Dear Friends & Family,
As I sit to write this letter I truly am filled with an incredible sense of gratitude. I know that perhaps it seems as though this is proper thing to write, especially in a letter intended to detail our support needs, these words can seem hollow or just the traditional way to begin. However, as we reviewed our current support and the past 5 months we just feel so incredible grateful for such a strong group of people behind us. We have literally in every way felt carried by you so though these words seem a little over used I mean them in the most sincere sense, Thank you.
As many of you know we have now been living and volunteering with an organization called Night Light (please look them up at www.nightlightbangkok.com) Night Light offers work to women who want to leave the bar prostitution as well as helps trafficked women to return home. Our time with them is spent doing work at their Jewelry business that currently employs 80 women who have left prostitution; it takes a lot of volunteer work to run the business. Tim’s skills in management have come as an answer to prayer. As well as doing their outreach to the red light and high trafficking areas. We also in this time continue to focus on language study. We see our selves being led by God, directed, refined and moving to a deeper love for His creation here in Bangkok.
Needed Support Update
Prayer Support: Thailand is a place where dark spirits are being worshiped and glorified; there is truly a darkness that lingers over this city. We have seen and will see more people who turn to Christ have an actual spiritual battle as previous agreements made to their gods are broken. We currently have four prayer groups who receive weekly emails with updates and requests; if you would like to be added to these please email us.
• Prostitution/trafficking requests
• Community requests
• Elijah & Arielle
• Tim & Amy
This is a commitment to pray and to communicate with us regarding prayer; words of wisdom etc. We would also really encourage you to get your bible study or church committed to praying, we would be excited to send specific requests to these groups.
Every time I go on outreach I feel so small compared to how vast the exploitation is. Only God can change things we just get to be his hands, so please pray.
Financial Support: The financial difficulties of these days are a large part of our gratitude to you our supporters. As the markets became rocky and we know many of you began seeing your finances turn, you continued or began to support us. We appreciate this not only because it enable us to be here; but you are truly in a world that does not seem to care about these women making a statement that you care. We will briefly outline where we are at and our goals of where we need to be. I think you will be amazed at the growth since our update in July!
We need to raise 3,000 a month, last update in July we were at $370 a month we now raise $1230 from monthly supporters. * Last update we had total of 12 monthly supporters we know have 21Of the 160 people on our mailing list if just 33 of you decided to support us monthly at $50/month we would make our remaining uncovered support needs $1660/monthWe currently have 4 months of support in our account due to the combination of monthly supporters and generous one-time gifts. One-time gifts are great ways to contribute to our strong support base. Also remember that as the year ends all gifts are tax deductible but must be received before January 1st for the 2008 tax year.
Moral Support: This is a place where you can let your creativity run wild and actually touches on many other areas of support. Some creative ways people have supported us over these first months have been; friends getting together for a groups skype, emails/letters of encouragement, care packages. To know we are thought of means a lot especially as these first days can at times be lonely.
Advocacy: In this category I want to draw you attention to a particular aspect of moral support, advocacy. This is where you in your church, circle of friends, work place etc; take this cause on for yourself. This turns into a great way to raise awareness as well as putting a group together that can tackle some of our other support needs. We currently have a bible study that prays for us weekly, is putting change in a jar to raise financial support, and is creating awareness. All three of these then allow us to feel that we have people at home committed and partnering with us, so we feel we are not alone in this.
Have an evening at your home with friend’s good food and watch a documentary on sex trafficking or prostitution. (Born into Brothels is really moving) Have your women’s group read Sex Slaves by Louse BrownHave your bible study adopt us as their missionaries and discuss creative ways to get involved.Get the youth group in your church involved; we could do a skype message during youth group, taking their questions live.
I just want to reiterate how much you all mean to our family. Knowing you are interested and walking this road with us makes it easier, motivates us and confirms for us our calling to be here.
We love you all.
Amy, Tim, Elijah & Arielle.