Ric and Sharon Bruce On a journey with you to Thailand
Well, good news. The metal workers made some progress on the roof over our heads as a trip to the village this week showed. Now we’re wondering when they’ll put the gas pumps in. 
Doesn’t it sorta look like a gas station at this stage? Anyways, we’re not out of the woods yet as we will need them to pick up the pace considerably in order to move in in a month’s time. Keep praying!
This screen capture from a video I took at our monthly checkup yesterday shows Richard Kenneth Bruce, IV’s face. Sharon and our baby boy are doing well. He continues to grow, measuring a full week ahead of schedule. Definitely one of the perks of having our checkups here in Thailand is that we get to see and measure the baby’s progress every single month!
Yesterday we were also able to hear and see his heartbeat, see his his face and watch him shake a little shake, do a little dance and get down. He’s still too small for Sharon to feel but we’re anticipating that will happen soon. We appreciate your ongoing prayers for safety and health for Sharon and little Richard.
This week we were able to meet twice with our co-workers Mike and Sandy to talk more in depth about some of the important issues we will face as a team in the coming months and years. We’re excited to work with them more and more as we continue to hammer out team formation questions like, “What will teaching the people to read and write their own language look like?” Or, “How often do we want to meet as a team?”, “What will we talk about during these meetings?”, and “How accountable will we be to one another?” These issues can be hard for a new team, particularly when one couple has a head start of a few years in language and culture study.
We’re so thankful that Mike and Sandy have been patient with us as we ask a lot of questions and still know very, very little about what we’re getting ourselves into. We still have a long ways to go in hammering out some of these issues so that we’re all on the same page. In addition to some Skype meetings before we move to the village in a couple months we’re anticipating that we will continue to work through these questions as we begin to work together in a very, very small village in Northeast Thailand.
We appreciate your prayers. There’s a lot on our minds these days but sometimes it’s hard to think of what to share with you. In a few short months we will be moving to Isaan or Northeast Thailand to join a church planting team among the Phu Thai people.
First we must pass muster in Thai… meaning we have to test “highly capable” in the Thai language and our understanding of the culture must be broad and deep enough that we could write a book describing the differences and similarities between our own culture and Thai culture. In the meantime we serve in our church and build relationships that allow us to disciple and speak into the lives of our friends. For instance, tomorrow I will share a short message at church.
We are beginning a charitable foundation to help Thai people and are going through a long process including: changing our visas, doing paperwork with the immigration department, setting up a website and writing reports about the various social development projects we do. All the while I (Ric) am taking Community College classes online related to our new job. A few examples include: Anthropology, Business Writing and Statistical Analysis that will help us acquire the know-how we need to do our new jobs well. Ultimately, my goal is to graduate with a second bachelor’s degree from an accredited university in a related field such as business.
In the future we look forward to learning at least one more language, being immersed in at least one more culture and learning from another group of churches in a new area 12 hours from where we live now. All this to say… do we need your prayers? YES! We can’t do this supernatural task on our own. Thanks for lifting us up.
We’re back home in sunny Chiang Mai enjoying time with our friends, unpacking, fixing things that broke and getting settled in. Thank-you for your thoughts and prayers for safety as we traveled and as we continue to adjust back to the time, food and pace of life. We will spend next week just getting re-acquainted with things here: retraining our tongues how to speak, our minds how to think and our bodies how to act in this culture. Being back this time has reminded us what an adjustment it was the first time we came over and how far we’ve come. God bless you richly today. Thanks for keeping up with us right here. -Ric and Sharon
We are thanking God for his provision just five days after we sent out a newsletter alerting partners like you to our need for a truck that $3,000 of $7,000 has been provided already. It’s been incredibly humbling and awesome to see God providing. Thanks and keep praying that the rest would come in.
P.S. Yes, the truck IN the picture is the one we’d like to buy. It’s in Thailand, not in the US and should last us a long time.
Is Jesus just a religious idea? A philosophy? A good luck charm? Or is He a real person; a being who desires a relationship with mankind on a personal level? This question came up over and over on our trip to the Philippines. Though photos, images, amulets, posters, and statues of Jesus abounded we learned from the missionaries on the ground working in the Philippines that few people really know who Jesus is. It was certainly a shock going from Chiang Mai surrounded by the images of Buddhism to Manila surrounded by the images of Christianity… and on the other hand it wasn’t.
We met at least one family, however, for whom Jesus is more than an empty image. Kenneth Pablina and his family are obeying Jesus’ command to “go into all the world” and are trusting God to provide for their needs as they seek to serve Him in… Thailand! God is good. Kenneth and his family do not typically attend the church we attended on Palm Sunday in Manila but they were there this week. It was an incredible blessing to spend time getting to know his family and we are praying we will see them here in Chiang Mai soon.
Kenneth Pablina and I
Please join us in praying for the Pablina family and for fellow missionaries working in the Philippines. -Ric and Sharon
A good friend sent us this prayer request list. Here’s how he’s lifting us up these days:
This week is one of refreshment, encouragement and strategic planning with other members of our organization serving in this region. We’re thankful for this time, these friends and the clarity the first few days have given us so far. This marks the first week since our arrival that we’ve taken done virtually no language and culture study. Instead our days consist of hearing ministry reports from our various tribal teams, business meetings, praying for Thailand and encouraging our fellow workers. Pray this week will be profitable, encouraging, fun and safe. Thanks!
A vehicle we're borrowing.
During this first year in Thailand we’ve been using public transportation and a scooter to get around. That’s been working out well with one big catch: it’s not very safe. We didn’t really realize just how unsafe the motorcycle was until we borrowed the truck in the picture above for a few months. The owners are fellow missionaries currently on “home assignment” in the US. To buy a good, used vehicle like the one above will cost around $10,000 US dollars.
Please be praying with us about this need. When we first arrived in Thailand we had 3,100 dollars in our “vehicle fund.” We spent the majority of this on the scooter and we currently have $1,200 to put toward a car. Our leadership team in the US has agreed with us that this is a need and is praying with us that we will be able to raise the rest of the funds before the end of September. Please visit our Give Page to see more information on how you can help with this special project. Thanks!
Every day my knee feels stronger and the joint gets tighter as my quad muscles learn how to do their job again. Unfortunately we’re not out of the woods yet on this one though. I’ve got a mix of good and bad news for you and I could still use your prayers for a full recovery so I can use my knees to build closer relationships with guys who play soccer every day near our house.
Since my ACL/meniscus repair surgery in October last year we’ve kept a membership at a local gym and Sharon and I work out (more…)
Just thought I’d mention that just because we post pictures and video of us having fun all the time that doesn’t mean we just have fun all the time. That’s obvious I know but we’ve had a few people asking us on Facebook and many of our friends here don’t understand how we spend our time.
I can assure you that we work hard but you’d be bored out of your minds if that’s what we talked about on our blog all the time. The truth is learning a language is extremely tedious and not at all glamorous. Actually it’s quite embarrassing as we struggle through basic conversations about topics most children can converse about easily (like what we ate for dinner yesterday).
Thai is an extremely difficult language for an English speaker to learn and some days we feel like we’ve made almost no progress. Other days we have encouraging conversations with patient people who give us a lot of grace when we make mistakes. Good relationships are crucial to our method of learning language but relationships here don’t follow the same rules we’re used to back home because the culture is different. Some days we make great connections with people and feel we’re really progressing but other days those same people act like they don’t know us in certain situations. We’re still getting used to that.
Pray with us as we seek wisdom in balancing our schedules, building relationships and having fun as we do it. This is hard, ching ching (really really).
You know that feeling you get the first day you’re out exercising? You’re like, “Oh man I’ve totally got this.”
Then the second day you’re like, “Man that was hard but now I feel good.”
Then the third day you want to die. Today I went to my third day of physical therapy. I’m starting to feel the burn but it’s awesome to see big gains in just the first few days. I’ve pretty much regained full mobility in my knee through squats, leg press exercises and biking. The therapist is really excited about my progress and has told me to start doing the therapy at home or in a gym closer to where we live. It will be nice to have that extra hour or two every day. We’ll update again on Monday after my next appointment with the Doctor. Thanks for praying!
We’re pretty sure Ric has a torn ACL… it’s been an ongoing thing but tonight he re-injured it during soccer practice. Tonight was pretty scary because his knee wouldn’t go back into place and he had to be helped off the field. It’s a major bummer for several reasons:
Our next step is to get an MRI to asses the damage. Pray the meniscus is still intact and that no further damage will be done until we can find a permanent solution.
The up-side of this whole thing is our church. After practice tonight they all prayed for me and asked God to heal me so I could play soccer with them again. Our soccer coach is actually a Muay Thai coach and knows about torn ligaments so he brought some anti-inflammatory medicine and the Thai equivalent of Ben-Gay to our house tonight. Below you’ll find a quick video Sharon took of the soccer practice. Thanks for your prayers and love! -R+S
Hello everybody-
Just a note to let you know we are over half way there! Our first two flights went well and we are waiting to board the leg to Bangkok. Please pray we will be able to sleep on this leg, as it is now night-time in Thailand. We are encouraged and feeling great as we lOok forward to our new adventure tomorrow. Thanks a lot for the comments, prayers and emails! Keep them coming! -Ric and Sharon
Our number arrived! Tomorrow morning at five AM we’ll crawl out to the car dragging an overnight bag. Four hours later we’ll slap a two inch thick pile of paperwork on the desk at the Thai embassy and the waiting game will begin again. At least this step has a pretty predictable outcome: we’ll definitely get the visas. Just pray it will be a short, painless process and that we’ll come back to Lansing safely. If you’ve forgotten what our faces look like already here’s a picture to enjoy:
Chautauqua Lake in New York.
UPDATE – September 21 4:00 PM
Everything went according to plan this morning. We arrived at the consulate just as the guard opened the doors chased a homeless guy off the steps. We walked out fifteen minutes later with a receipt to pick up our visas in two days. So immediately after arriving we turned around and drove right back out of the city. Pretty boring trip. We’ll have to repeat the entire ordeal later this week. We’ll post about it here.
UPDATE – September 25 2:00 PM
Went to Chicago yesterday and picked up our visas with Sharon’s parents and sister. It was a great trip! Check out our photos in our latest post: Our Visas are Here!
Something occurred to me today as I was tracking a UPS shipment scheduled to arrive tomorrow: there are no tracking numbers for Thailand’s visa approval process. In fact, there’s no way to track the process at all. In today’s internet-saturated world it’s hard to imagine real, physical paperwork (turns out it’s called that for a reason).
Maybe it’s a good thing there’s no tracking number… I would probably check it every five seconds. Keep praying!
We wish it were this easy!
Our co-workers and friends about whom we have written several times, Kevin and Emily, have just arrived in Thailand! We received this note from our field leadership:
“Only 3 nights ago we were able to welcome our newest missionaries to the field, Kevin & Emily Bertram and their son Logan. In spite of jet-lag the Bertram’s have been very busy getting set up at their house as well as getting a bank account set up, shopping for needed items, getting official photos done, spending time here at the office for a field overview, etc. Pray for good rest at night for them all and that they’ll soon be over jet-lag. Also, pray for the other enroute families that their letters of guarantee will come through in a timely way – God’s timing!”
Wow! That will be us soon. Be praying with us for them and for our paperwork to come soon.
Please pray with us. It appears there could be a delay in the processing of important paperwork that we filed in March of this year in Bangkok. We aren’t certain it will be delayed but two of our co-workers who filed for their visas and work permits before us have experienced delays.
What does this change? Well, not much. We still have two months before we’d like to see ourselves in Thailand. As soon as we receive a letter of authorization from Bangkok we will travel to the Thai consulate in Chicago to get our passports stamped and book tickets. We won’t have a departure date set in stone until we literally have every piece of necessary paperwork in hand because we could experience delays at any juncture.
Please pray this crucial paperwork will be processed in a timely manner. Thank-you.
Related posts:
