Our journey to southeast Asia has been full of the unexpected. This month has been no different. We’ve wished and hoped that God would allow us to be ready to move, yet He had a different plan. As the first part of the year approached, the time we’d been hoping would see us packing suitcases and catching airplanes, we felt sure that God was doing something big in our midst. And He was! Just not quite what we were expecting…

For quite awhile now we have planned on working with one particular organization upon arrival in country. While we are serving with our long-term organization (Pioneers), we planned to work with a local project who is committed to church planting in southeast Asia while addressing the realities of human-trafficking in that context. Their foundation would be providing our visas, and their staff would be our team. Due to some structural changes within the project they are no longer able to provide our visas, so we had to find another solution.

If you’ve heard us talk at all about what God is calling us to Thailand to do, you would know that we have not felt equipped and ready to start a new ministry on our own yet. We deeply desire to learn from those who have more experience in southeast Asian church planting, and anti-human trafficking work. We felt that down the road God would call us to start something new in an under-resourced part of the country, but that has felt far-off, a vision we hoped God would develop but had no idea if and when He would.

Another unique part of our team is that, in very different ways, God called both our family, and Marie’s brother and his family, to the same ministry in the same location. We couldn’t be more excited! Through a few twists and turns in the last couple months, God has made it abundantly clear that so many of the things we’d put off in our minds till “later” are in fact what He has for us now. While we’re still planning on spending our first years on the field learning from those more experienced than ourselves, we’ve also formed our own team, and have applied for visas under a different foundation. We’ve spent hours praying through and putting together project proposals and paperwork.

Our long term goals and vision haven’t changed. We’re committed to making disciples and seeing churches planted in the context of fighting human trafficking in southeast Asia. We’ve spent the last month identifying and articulating various components to our long-term ministry ideals. Its thrilling to be at this point of putting into place so many of the things we’ve talked about, prayed through, and dreamed of for years. And there are no words to describe how anxious and excited we are for the next chapter in our story to start!