Hello dear family & friends!As i'm sure all of you have heard already Jude Gabriel is finally here in the flesh and I'm (sarah) thanking God for that because he was a big baby!
He was born at 12:49am on August 4th weighing with a grand total of 9lbs 9oz & measuring at 22in!
The labor from sitting on my couch having contractions to Jude being delivered was only 4 hours total, it was amazingly fast (praise God!). He's a very healthy, beautiful, sweet boy. William adjusted so well to him, he's not even jealous of him at all..i think maybe he's too young to be jealous of his little bro as he calls him..no toys to share or girls to fight over yet ;)
On a different note...As many of you may know I (ryan) have a heart for Thailand and a passion to see modern day slavery(human trafficking) be abolished. Thousands of women and girls get bought and sold everyday in Thailand due to poverty, poor family structure, low societal values of sex, and many other unfortunate circumstances. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand but rarely prosecuted as it brings much revenue into the country but the costs are high. This type of work ruins many lives the souls of the "slavers", souls of the girls and women, and the patrons. You can see how all this wreckage can ruin a society. Is all that revenue worth it? Is there a going rate for compensating trauma? I think not.Does this happen in the US? Of course it does, but in the US we prosecute and are currently improving laws against human trafficking. Thailand is doing none of this so when a neighbor is in need we help them. Yes Thailand is our neighbor we are apart of an international community called humanity. This is something God has put on my heart. I have decided to do a school here at YWAM Nashville called School of Strategic Missions (SOSM) starting Sept 18th till Dec 21st to get training to go out in hope of fighting against this injustice in Thailand.
During the first 13 weeks of the school I will be challenged by experienced missionaries in the following topics:
Language Learning
Cross Cultural Communication
Culture Shock
Team Dynamics
Discovering Keys to Culture
Community Development
Injustice
I will also learn more about the logistics of going overseas in the key areas:
Health Insurance
Raising Finances/Developing a budget
Taxes while overseas
Secure Communication
Power of Attorney
After the "lecture phase" of the school we will go on outreach as a family overseas to Bangkok,Thailand for around 6 months. We're both super excited for this time in our lives but nervous because this will be the first time we've been to another country as a family!
The tuition for the school is $3,200 and we will also need $3000 for our outreach to Thailand. If you would like to partner with us financially you can make checks to YWAM and for IRS reasons please use our memo #130 instead of our names on the check. There are other ways to give please see our website site ywamnashville.org or call our accounting office at 615-696-3096 all donations are tax deductible. And for those of you supporting us already your support is of course still needed & greatly appreciated as we are still YWAM Nashville staff. Prayer is needed and we would like people to also commit to praying for us in this season please let us know if you are interested or have any questions at all. We love you all!
