August - November 2024 Newsletter
"The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms."
Deuteronomy 33:27
To our partners in the gospel, family and friends,
Merry early Christmas from Ethan, Abigail and I. The last few months here in Thailand have been a busy and beautiful time as a family of three. We are establishing new rhythms of life and ministry with Abigail, gearing up for hosting more outreach teams here in Trang and preparing for our first trip to the U.S. since moving to Thailand. We’ll speak more to these updates as you continue reading! But first, Ethan shares about a recent Buddhist festival and the reason we continue to labor here among the unreached.
วันลอยกระทง - "Float the Basket"
This past month I had the opportunity to go to Loy Khrathong, one of Thailand’s most celebrated Buddhist festivals. Loy Khrathong literally means “to float a small boat.” Each year usually during the month of November millions of Thai’s gather at local bodies of water to release these floating offerings into the water. The main reason a Thai attends this festival is to give an offering of gratitude and repentance to the goddess of water.
This festival is one of the most beautiful and seemingly joy-filled celebrations: the bright and intricately designed boats held by couples and families enjoying the ritual breeds an atmosphere of liveliness, hope, and laughter. However, underneath all this outward beauty the Christian sees the inward spiritual darkness gripping the souls of these people. They are blind to their own lostness, having never heard of the holy and righteous God who will come in judgement yet now freely forgives and truly cleanses our sins should we humble ourselves before Him. While the beautiful handmade boats float away and people are praying prayers of repentance your heart breaks as you know this god is false - they do not know of the one and only Savior who can bear our sin and offer true salvation.
Walking through these crowds of smiling faces, taking pictures and interceding, I couldn’t help but feel a deep brokenness inside for these sheep roaming in the world without the Shepherd. I continued to realize as I stood in the midst of thousands of people that I was probably the only Christian there and that the vast majority have never even heard of who Jesus is. The percentage of Christians in Trang is 0.36%
As I walked back to my car, I thought about the task at hand: reaching the people of Thailand with the Gospel. Sometimes, this can seem like an impossible task, but God has promised us in His Word that the task will one day be finished. By His power, by the work of His church and the obedience of His children, God will pour out His Spirit across Thailand and the remaining unreached places of the world. We must continue to intercede for this task to be accomplished, for God to receive worship all throughout the world. We as believers must go forth and link arms with the church to serve and love all people created in God’s image. We pray that this little story from Thailand serves to remind you of the unreached and leads you to continue to pray, give and go as He calls you.
Three Months of Life and Ministry with Abigail River
Abbie is all smiles these days!! She is three months now and is already an experienced traveler with two trips to Bangkok under her belt for our visa and her citizenship appointment. She can’t get enough of mommy and daddy’s faces and her favorite pastimes are sleeping and hanging out with her cousin Elouise.
After some time off with the arrival of Abigail we’ve been finding new rhythms and adjusting to our new schedules. One of the greatest blessings about being missionaries with YWAM is that as a family we are able to prioritize our calling as parents while also both continuing to minister as God has led us as a family. Ethan has been incredibly busy recently as we prepare the base for hosting teams, studying Thai and spending time with his basketball friends as they had a big tournament last month.
For me, caring for Abigail is now my main calling and responsibility and I have loved nothing more in my life than being Abigail’s mom. I’m so thankful that I’ve been able to adjust my ministry to be her primary caregiver. With that said, Ethan and I believe that God has called our entire family into missions and I am encouraged to continue to serve where I am able and led by the Lord. I am still serving on our eldership team and have the ability to bring Abbie to the base, call into meetings and have discipleship relationships with our staff and others in the community. Ethan also has the flexibility of watching Abbie whenever I need to focus on a particular task. We are so grateful for the unique way we get to do ministry together as a team and for the opportunity to raise Abigail in this community.
Hosting Outreach Teams
One of our primary ministries here at YWAM Trang is hosting Discipleship Training School (DTS) outreach teams! But before we get there, you might be wondering what the DTS is in the first place. To put it really simply, DTS is a six month school designed to disciple, train and mobilize young people into serving God in the nations. It’s a consecrated and set apart time for students to meet with God, grow in maturity as believers and then be launched into engaging the nations. The first three months is focused on knowing God, His Word and His ways and then after this initial training, students are sent on outreach to serve alongside longterm missionaries to make God known abroad for about two months. And this is where we come in! At YWAM Trang, one of our main ministries is hosting this second-half portion of the DTS outreach. We truly believe that the Lord can do incredible things during this powerful time in a DTS students life as they experience being His hands and feet in an unreached place. Outreach teams come alongside our staff team to share the gospel among the Thai people and just as importantly are intentionally discipled and championed to engage in reaching the ends of the earth beyond their DTS however God may call them. This month we are hosting a team from YWAM Montana and in February we’ll be hosting another! Please pray for our time ministering among our community and for these DTS students to be impacted significantly by their time here.
Visiting the U.S. Spring of 2025
Our family will be visiting the States next spring, specifically early March to early May! With the initial season of focusing on culture and language learning under our belts, it’s time to visit our family, supporters and friends to spend quality time together and share what God has been doing in Thailand.
The goals of our trip:
rest and visit family
meet with our supporters
raise finances for Ethan’s upcoming Discipleship Training School in the fall of next year which will cost $6,500 USD
We will be splitting our time between four locations and are so sad we will not be able to visit our Coeur D’Alene friends due to prioritizing our family who are spread into four locations in the U.S.! With that said, we would love to use this time to digitally connect with those we aren’t able to meet with in person.
Contact Info:
Ethan's Phone: +1 (208) 699-9684
Marie's Email: marienova53@gmail.com
Prayer Requests
Our lives in God - pray for intimacy, obedience and joy
Abigail - Psalm 138
Our family - a few of our family members are sick, please pray for them and for strength and peace in our hearts
Wisdom and grace for parenting
Finances for our trip to the States (international and domestic travel)
Fruitfulness as we host teams this winter
YWAM Trang team - Fear of God, Humility, Oneness of Mind, Joy
Relationships with Ethan's basketball team
We love you and are thankful for you.
Blessings,
The Parks Family
"After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
Revelation 7:9-10
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