Hello Bangkok! Our first week in Bangkok has been a blur (thank you, jet lag and culture shock). While we arrived safely, all seven of our bags containing all our belongings were lost in transit thanks to our first flight out of Denver being delayed three hours. Thankfully, all our bags were delivered in-tact to our apartment within 48 hours of our arrival.
Well third time’s the charm? We are currently on our third itinerary to Bangkok and trusting that this time we will actually be getting on a plane on the intended date!
The New Launch Plan
Our airline contacted us a couple weeks ago letting us know that there was a change to our original itinerary that would have only given us 30 minutes to get off the plane in Taipei onto our next flight to Bangkok. Since that won’t work, our best option was to push our departure back to April 7th.
We will be arriving in Bangkok early in the morning on Palm Sunday and later that week we will join in the Thai Songkran festivities as the whole country will be shutting down for a three day water fight.
Here’s what we are hoping for during our first couple of weeks in Thailand:
What is Songkran?
Songkran is the celebration of the Thai New Year. The festival is a joyous time for the Thai people, but also a highly spiritual time where the Thai seek blessings for the New Year. Please join us in praying for the Lord to reveal Himself as the one who washes clean from sin those who trust in Him. See More…
Prayer Requests
Praise!
We’re truly blessed and honored to have so many folks behind us who believe in us and what God is doing. To each of you who stand behind us: Thank You!
To God Be the Glory!
Love,
Matt, Amy and Jedidiah
26 days and counting! We are in our final month before our departure for Thailand!
We are excited to announce that since our last email we have secured our visas and we are going to be departing for Thailand on April 3, 2017!
You might be noticing that this is a later date than we had originally planned on by a week, but this is because the Lord has opened up some amazing opportunities for us to share with a couple of churches before we go. We will be sharing with the Eaton Congregational Church on Sunday, March 12 and the First Congregational Church of Cheyenne on Sunday, March 19. Fusion Ministries of Greeley also wanted to have the opportunity to bless and send us out (April 2) and we may have a chance to share at one more church before our departure. Between packing our bags, having meetings with partners and friends and spending more time with family and friends before we go, our days will be packed between now and when we go.
As I type this, we are on our way through Texas on the home stretch of our final hurrah tour of the US. The past two weeks have been filled with sweet times with family and friends, meeting with partners, sharing with The House of His Presence Church in Omaha, Nebraska. We’ve been so encouraged as we’ve been on the road – meeting wonderful saints on the way and at times in the most unexpected places. We’ve been so encouraged by the generous hearts of those we have encountered to bless us with finances and prayers. We love the way the Lord has formed heart connections between us and our brothers and sisters in Christ in such a short time. We were also encouraged by a quick stop at Commission to Every Nation yesterday to meet with some of the administrative staff and our pastoral care couple. We are heading home with full and encouraged hearts.
We wish we had time over the next three weeks to sit down with each and every one of you for coffee or dinner and will do all we can to meet with those of you who we are able to, but since we can’t possibly have time with each of you, we wanted to invite you to a farewell prayer send-off!
March 18, 2017
1:30 PM – 3:30 PM
Fusion Ministries
815 14th St, Greeley, CO 80631
Light refreshments will be served.
Please RSVP by March 15 by text or a call to Amy at 970-673-5480 or via email to mattandamy@baldwinsgoglobal.com.
For His Glory and Fame!
Love,
Matt, Amy & Jedidiah Baldwin
2016 ended in a blur for the Baldwins. Christmas Eve we moved out of the cozy two-bedroom home we had shared since we were first married and are settling into a temporary transitional home in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We are so blessed to be here and are thankful to our gracious hosts – Amy’s parents – for allowing us to invade their space. Jedidiah is loving being around Papa and Nana and they love having him around too. Their kitchen and living room, however, often look like a tornado ran through them since he loves taking out all his toys and strewing them everywhere before taking out all the tea from Nana’s drawer.
As we have entered into 2017, we look back and are so thankful for all the Lord has done! 2016 was full of great times meeting with many friends, sharing our calling and vision the Lord has given us. Through our generous partners we have seen the Lord provide more than enough to cover our full start-up fund and 72% of our monthly budget. We are grateful for those who have joined with us as we prepare to serve in the nation of Thailand and are continuing to work towards being fully funded so we can go. We are currently looking into purchasing tickets and securing our visas for departure in late March.
We are looking forward to getting established in Thailand, beginning language school, and working with Dton Naam Ministries. We feel this is such a key time for the ministry as the Lord is bringing a few families on board who are committing for a longer stint of a minimum of two years. One of the new couples on staff is truly an answered prayer as they will be taking on many of the administrative and practical dynamics of the ministry, freeing up the director to focus on counseling and developing relationships with new potential students which is her passion and strength.
We are full of expectancy for what the Lord has in store for the new year. Your partnership is such a key part of empowering us to step into this new season out of a place of strength. Thank you to each of you who has partnered with us – we couldn’t do it without you.
Love,
Matt and Amy Baldwin
Just a little Christmas Cheer from our family to yours!
Heart of a Warrior. I love how that sounds. Bold. Courageous. Daring. Like something out of the movie, Braveheart. Not like the name of a training on healing and deliverance. And I think that is why Tim and Olga Erickson chose this title to christen the training for Overcoming Strongholds, a ministry out of Kansas City that helps disciple people into truth and freedom.
Tim and Olga’s approach is incredibly refreshing: they threw out everything in the inner healing community that they couldn’t find scriptural basis for and went back to the Bible. Their training manual contains over 400 scriptures to back their approach.
Matt and I were incredibly blessed when we went out to Kansas City in mid-October to receive training from Overcoming Strongholds and we wanted to share a small nugget with you. The illustration shown below, The View of God Illustration, is one of five illustrations used by the ministry to illustrate Biblical truths and lead contenders into freedom.
Our view of God often will line up with something that we encountered when we were younger. Many times we believe that circumstances, the devil or the unknown are bigger than we are or are bigger than God is because we have the wrong view of God and of our new identity in Christ. We can become so focused on the situations that have wounded us, the devil or the things we do not understand that we feel defeated and lose sight of the power of God to free us. (1Co 14:33, Rom 8:15, 1Jo 4:18)
Our view of God is crucial! We must repent of the lies we have believed about who God is and who we are in Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to breathe on the Word of God to establish a refuge of truth for us (Ps 46:1). When we do, we will see the enemy of our souls as defeated, the situations we have encountered and the questions that have arisen in our souls as powerless and arise as overcomers. We must remind ourselves of the truth that God is greater and He has made us victorious. (Rev 12:11, Isa 54:17, Luk 10:19, 1Jo 4:4, Psa 56:9, Rom 8:35-39)
Jedidiah just turned 9 months old on the first. We love our little guy so much! He loves exploring and is constantly on the go, has 2 sharp little teeth, says da-da and ma-ma, when we go out he gets all the attention and always smiles at strangers! He is full of life and we are so thankful for our little one.
We were blessed during the training to be reminded of how crucial it is to build our lives upon the truths seen in the Word of God. Many times, it is easy for us as believers to get so caught up in the struggles we face that we lose sight of the simplicity of the gospel to set free the soul.
We loved the focus in the Heart of a Warrior Training on using the Word to free the captive unto raising up and discipling wholehearted lovers of Jesus. We appreciated the simplified approach to the journey to freedom and deliverance. It really affirmed to me what the Lord had spoken to my heart years ago about bringing the ladyboys of Thailand into freedom – that if we just bring them to a place where they can encounter the Lord and the truth of the gospel they will be changed from the inside out.
We hope this has blessed you! Maybe this has stirred up questions for you – we would love to connect with you! Feel free to send us an email or give us a call at 970-405-0328.
Ruach (the breath of God),
Amy and Matt Baldwin
The summer and beginning of fall have flown by for us at amazing pace as we have been developing our partnership team. It has been a joy meeting with individuals, families, small groups and prayer meetings and sharing our heart to see Jesus receive His inheritance from among the exploited in Bangkok. We would love to have the opportunity to share with you, your church, small group, or prayer meeting, so please let us know if you’d like to invite us in. Continue reading
It’s the biggest question we’ve been getting lately. And it’s a great question!
We would love to say that we’re 100% confident of the date, but there’s a few things that simply must happen before we fly to the Land of Smiles…
As you can probably imagine there’s a lot to do to prepare for moving a family of three internationally. But before we can board our plane, we want to make sure we’re setting ourselves up for success. We don’t just want to get to Thailand – we want to be able to stay there for as many years as the Lord leads.
This means we can’t go alone. We need a team of partners backing us in prayer and in finances. For the past several weeks, we’ve been meeting with friends, family, and the Body of Christ, and sharing with them the vision the Lord has given us. We have been loving connecting with folks over coffee or dinner and letting them in on our excitement that He is launching us into the harvest field!
Many of those we’ve been meeting with have been saddened that these men and ladyboys have been trapped in prostitution. They’re angered by the injustices that the ladyboys in particular have encountered since they were 5 years old or younger. And they consider it a joy and blessing to partner with us to see Jesus receive His full inheritance from Thailand.
We also are angered and saddened by the situations that we have seen these men trapped in and are eager to see the Great Commission fulfilled in Thailand. We (especially Amy) have seen God do amazing things in the lives of the ladyboys. We can’t wait to step into God’s plan for us. It’s Thailand’s hour and we know that the seeds previously sown for centuries past will bear fruit. We are thrilled that He’s inviting us to be a part of it, and entrusting us with a key part of His plan for the nation.
We have been encouraged by God’s faithfulness as many people have already begun their financial partnership, covering 25% of our monthly needs. Many o
thers have committed to do so. We are believing the Lord for a total of $5,000 per month and a start-up fund of $16,000. This will cover our move, help us get established in Bangkok, and enable us as a family of three to live and minister out of a place of strength in a metropolitan city.
Our goal is to be ready to move in January 2017. To make that happen we need to be 75% funded by October.
Commission To Every Nation and Dton Naam require that we be at that degree of funding prior to getting visas secured so that we reach the field fully funded. While that might seem like a lot, if we had 75 more partners each joining with us at $50 a month we would be fully funded. We want to invite you to journey with us, pray with us, and learn with us! I am sure we will encounter bumps along the way but part of the adventure is doing it TOGETHER. 🙂 We would love nothing more than for you to journey with us as we follow Jesus to Thailand!
Love in Christ,
Matt & Amy Baldwin
Please pray for us!
We recently had the great privilege and joy of sharing our hearts with the Cheyenne Vineyard. We’re so thankful to Amy’s parents and Pastors Jay and Joy Meyer for inviting us to share with their church. You can listen to the message on the Cheyenne Vineyard’s Podcast. Our portion of the message begins at about 10 minutes in. Enjoy!
By the way, it’s a very similar message to what we shared a few weeks prior at Fusion Ministries International in Greeley – many thanks to Pastor Doug Burroughs for that honor!
I met P’Maow during my 6 month stint in Thailand in 2010. He was madly in love with Jesus and seeking to serve the Lord with all of his days. P’Maow also happened to be living life as a ladyboy as he had been raised from infancy to be a girl. In his 40’s, this assumed identity was as real to him as if it were his biological gender.
P’Maow’s love for Jesus was infectious and I loved being around him. He always had something encouraging to say and always lit up the room with God’s love.
Baldwin Family 