We are thrilled to introduce you to our littlest Baldwin, Josiah Russell.
Momma and baby are both healthy and our family is doing well adjusting to being a the Baldwin 5!
Jedidiah and Alizah both love their little brother so much!
Celebrating New Life in Christ
This week in addition to celebrating the new life of our son, we also rejoiced in new life in Christ as we celebrated the baptisms of eight of our church members.
Among those baptized, were
our son, Jedidiah.
Mahalia, an American school teacher who has been attending our church for a few months now and whom Amy has been discipling.
And Lamduan, the mother of one of our church members, a former medium who was recently powerfully delivered from evil spirits.
The Lord is moving mightily in the life of each of these believers as they take the steps to follow Him into the waters of baptism.
Thank you for standing with us in prayers and in finances so we can be representatives of His kingdom here in Thailand. We love you and are so thankful for you!
It’s been over a year since we joined in our very first Assemblies of God Missionary Prayer Fellowship, and over a year and a half since we first began our journey in an informal partnership with AG Missionaries on the field. Our hearts have been encouraged by the comradery we have felt among other missionaries, and we have seen first-hand how our ministry has benefited from the reservoir of wisdom, experience, training opportunities, and teaching resources that have opened up to us through this partnership. Our desire since the beginning of planting the church in Map Ammarit has been that the church would be able to thrive and we have found a covering that will help us, and thereby, the church to do so.
Amy leading worship at the AG Missionary Prayer Fellowship this February.
For the last two months, we have been focused on completing some of the steps necessary to empower ministry success through our becoming career missionaries with AGWM. Matt just went through the process of applying for ministerial credentials with Assemblies of God and we have received word that he has received initial approved at the district level, but are still awaiting the final, national-level approval. Next week, Matt is completing a degree that he has been working on for five years.
Amy is preparing to give birth to our new baby boy in two months. Amy and Baby B are both doing well, though these final couple of months of pregnancy can be a bit tiring physically.
In the months ahead, we will be working on completing the application process to become AG missionaries and will be returning to the States in the Fall to keep moving forward in that process and of course, visit our family, friends, and partners. This visit will be a longer home visit — at least nine months, if not a year — so we are definitely looking forward to seeing as many of you face-to-face as we can!
Rejoicing at the baptism of three new believers in January.
Leadership Development
We are encouraged by how God is continuing to work in the lives of new believers and drawing new people to worship with us weekly.
For the church to thrive as we seek to reach the lost, raise up disciples, plant the church, and develop leaders, it is vital to have other laborers join us in this harvest field. This is especially true since we are gearing up for the birth of our new baby and then an extended home visit! The major focus in our time remaining before we go is to prepare the church to carry on successful ministry when we are in America for furlough.
We have been seeking to raise up Thais to do the work of ministry. Unfortunately, finding leaders from within who are ready to take on the task of discipling and pastoring the church has been challenging. The individuals who are most receptive to being developed as leaders are newer believers. We are currently sending two church members through a leadership development course and working closely with them to develop their leadership abilities. But it will be quite some time before they are ready to take on key roles in the church.
Partnership Opportunity
Committing to take the step of faith to help support a Thai minister’s monthly salary is not one that we take lightly. We ask that you please pray for us as we take this step of faith. We need the Lord to provide for this need of an additional $700 per month.
Additionally, we are anticipating additional costs with the labor and delivery of our Baby B, and with our upcoming furlough to America this fall. Overall, with all of these additional costs, we need to expand our support base. This will set us and the church up for success as we journey together toward what God has for us.
If you would like to join with us in a one-time gift or a monthly gift, be it with a large contribution of $100 or even a small contribution of $10 or $30 per month, we would be grateful.
P’Max and Amy ministering to a young boy who decided last month to place faith in Jesus.
We have been blessed by the Lord to find a qualified and skilled Thai pastor who is beginning to partner with us in Chumphon. His name is Max. We hope to have him lead the church and carry on the ministry when we step away for a couple of weeks for the birth and then when we come to America this coming Fall. This also frees us to pursue other ministry opportunities.
Since bringing Max on part-time to help, the ministry has started to be even more fruitful. We are able to strategize with him while also seeking to organize areas which have been lacking order. He is good at leading worship, developing the worship team, organizing, preaching, and teaching
We will be bringing Max on full-time to help further the ministry. We believe in the importance of the local church being able to support its own ministers and ministry. However, our church is still not yet able financially support its pastor fully.
As such, we are committing to partner with the church for 2-3 years while the church gains the ability to be self-supporting. During this time, the church will pay a partial salary for the pastor, and we will cover the remainder. We are committing to cover $700 per month of the pastor’s salary for 2-3 years to empower ministry while the church grows and gains financial strength.
P’Max leading worship with Amy and some of the youth.
Thank You!!!
We thank everyone for your partnership in every way! Over the past couple of months your generosity has helped us to:
Pay for Jedi and Alizah’s schooling
Replace the roof of the house of one of the widows in the church whose house was being flooded every time it rained.
Purchase a computer, speaker, and guitar for church ministry.
Go to the AG prayer fellowship in Bangkok.
Support our previous church assistant, Jade, in pursuing his Master’s of Divinity.
As well as helping with the day-to-day expenses of our life and ministry on the field.
Truly, your support empowers us to do what we do! Our hearts resonate with the words of the Apostle Paul, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:3-8 NKJV)
Thank you for joining with us in seeing the gospel go forth, people discipled, and leaders raised up so that the church here can thrive.
It may be the start of a New Year and you may be eager to put the tree away and move on to the simplicity of life, but our thoughts are still on the happenings of the past few weeks and all that God has done.
In December, we approached a few local schools to see if we would be able to go into the schools to share about Christmas. We were met with an immediate yes from four schools, where a total of 850 students learn, and started preparations for our outreach. At the last minute, the public elementary school in our town where roughly 900 elementary school students learn, reached out to ask if we would still be available to come and share with their students and teachers. We responded with an immediate YES! This one school would double the number of students we would be able to reach with the gospel through sharing the story of Christmas, taking our number of people we could share with from 850 to 1,750 students, plus staff and teachers.
Jedi sharing the joy of Christmas with students!
It was a joy to watch our church members, many of whom are new believers, embrace the idea of this outreach with joy and gusto. One of our “aunties,” Ba Nee, was a part of preparing the small gift bags almost every time we were working on them, and went to every school to help in any way she could. Watching her joy at being a part of sharing the good news of Jesus with these students filled us with joy as well.
We had so much fun going into the schools and leading the students in simple English songs, sharing the Christmas story and why Jesus came to earth, and playing games with them. The children had a great time as well. At some of the schools we went to, there has never been a pastor or missionary who came in to share the gospel or do activities like this. At the large public school, we were only able to share a brief presentation of the story of Christmas and not our entire presentation as the school had invited us to join with them in their own Christmas program. Even still, we were able to get a small gift of gospel booklets, a pencil, an eraser, and a snack in the hands of over 1700 students and teachers in just three action-filled days! Many indicated a desire to know more about following Jesus. Also, many of the school administrators said they would love to have us back to share with the students again. We plan to follow up with these schools and organize other outreaches with them. We hope to partner with Operation Christmas Child to plan more ongoing outreaches with schoolchildren. These outreaches really were just the beginning of what we believe the Lord will continue to do within the schools in our area. Thank you for partnering with us to bring the true meaning of Christmas to a part of the world where it is not known.
Out with the Old
If you missed our 2022 recap, be sure to check that out here as it highlights some of the major events of 2022.
In with the New
As we look forward to 2023 with anticipation and joy, here’s some of what we are excited about:
Small Groups! More than ever, we believe in the importance and need for discipleship. This year, we want to help root our new believers more firmly in the word, help them establish a life of prayer, and build them up in the community of God. We also long to see our church members, both old and new, equipped for ministry. One of our major strategies for doing so is through our small groups. We currently have small groups three nights of the week:
Wednesdays – on our street with new believers
Thursdays – in a nearby town with new believers and seekers
Fridays – with Burmese new believers and seekers.
Life in the Holy Spirit! People, and especially Thai people, are by nature a spiritual people. Too often, however, we leave out the life in the Spirit as a key in our discipleship. This year, we want to really cultivate the spiritual life of our people and teach them the biblical way of life in the Spirit, which includes a life filled with prayer and encountering God. We want to open up the opportunity for our people to walk in the Spirit-filled and empowered life more and more while also providing them solid biblical guidelines to walk within.
Train up leaders! We are going to be sending four of our church members through a leadership development program via Zoom beginning later this month. We also continue to meet with church leaders weekly for discipleship and strategizing.
Baby Baldwin! Baby Baldwin is doing well and has a due date of April 29. Amy and baby are doing well. The kids continue to grow in their excitement for baby, who the doctors tell us is a little boy. Jedi is thrilled that he will have a little brother and Alizah is already starting to bring mommy gifts “for baby”.
Visiting the USA! We are also planning and preparing for us to take an extended trip to the US, most likely in the fall of 2023. Please be praying with us for wisdom on timing, for open doors, for provision for flights, and for all the logistics of our visit. We will share more with you about this as details become more clear.
Thank you so much for all the ways you have and continue to stand with us that the good news of God can go everywhere we do in Thailand.
“It is winter in Narnia,” said Mr. Tumnus, “and has been for ever so long…. always winter, but never Christmas.”
-The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The line from this book came to mind as I sat in the twinkling light of our Christmas tree one morning as I thought about the Christmas season in our small town.
We are so incredibly blessed and overwhelmed by what all God is doing and we wanted to create a little video update for you as it is just SO good. God is on the move here in Chumphon Province with our church. We have been blessed and humbled as God has doubled our church with new believers over the last two months, we just baptized four new believers (and plan to baptize more soon!), and we have seen incredible healings and deliverance! We are so humbled by all God is doing. Check out the video to hear more, see pictures, hear some of our plans for discipleship and leadership development, and to hear some BIG NEWS for what’s ahead in 2023!
P.S. Please forgive our amateur videography skills. We are used to talking to people face to face. If you all like the video format, please let us know and we will plan to get better in the days ahead. 🙂
“Hey love,” Matt said, “I had someone contact me via the church’s Facebook page today. They are a new believer in Jesus, and they want to come to our church. She found us on Google.” This might be a common occurrence elsewhere, but here in Thailand it is not. Thailand is not very well saturated with the gospel as only 0.6% of the population is Christian. This is even less in our province where only 0.1% of people are believers. The chances that someone would come to faith in Jesus in our area who didn’t already have relational connections with a church seemed infinitely low.
I rejoiced at the news and inside, wondered, “What is God doing?” We met Pit at her home, which is in the housing for wood factory workers nearby. She shared her story with us of how she had been sick one day and as she was scrolling through Facebook, a Thai evangelist came up. She listened to his teaching and liked it. She said she’s always liked the story of Christmas and she began to open her heart. She continued listening to messages on Facebook and began seeking them out on YouTube. Eventually, she knew it was true and she prayed following the evangelist to receive Christ into her life. After that, she started telling her husband, her little sister about Christ and led both to faith in Christ. She also shared the good news with her mom, who received the word quickly, but then decided she didn’t want to keep following Jesus. We were overjoyed to see that she was sharing the faith with others, even as she was growing and seeking to know more herself.
We brought her a Bible our first meeting, which she gratefully opened and shared that she had been praying for one, but it was so expensive (only about $20 USD, but for those who do not have much to spare it is a lot). Pit had discovered the Thai YouVersion app and had it on her phone, but she said that the real thing is much better. We worshipped with her and opened up the scriptures with her and studied with her for the first time using a “real” Bible.
It was a couple of weeks before she was able to come to church for the first time. When she came, she brought her sister and they joyfully joined in the worship. Later that week she and her husband, Rambo, came to a new believer’s group. We hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with Rambo about faith until that night but when we asked how he felt about faith in Jesus he said it was “ดีกว่า หลายเท่า” (many times better) when compared with Buddhism and we could tell he felt it with all his being.
He told us he was going to church the next day and he wanted to bring his family and friends but they are poor factory workers and don’t all have vehicles, so he asked if we could help get them there. The next morning, Matt found that the school’s 15-passenger van could barely fit the twenty (or more) adults and kids who wanted to come and hear the gospel. That day, Rambo not only brought many with him to church, he also began his ministry of translating the service as well. Rambo is Burmese and grew up in Thailand, so he is fluent in both languages. Since some of his family and friends don’t speak Thai, he translated for them, sharing the entire message in Burmese with them.
That same day, we also had six other visitors to the church, three neighbors who decided that day that they wanted to go to church for the first time and three other Thais who don’t normally come to church. Seeing as our church normally has about 25 adults in attendance, our regular members were shocked at how many people came and what God is doing, as our church attendance easily doubled in one day.
We are in awe of what God’s doing here. We see in this story how God is moving in our area. He is raising up new believers in answer to our prayers, even when we aren’t even aware. He is with us in our efforts to establish the church and build relationships in our community. He is raising up leaders who will lead others into the truth. Our hearts are encouraged as we see God moving and we also see the need to continue developing disciples and leaders.
What does love look like? It’s a question we have been asking amid challenges we have faced during the global pandemic. Love looks like something. What does it look like in our context? Love looks like stopping while driving a motorbike home in the rain to ask if a young lady walking needs a ride home. Love looks like taking her to her friend’s house for a quick moment and then to her home. Love looks like telling her about Jesus when she propositions you.
As we head into the holiday season, our hearts are grateful for you and all the ways you have faithfully stood beside us throughout this year of challenge and change. We wanted to start our newsletter this month by letting you know we are so thankful for you!
Baldwins Go Global 