Dear prayer partners,

God is good! After only 3 months of church planting ministry in Xingang, we had our first major outreach for Thanksgiving. Over 45 people came and we filled the entire coffee shop (see picture above)! We ordered a large Turkey, kids worked on a craft while adults talked together, and Thomas shared about the Thanksgiving story. Jennifer coordinated and planned the event with Lulu, her friend who owns the coffee shop, and other non-Christians we've befriended so far also contributed to the event's success. We're looking forward to ministering to everyone who came in the coming months. Even our park ministry had a huge jump in attendance after the outreach. Praise God that He is letting us see Him work in ways that took years at our last church plant. Here's how you can pray: 

- The big news is that we've been in the process of trying to adopt a Taiwanese girl (age 6-9) for the past 9 months. We just completed our home study this week and were approved for international adoption. Now we're just waiting for a match, which can take a while. Please pray that God leads us to the right child. While the timetable is impossible to know, in theory the placement of the girl in our home could happen in late 2023. 

- Praise God that Jennifer's leadership training in Singapore went well. She continues to serve the Taiwan field as the church planting coordinator and has a lot on her plate at the moment as more members of our field are moving into church planting. We also give thanks that her seminary class (in Mandarin) on leading cross-cultural teams also went well. See pictures below.

- Thank you for praying for Larry. Thomas and Rik (our coworker) have been doing an evangelistic Bible study with him. When Thomas was comparing the local gods to the God of the Bible, he emphasized that we can have a real relationship with God. Larry's response: "Why would I want a relationship with God when I can become a god!" His point was that like Matzu the sea goddess who is the main object of worship in Xingang, she was once a person who became a god. Likewise, he believes that he too can reach deity. At the moment, he says he prefers just to rely on himself and doesn't see the need for Christianity. Please keep praying. 

- We continue to invest in mentoring & training. Thomas preaches at Sanhe Church once a month and we both continue to mentor Jordan & his wife Bella, the pastor of the church. We also spend regular time each week mentoring our new missionary coworkers from the Netherlands, the Williamsens. We're thankful that they are a wonderful, hard-working couple. 

- Lastly, please pray for our upcoming Christmas outreaches. We were invited into Xingang elementary school to tell the real meaning of Christmas on December 21. (At Sanhe it took us years to build rapport with the local schools but here we have received an almost immediate welcome). We'll also host a cookie outreach event on December 16 and a Christmas outreach in the local park on December 18. One of the problems that we have is finding suitable space for our events as the reaction to our team in Xingang has been very, very positive. We can't have all of our events in the coffee shop, but we will try our coworkers house this month, as it has more room than our home. It's a good problem to have this early in the ministry! 

In Him,
Thomas & Jennifer
See pictures below: