Thankful Through Triumphs and Trials in Thailand

“Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His loving-kindness is everlasting to all generations.”                 Psalm 100:4-5

Greetings in the name of our wonderful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ who has blessed us with countless blessings and the wonderful gift a new life in Him:

Our family is looking forward to the holiday season and is grateful for the way God has worked through your prayers and financial support to enable us to serve full time ministering with the people of Thailand. Since our last update, our family has experienced both blessings and difficulties and we are looking forward to sharing with you some of the highlights from the past month.

Doga the young man who is staying with us.

The best place to start would be with the exciting news that our family has grown. No we are not expecting another child since that would truly be a miracle; rather we have agreed to take in a 15 year boy who needed a place to stay until the end of the school year in February. Doga's older sister asked us if we would let him stay with us for the next four months until she was able to find a place to rent and could help take care of him. At first we were reluctant to open our home to a rebellious teenage boy, but after talking with him, his sister, and others we agreed to give it a try. This has been a great opportunity for me to begin practicing some of the discipleship principles for men which I am wanting to use with some of the male college students I have been meeting with over the past few months. My heart goes out to Doga, who like many 15 year old boys finds himself standing at a crossroads between life and death. We have talked about the current path he is traveling and if he continues to walk that path and follow the friends he has been following, then there is guaranteed destruction waiting for him. He may not know when that destruction will come, but by continuing to walk in rebellion he is assured that it will come. On the other hand there is hope for him in the life of Christ and if he is willing to submit to Christ’s lordship and allow His Spirit to change his heart, there is an assurance of living a life which will bless him and others as well as bring glory to God.  Doga has been with us now for three weeks and we are thankful that we had an extra room for him to stay in and also the time to study the Bible with him and help him begin to make better choices in the way he is living his life. I am still not sure of his salvation and that has been something we have been talking about in great detail, the gospel message and how it has the power to save us not only from the punishment of our sins but also from the power of that sin in our daily lives. Please continue to pray for Doga and our family as we spend the next few months together trying to minister to a life which was willingly walking down the path to destruction. We are praying that during his time living with us, we will be able to not only share the gospel with him through our words, but also with our lives. We are grateful for the kitchen table we were able to buy because of some of your special gifts, it is large enough to sit eight people and so we are glad that Doga can join with our family during meal times. We are also thankful that the house we are renting had a couple of extra rooms so that Doga can be a part of our family but also have some privacy from the busyness of our 4 kids. We look forward to updating you on how his time spent with us is going and ask you to please continue to pray for Doga as he faces the temptations which are common to all 15 year old boys.

If taking in another kid to look after was not enough to keep us busy, we have found ourselves expanding our ministry opportunities as well. For the past few months we have been doing some pre marriage counseling with a young Thai pastor and his fiancé. It has been such a blessing to get to know this young couple and study the truths of Scripture with them as they prepare for their future life together. During our time of counseling we realized that one, I need to be translating all the material I am using with this couple into the Thai language and make a small workbook which we can use with future couples. So that means that over the next few months Mam and I are going to try and create a pre-marriage counseling book and workbook to use with others. We also found ourselves not only offering pre marriage counseling but helping as wedding planners for this young couple. It amazed us at how much they were un-prepared for their upcoming wedding on November 30^th and we realized that this is a ministry we can offer to others in the future. So we have been busy not only counseling with this young couple but also helping them with their wedding preparations. It has been fun, but also very tiring. I forgot how much work goes into planning a wedding, I think that when it is time for my daughters to get married, I will give them a plane tickets as a wedding gift and send them to the States for a quick and easy wedding maybe at a drive through in Vegas. Please continue to pray for Click and Wahn (the young couple getting married on the 30^th) as they begin their life together and try to apply all the truths they have been learning about marriage from God’s Word. I have also seen that this is a young couple who are going to need a lot of help during their first year as a married couple and so Mam and I are planning on continuing meeting with them monthly and trying to disciple them as they begin this adventure known as marriage.

 

Some of the college students enjoying Friday Fun Night at our house.

The schools started their fall terms during the last part of October and so we have been busy getting our children back into the school routine and also connecting with the students from our church who attend one of the local universities. In order to help minister to the students from our church, we have started a prayer time on Sunday evenings which we have on their university. The first week we had 15 students come to pray, the second week we only had 1 (The others went to watch Thor 2 with the English club). But this last week we had 7 come and we are hoping that this group will continue to grow as they invite their friends and reach out to other students in their classes. On the 15^th of December we will be having a Christmas party for all the students from that university and we are praying that many of the students from our church will bring their friends since the theme of the party is the Peace of Christmas and we will be focusing on the peace God offers to those who believe in the gift of His Son which He sent for us on Christmas. Please pray that many students will come and that this will be a great opportunity for those in our church to share the gospel with others in their class. December 15^th is the date, so please remember to pray.

Please pray for our family, specifically two very important requests. The first is for our health but specifically for my health as I have been struggling with some physical problems which are painful and also limiting my ability to be active. The main problem is what I think is possible some gallstones or gallbladder disease. I am trying to get into to see the doctor early next week and am praying that they will be able to diagnose what is actually wrong with my body and provide a way to relive the pain. I do not suffer from constant pain, but from sudden burst of great pain in my stomach and back, so much that it makes it even hard to talk, let alone do anything else. The last flair up happened about two weeks ago, and it occurred right when my truck tire started to go flat because I ran over a nail. Trying to change a tire in hot humid air, while suffering from extreme stomach pain is something I do not wish for anyone to have to experience. Thankfully, I was able to get the tired change and after a few hours of pain, the hurting stopped and I was able to rest some before I had to go pick up the kids from school. I do not know what is causing it and we are praying that the doctor will be able to diagnose it correctly and provide some lasting relief for whatever it is that is causing the pain. Please pray for my health and also the health of our whole family especially now since many of us have small head colds and runny noses.

Hope, Kyle and Joy enjoying some fun with the can food

Gracie send her greetings

The second prayer request involves our family’s finances and the fact that over the past few months we have seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of support given. When we left the States we had a budget that needed us to raise $2500 in monthly support to cover all of our family’s needs. We left for Thailand believing that we had $2000 in monthly support committed to meet our costs of living, and were praying about possible supporters to help make up the remaining $500 of monthly support needed. The first three months back, our support was doing well and we had even received some special gifts which enabled us to purchase a cover for the back of our truck and a stove for Mam to use for cooking. But starting in July, the amount of support coming in monthly began to decrease and continued to decrease over the next few months. The past two months we have seen it decrees to the point where we are now onlyI ask you to please prayerfully consider giving an extra end of the year gift to help our family cover all of our needed expenses. There are two very big expenses coming up in the New Year which we currently do not have the finances to cover. One is the need to purchase a computer for Mam and the girls to use for doing their homework and ministry work in Thai. We currently have my laptop but since I use it so much for my schooling we do not want the girls to use it in case all my class work gets mistakenly erased. So we are praying for and trying to save up $400 to buy a laptop for Mam and the girls to use. The second need is a little larger and a little more important. My truck’s tires are over 6 years old and are needed to be changed, also the front breaks are at that stage to be changed, and I think the clutch is also going out. This is the joy of having a car that is close to 20 years old and has been used a lot. It has been a great truck and has taken many of trips to the villages to spread the gospel, now it is getting old and the cost to keep it running is beginning to add up. It is the only vehicle we have now besides a small motorcycle and so we need to keep it running as long as possible. For new tires and repairs I believe it is going to cost somewhere around $700 to $900. That is a lot of money when you are taking in only $1700 in monthly support. So we are asking first for you to join with us in praying for our family’s finances and the need to raise more support. Also prayerfully consider joining our monthly support team or giving an end of the year gift to help us finish off 2013 and also be able to cover the expenses of the computer for Mam and the kids and also for the truck tires and repairs which are greatly needed. If you would like to know more about how to join our support team or how you can give specially, then please email me at dan.rutledge@gmail.com . God is faithful and has continually provided for all of our family’s needs and we know that often times that is through the gracious gifts from people like you. We ask you to please, please help our family to continue to serve in fulltime ministry here in Thailand by partnering with us through prayer and financial support. Your gifts are what make it possible for us to be able to serve the Thai people by seeking to connect their hearts with the redeeming truths of God’s Word. Thank you for your prayers and past support and we ask you now to give a little extra during the holiday season.

receiving $1700 to pay for our living expenses. God has been faithful and we have been able to survive, but this last month we had to pay school fees for our three daughters, some medical bills, and other unexpected expenses which have forced us to wonder if there is going to be enough money to finish out the year. December is always a wonderful month and is a time when many people give a little extra.

Speaking of the holiday season, I guess I had better bring this update to a close before Christmas arrives. The months of November and December are my two favorite months of the year and I was so thankful that I was able to introduce my family to the joys of the holiday season over the past two years we spent in the States. It is always hard to be away from family and friends throughout the year, but to be away during Thanksgiving and Christmas is especially hard. Our whole family misses the festive times and the joys of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Please pray for us as we celebrate a milder version of Thanksgiving and Christmas, since these are not national holidays here in Thailand. We all miss the snow, the lights, the yummy food, the fun Christmas show at church, the Christmas parties with our life groups, but what they miss the most is spending time with their Papa and Grandma, their cousins and Aunties and Uncles, and of course all their friends from school and church. Please pray for our family during this first holiday season back in Thailand and please pray that we will be able to use these two great holidays to reach out to others in our neighborhood and local universities with the blessing of giving thanks for what God has done for us and also the true meaning of the Joy of Christ.

Joy with some of the college students

Some of the wonderful food we had for Thanksgiving

The students singing Thank You Jesus

 

To close out this letter, I would like to share some highlights from the Thanksgiving dinner our church held last night. We invited all the students to prepare their favorite traditional food from their respective tribes and to present a short song or skit in their traditional language. What we got was a wonderful evening filled with amazing food and beautiful songs and dances. We had students who were Akha, Lisu, Lahu, Hmong, Iu Mien, Karen. We also had students who were from the eastern part, the central part and also the southern part of Thailand, all with unique foods and songs. We also had 8 exchange students from China who joined with us. It was such a blessing to see so many languages, cultures, and traditions represented in the church. Mind you our church only has about 50 to 60 regular attendees and most of them are college students. It was a special thanksgiving meal, no turkey but lots of wonderful tribal and Thai food. I have attached some pictures from the event. Praise God for a wonderful night and please pray as we make preparations for some upcoming Christmas programs and outreaches at the universities and also at our church.

May you and your loved ones have a Happy Thanksgiving and a Very Merry Christmas.

God bless.

Your fellow servants in Christ

Dan, Mam, Gracie, Joy, Hope, and Kyle Rutledge.