Amsterdam, Holland, and emergency surgery at the end of October.  She has recovered well, and we are grateful for the many expressions of love and support that she has received.

Rebecca, our second daughter, just graduated from the Family Learning Center of Chiang Rai in Thailand in June with high honors.  At the beginning of August, she applied to Messiah College outside Harrisburg and was enrolled by the end of the month!  She is hoping to continue there in their nursing program.  She is experiencing the normal first-year-student challenges of adjustment to roommates and understanding the expectations of the professors, while also dealing with some of the things that “third culture kids” often face when coming back to the States after a long period abroad.  She also holds a campus job, working in the cafeteria.

Kenny, now 16, is a sophomore in high school, and has been such a good sport this fall, as he has juggled educational requirements that have included three classes at a local Christian school, two classes by e-mail with teachers in Chiang Rai, and one with me at home.  With our speaking schedule, Kenny has spent a good deal of time with his grandparents and aunt and uncle and cousins.  It has been a unique opportunity for him to really get to know them better, and for them to get to know him! 

As far as our work and ministry go, our past four and a half years in Thailand have been full and exciting.  We’ve seen growth in the drug rehabilitation program, regionalization of the Bible training program, development of the story-telling program, the increase of self-sufficiency programs in terms of coffee planting, pig-raising and handicraft development, an increase in educational support for children and young adults, and relief for women and children in emergency situations.  It is encouraging to see villages being strengthened in faith and in self-sufficiency. 

Over 200 opium addicts have been freed from their bondage to opium, and at least half have come into a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ.  Bible training sessions are being held in local villages, attracting villagers from that district, and expanding exposure of the gospel to more and more people.  Flannel board, the use of pictures depicting the Bible in chronological terms, and dramatic presentations are all methods being taught and employed throughout the villages.  Villages and pastors are raising pigs and three villages have embraced the planting of coffee for income.  The Akha Craft program has 6 full-time employees who help assemble the exquisite needlework done by over 100 women in villages into beautiful products sold to bring much-needed income into their homes, villages and churches.  Villages have been provided with clean water systems.  Children from four villages and an additional 100 students in grades K-12 are being educated with the support of sponsors through the STEP program.  Several books are beginning to be translated and distributed to Akha pastors to provide them with resource materials, and new churches are being built.

In addition to these activities related to our work with the Akha Churches of Thailand, Ruth has also been working in a full-time capacity with the Family Learning Center of Chiang Rai, a Christian home school co-op, primarily for missionary children.  For the past two years, she has been serving as the Principal there, and is continuing in this role during the transitional period as the school develops into an international school.  It is exciting to be part of helping full-time Christian workers respond to God’s calling in Northern Thailand by providing a quality Christian education for their children, while also seeing the Thai students also come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ!

We anticipate that we will continue working with the ministries described above over the course of our next assignment in Thailand.  We will leave Pennsylvania around the middle of January, 2009, and plan to be in Chiang Rai until July of 2011.  This term will be shorter than our past two, but the end of it will coincide with Kenny’s graduation from high school.  We will then have a full year of US/PR home assignment until June of 2012, during which time we will travel to churches to continue to share our work and ministry.

As we enter the Christmas season, we are enjoying not only the snow and other evidence of winter at our doorstep, but also the programs and celebrations which remind us once again of the amazing gift that God has given to us in His son Jesus Christ.  We hope you will have a wonderful Christmas and a new year full of joy and laughter!

Love in Christ,

Chuck and Ruth

(Rachel, Rebecca and Kenny)

www.akhahilltribe.org

P.O. Box 64, A. Muang, Chiang Rai, Thailand 57000