Gonzalez Family in Thailand - Vol. 1, No. 2.

Called to Thailand...

"When you write your ministry updates, just be real and don't hold back."

- Paraphrase from Alan Bemo, Longtime Missionary to Southeast Asia

This post is a little on the longer side. It was written to share with you, particularly those of you not in the Joplin area, how God made it clear to us that He is calling us to Thailand.

Lanna Theological Center Students

The first time Sara and I really considered moving to another country to share the Gospel was in 2012. It was shortly after God called me to begin seminary studies and we naturally began to wonder what God was doing by leading me into that kind of education. We somehow got involved in a long bible study associated with the navigators. It was a program specifically designed to mobilize people for overseas mission fields. The culminating event of that program was to take a vision trip somewhere we believed God might be calling us. The only place we could think God might be calling us was China because the only missionaries we knew were a young couple we met a year and a half earlier that had recently moved there. So we bought a couple of plane tickets.

Sara and fell in love with the idea of being missionaries in China while we there. The cities are so densely populated so when you are walking around you see dozens or even hundreds of people and you can't help but wonder how many have not heard the life saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. But when we arrived home we, and our mentors, knew that we weren't ready. We had much more spiritual growth and healing ahead of us and we needed to build a better foundation in our marriage. So we focused on those things, knowing that God would use us wherever we were as we chose to submit to his loving purpose.

Fast forward 5 years. After a period of intense confession, healing and letting go of past pain, God reignited our hearts for cross cultural missions. However, we had no idea what to do with that desire. It just so happened that our church, Wellspring in Webb City, was planning a short term mission trip to Thailand. We signed up.

Before going on that first trip to Thailand, Sara and I began praying and asking God if Thailand was really a possibility. Up to that point I am not completely sure I could have pointed Thailand out on a map. So one day, and this is where things get interesting, Sara ended an intense period of prayer (specifically about Thailand being a path God was leading us on) by having lunch at Panera bread here in Joplin. She sat next to a family that she could tell was new to town so she felt led to invite them to our church. It turns out that family had just in fact moved to town after spending decades serving the Lord in...you guessed it, Thailand.

We began to develop a relationship with that family, specifically Carmen Filbeck. Carmen is the daughter of David and Deloris Filbeck, a couple that moved to Southeast Asia in 1960 and spent the next 57 years proclaiming the Gospel in northern Thailand. Carmen told us about the Lanna Theological Center (LTC), where she serves as the Director. When we told her that we believed God might be calling us to Thailand, she told us she had been praying that God would send someone to help her and the other LTC leaders take the school into whatever next chapter He had planned. It was all too amazing to be coincidence, but there was a problem. To serve at LTC I would have to raise up financial support. In my own pride and stubbornness, I could not come to grips with that reality. More on this later.

So Katie (our oldest daughter) and I went on the short term mission trip with our church in the summer of 2018 and I continued to wrestle with how I could serve God in Thailand. Then in the summer of 2019 our entire family went on a vision trip to Thailand. We started at LTC in Chiang Mai and the love God showed us through the people there was simply amazing. I was especially touched by two students from LTC who were willing to love and pour into our girls, but I was still wrestling with the idea of raising support. I spent the second half of the trip contemplating all the other ways I could help spread the Gospel in Thailand (get another graduate degree, work in manufacturing, start a business, etc.). The picture still wasn't clear.

Some of you are wondering how our ordeal with our son Isaac, born on 8/30/19 sixteen weeks early, played into this. It played a significant part but we will have to cover that in a future newsletter.

A few months after we returned from our vision trip, Isaac had a neurology follow up at Children's Mercy in Kansas City. That same weekend the International Conference on Missions was being held just down the street and Carmen was an exhibitor. After Isaac's appointment, where his neurologist told us we didn't have to come back anymore because he was doing great, we headed over to conference. The first person we saw was a young lady named Kaitlyn, who we first met during our vision trip to Chiang Mai where she was working with Carmen during a short term trip. That immediately felt like more than a coincidence. Then we made our way around the conference and found Carmen's booth.

When we made it to Carmen's booth I saw pictures of many of the LTC students that we had met. Then, on one of the banners in the booth, I saw the two young ladies that had loved my girls. I remembered parts of their stories and I realized I needed to yield to whatever God was asking us to do, even if it meant raising financial support. So I eventually asked Carmen if there was a place for us at LTC.

That is the short version of how we got to where we are now. I didn't even mention how we met Lyssa Khopang and her husband Jesse, who grew up in Chiang Mai, Thailand or how Isaac's first roommate in the NICU was Thai...all in Joplin, Missouri.

When God calls us to something it rarely looks like we think it will. What I needed to realize is that God loves us so much that when we obey him He provides what we need according His will, not ours. We must remember that his will is better. He is a good Father. I don't know how the next five years is going to look, but I do know God has asked us to follow him on this path. So I have begun building our prayer team and raising the financial support we will need to carry out this calling.

Specific Prayer Requests

• Finishing well at TAMKO - The company I have worked for the last 9 years has been a huge blessing in our life. I want to do everything I can over the next few weeks to contribute to their continued success.

• That we trust God will provide for as we seek to follow Him and raise our financial support.

• 128 days until launch - That we use this time wisely and find ample opportunities to love and be with our friends and family.

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

Matthew 6:31-33

LTC Students

An LTC student with our daughters in Chiang Mai