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2006-08-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not having posted until now. Our re-introduction to life here in the states has been very busy. Unfortunately, I don't have the time for a full update at this point, but I wanted to let you know that we are back and doing well. Aimee ended up on antibiotics once we returned and that has helped her significantly. There is so much to explain next time. Thanks for your prayers and your concern.

Still alive and kinda kickin'

2006-07-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to ask you to keep us in your prayers. Aimee has come down with flu like symptoms yesterday and spent most of the day in bed. She seems to be doing a little better today but still doesn't have much strength. Tomorrow is our last full day here in Phuket so it is going to very busy trying to make up for a lost day but we are very excited to be here. It is apparent that God is at work in a mighty way in the village. There is now close to 300 believers and the ministry "World Vision" has a ministry office located right in the village. I was so encouraged to see a picture of Jesus hanging on the outside of the home that we built for the widow during tsunami relief. We spent today at the church that has an active ministry in the village and it was quite an experience. We also had the chance to meet two individuals that are serving as independent missionaries here in Phuket. Thanks for your prayers and we look forward to sharing more with you in the future.

Thailand at last . . .

2006-07-21T00:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks for your prayers. Aimee and I arrived in Thailand this morning and we will be heading for the gypsee village tomorrow morning. The first leg of our trip was and is still "mindblowing". I don't know that I will be able to process it for a while. We will be heading for home in a week so I'll post more then. I just wanted to let you know that we are still alive and kicking. Keep us in your prayers. We'll chat soon.
Scott

The bags are packed. . .

2006-07-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

The bags are packed and we're less than thirty hours from our departure for Aisa. At this point the details of our trip are set up as best we can do on this side of the planet. The last few weeks have been so full of activity that my head is spinning and I'm looking forward to the incredibly long flight so that I can finally sleep. Aimee has been busy making sure that anything that we might possibly need is available for us. She has been planning and packing for the past week and a half. I'm very proud of her, I think that other than our "carry on's", she has everything for us in one bag (a feat of no small significance).
Our prayer team and finacial support has continued to grow over the past weeks and we have been humbled by our friends over and over again. Thank you for joining with us in this work for the Kingdom. We are so excited to see what God is going to do while we are overseas and eager to see how He moves in us through this experience. We will not be updating the blog until we reach Thailand at the earliest (at least two weeks) so durring our silence please keep us and our team before the Lord.

As far as we are specifically concerned please pray:

For our physical strength, health and safety
Please pray that Aimee will be able to sleep without difficulty while on the first leg of our trip (she generally can't sleep without "fan noise" and we won't have acces to a fan in our hotel). Pray that she will sleep well and be rested for the long days work.
Please pray for our teaching activities while in Asia. Pray that our words will honor God and be used by Him to encourage and exhort the believers we will encounter.
Pray that we will have wisdom about our words and actions. We don't want to endanger any of the nationals with whom we will be working while in a closed country.
Pray that we will be sensitive and obedient to the prompting of God.

Thank you for following our journey. Your prayers mean a lot to us. Until we meet again.

Scott and Aimee

Team Photo

2006-06-10T14:29:00.000-07:00

We took our team picture last week and I wanted to share it

with you. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers.

Five weeks to go

2006-06-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that the time is flying by so fast. Prayer commitments and support is coming in and we are so grateful. Our church family has begun to collect things that we will be taking into the country including Bibles and clothes. Please pray for those we will be working with durring our journeys and for our continued preparations. Thank you for keeping updated and for praying for us. If you are interested my eye is continuing to heal and for the most part my vision has returned to normal. My eyes get tired more often than they used to but I am doing fine. until next time.
Scott

less than six weeks to go

2006-05-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

I wanted to wait to update until I got more information for you all. Thankfully, we received our visas for the trip last week. That now means that we are legal to go into southeast aisa!
Last night we started rehearsals for the musical aspect for our upcoming ministry as well as taking our team photo. I'll show you all as soon as I can get a copy of it.
Yesterday at work I (Scott) was hit in the left eye with a rock. I tore part of my cornea (above the iris) as well as scraped a section of skin over the white of my eye off. The doctor says I will make a full recovery, but for now my vision is . . . shall we say "hindered". God has been very good to me through this whole situation and I have a new appreciation for my eyes. Please keep my recovery in your prayers. If my wounds get infected I could be in bad shape but at this point the doctor isn't too worried about it. Other areas that you can pray for us this week would be that we will use our time effectively for preparing for this trip both in music as well as for our teaching opportunities.
Thank you all for your prayers and support. We are humbled and honored to have you all as friends.
Scott

Seven weeks to go

2006-05-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

Thank you for stopping by our blog. It is hard to believe that July 8th is just over seven weeks away. Not too much information has changed since our last post. We have heard from several people and families who have joined with us in praying for our trip (including some who have given toward covering our traveling expenses). Thanks so much! Please continue to keep our team in your prayers. This week, in addition to things coverd in our last post, you can pray specifically for Aimee and I. Pray that our relationship with each other will be strong. Thanks for keeping us, our trip, our team, and our future ministry in your prayers. If you've any specific questions you can email, or call us. If you don't have that contact information then you can post a comment here and we can interact with you here. See you next time.
Scott

Welcome

2006-05-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this you've successfully found the blog for Scott and Aimee and their trip this summer to Southeast Asia (the exact country is undisclosed due to persecution) and Thailand and we're glad you're here. There are no new updates at this time but below is a slightly edited version of our support letter. We'll make a point to update this blog every week. You can look for updates and changes to happen sometime on Sunday. Some things will have to be censored for other's protection so please understand if something isn't exactly clear. If you would like more details, contact us and we'll get the information to you as quickly as possible. If you have specific questions call or email us. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers.
Scott

The following is an edited version of our support letter for the protection of those that minister witin a closed country.
Family and Friends,
As you can tell from the picture, we are so excited to share with you what is in store for us this summer. No we are not pregnant! We do wish we could sit down and share with you all the doors that God is opening up for us. Instead, we are putting it on paper for you to read. As most of you know, last year I (Scott) had the chance to be part of a team that went to Thailand on tsunami relief only a few weeks after the tragedy struck that region of the world. It was during the trip that my heart was pricked with the desire to continue serving God on a global scale in some way after returning home. Unfortunately, Aimee didn't have the opportunity to travel with me last year and trying to express exactly what I experienced has been very difficult.
Since my return from Thailand last year, Aimee and I have been praying for the opportunity to serve overseas again. Our hope is to see first hand, as a couple, some of the different areas that God is working around the world and our potential role overseas. I suppose we are learning a little of what Abraham in the Old Testament must have felt in knowing God had called him but his destination and purpose would later be revealed only after Abraham first obeyed God and went where God directed. I can't help but think that Abraham's life prior to God calling him was comfortable. The Bible indicates that he lived among his ancestors and had the substance to provide for his family. Yet, God interrupted the routine and comfort of Abraham's life and told him to go to a land that he had not yet seen. He was to go away from the comforts of home and leave his family. Fortunately for Abraham, God promised to bless him for his obedience. Unlike Abraham, Aimee and I do not at this point believe that God has called us to pack our bags and relocate to the other side of the world in pursuit of the Lord's work but after many months of prayer we truly sense His call on our lives to be part of His larger purpose wherever we can serve and we are ready and willing to go. With the knowledge that God is leading us to pursue His promptings, we come before you asking for your prayer support in several areas of life and ministry.
When one of our pastors asked both of us to pray about joining a small team from our church (Parker Hill Community Church) for a trip this summer to Southeast Asia to aid in ministry training for some national ministries, we knew God was giving us the chance to pursue what we had been praying for. Personally, the idea of following the prompting of God for ministry is very scary and unpredictable especially with our financial security in mind. But at this point, Aimee and I are confident that God has something different in store for our lives and that He will continue to provide for all of our needs as we have seen Him miraculously do over the past several years and we know that He will show us exactly where He desires us to serve Him.
After much time in prayer, we are excited to tell you about our overseas journey this summer! We will be leaving July 8th to go to both Southeast Asia and Thailand and will return home July 28th.
Let me begin by describing the first stage of our journey this summer to a South east Asian country. Through a ministry partnership, one of our pastors met "John", a Christian from the country who is a critical part of an existing ministry within his country. For those of you that don't know, the country is governed by a military dictatorship that has basically closed the country off to the outside world since World War 2. There are no media outlets within the country including no written press. There are approximately 50 million people within the country and the current political situation is very difficult, affecting every area of life. The dominant religion is Buddhism.
The few Christian works that previously operated openly were closed down by the government. During our pre-trip training, with Surpassing Grace Ministries, we have learned that the people of the country are kept in poverty. We discussed how for many people in the country, rice, which used to be the primary source of nutrition, is now too expensive for the average person to afford on a regular basis. In addition to the poverty, the government is also oppressive towards the Christian community. Many of the national Christians have suffered and risk fines, beatings and imprisonment for their faith. Despite these difficulties, national believers are working hard to bring the gospel to the people they love. Into this country of hurting, hungry and needy people we have been called to help encourage the believers and to help provide training in several different ways.
Officially the government expelled all missionaries in 1966 and even with tourist visas most parts of the country are restricted to foreigners. Therefore, the nationals are an essential part of reaching the people. While in the country we have two primary roles. We will be providing Bible study training and worship coaching We will also be working in orphanages. We will spend the first half of our days, from 8am until 3pm in a class room setting. We are so excited to be able to help equip these national believers in the training that they desire so that their people can hear the gospel and learn how to have a personal relationship with God!
In the afternoons, we will spend time in several orphanages. One of the catalysts for the origin of these orphanages is a story told by a national, named "Sue", who was leading an evangelistic outreach in April of 2005. "Sue" had been asked several times to visit a particular family but had turned it down due to time constraints but she was eventually persuaded to visit. Upon her arrival she found a family whose father had died of tuberculosis and whose mother now had the disease as well. The mother had recently sold her 3 month old to a man from another village, her 10 and 13 year-olds were sold to a farmer for ten dollars and she was trying to get "sue" to take her 6 and 8 year-olds, but wanted to keep her 1 and 3 year-olds. That started the birth of the House of Joy Orphanage (a privately funded Christian orphanage). Within this past year, multiple orphanages have started and now have 500 children in them. One of the major requests for these orphaned children apart from clothes and blankets is for training in children's ministry. After hearing this true story, my heart has been so heavy wanting to do anything I can to help these children. With my degree as an education pastor and my experience over the past several years in children's ministry, I have been asked to spend time teaching the workers of the orphanages about how to setup effective teaching ministries with the children. I am so excited for Aimee and me to have the opportunity to do this! I am also very humbled to have the responsibility to teach people that have given their time and resources to show the love of Christ in such a physical way to these children who have no parents.
After our time in Southeast Asia, Aimee and I will be separating from the rest of our team and diverting to Thailand. While in Thailand we will be spending time in Bangkok and Phuket. While in Bangkok our plans are to spend several days shadowing a church planting ministry affiliated with United World Mission. The missionaries that we are hoping to spend the majority of our time with started out with a campus ministry among the city's college students. After nine years of that type of ministry they determined a need for church planting and so they redirected their efforts. We are hoping to learn a lot from this ministry since we are curious if this type of ministry might be in our future. From Bangkok, I will be taking Aimee to the Phuket area where I worked during tsunami relief. I'm so excited to have the chance to take Aimee to the place where God is doing some incredible things. We are also looking to develop a relationship with a local church that had started a ministry in this little fishing village while I was there last year. Our prayer is to develop friendships and ministry partnerships in Phuket to help encourage and exhort the believers there in the "sea gypsy" village, engaging with their culture in a God honoring way. After our time in Thailand, Aimee and I will head home.
Aimee and I want to assure you that the primary purpose of this letter is to let you all know what is going on in our lives and to ask you to please pray for us! Aimee and I have both been on trips overseas but this trip in particular has created a strong burden to have many people praying daily for our team! Maybe it is because I've spent time in Asia and am aware of some of the issues that we'll face. Maybe it is because of the dangers of being in a country antagonistic toward Christians . . . Whatever it is, I can't shake this burden to have people praying with us about this trip. We have included a prayer reminder card for you to keep in a prominent place where you will continually be reminded to keep us in your prayers. We will especially need your prayers during the time we are overseas, but we also need your prayers now as we prepare for this trip.
Some of the specific ways that you can pray for us include: the approval of our visas, discernment regarding our plans and preparation during this next month, continued spiritual growth, wisdom as we prepare what we will be teaching in the Bible schools and orphanages, traveling mercies, the health of our team, and an effective ministry in both countries.
One of the needs that we have is for financial support to help pay for the expenses we have regarding our transportation, housing, food, ministry materials and for several instruments that we will purchase when we get to Southeast Asia which we will leave for the continued ministry there. For the time we will be gone, the estimated expenses are close to $7,000 (of which almost $4,000 is airfare). We would ask you to pray about helping us provide for our trip. We understand that it is a lot of money in a short amount of time, yet we know that God has orchestrated everything for us to go and we are trusting that God will provide for our needs. Aimee and I are convinced that this is where God wants us to be this summer. We value our relationship with you and want to share with you what is going on in our lives hoping that you will join with us in praying for this trip. If you would like to help contribute financially toward our trip we would appreciate that as well.

With Love and Prayers,

Scott and Aimee

Our primary concern is for developing prayer support. Therefore if you would commit to support us with your prayers regularly please let us know. Secondly, if you would like to be part of our financial support team by donating funds toward our trip expenses, please let us know by filling out the information below and returning that section to us in the enclosed envelope.