Matthews Update Prayer Requests-
-Please pray as we continue to see different ministries coming together. We believe the best way is to filter everything through prayer and asking His for direction. I am working on the habit of asking myself before God in my daily activity, "Does this glorify You, God? How does this answer The Great Commission? ...The Great Commandment?" Pray for me, Tom.
-Pray for Madeline as she has been working on life skills recently. With the oversight of her speech therapist, who has provided her services for years at no cost to us (How great is Your faithfulness to our children), she has researched recipes, gone to the market, bought food, and cooked dinner for us! She also made some new friends with similar and other challenges to autism and is making progress. She has three classes to go to before graduating HS. She still has a long way to go toward living independently. Still, we are confident and beginning to see God use her experience as another ministry for us to live out the gospel and encourage families of children with challenges. We will attend a retreat for missionary families with special needs children starting tomorrow by "Joni and Friends, sharing hope through hardships."
-As you know Angie is working tirelessly with Madeline, it's hard almost every day.
-Angie has taken on another student in the same grade level with some challenges. This is a help to Madeline and a missionary family in a tough spot.
EXTRA: Angie is a true superhero mom and I, Tom, write this thru tears... great, great will be her reward, I am sure of it and I am so blessed to be married to her. She makes sacrifices daily for us. I couldn't do this without her. Can I also say she has taught a village full of small, some neglected children and been broken by their stories, wherever she goes, kids light up with hope, just to lay a small hand on her and look her in the eyes. She gives hugs of hope to everyone, everywhere and I believe people get a taste of heaven. She always says hi to everyone she sees. I mean that is it... she really sees them, the ones that long to be noticed. It is a gift from God and if she knew that I was writing all of this you'd have never seen it, but it must be written. It's a HUGE part of this story. You'll hear it again in glory and I'm so proud of that. Well Done!
Selah
-Please pray. We believe Thailand is opening up to the gospel, and there is so much work to be done!
-Pray for the gospel to be shared as we plan clean-up efforts after recent flooding
-Pray for gospel evangelism and events in three subdistricts starting at the main wet markets
-Pray for our home leave in December 2022-February 2023
A little about the Website
As we've lived here for a few years, we've discovered that Thailand, though not wholly, has a vastly greater degree of freedom than China. We thought it prudent to share our relentless passion for reaching the unreached people of Thailand with a new website.
On this website, you can read our vision statement, find out "why Thailand?" and see some of our hopes and dreams on the homepage. You can get in touch with us, know us better on the about page, and keep in tune with our everyday joys and trials on our blog page. You can also join our support team, help with a one time gift for our upcoming home-leave, and new partners can add their support to help us, you guessed it, on the support page.
Please visit our website, pass it to your interested friends, and let's raise the banner of Jesus, our Joy, Hope, and Salvation, in Thailand!
www.Matthews2Thailand.org
We love you all,
His Grace and Peace to you,
Tom for the Matthews Family (Angie, Robert, Annabelle, Nicolas, and Madeline)
At the top of the page: is a watercolor of great encouragement to us, painted years before we came to Thailand by a former German teammate and artist. For years I saw God carrying Madeline through the jungles of life, then of life here in Thailand. One day as I was looking at this painting that hangs in our room, I noticed the elephant is a female. Like a whisper, I felt "God, through Angie." Praise the Lord.