The Derington Family
The Derington family together beside rice fields

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9
by Traci Derington

Where Have We Been the Last Two Months?

We are so grateful to you for praying for us through the move into our new home. We have had our heads down, working hard to get everything in order. We moved out of our sublease March 6th—the same date we went under contract on the sale of our home in Ohio a year ago. Hard to believe we’ve been living in this “limbo” for a whole year! It will still take some time before we feel settled, as we are starting with minimal furnishings and are very much continuing to live out of suitcases. But over the coming weeks and months I think we will really begin to feel a peace in our new home.

The house we are leasing is in a new neighborhood directly across the street from the school campus—our home is in the center fore-frame of the photo, with the school (red roofing) in the background. While it was taking us 20-25 minutes to drive to campus before, it is now less than a five minute walk there! What a blessing this will be for our family—half our family is on campus five days a week, and this enables us a lot more freedom for things like a quick lunch together or for the boys to ride their bikes home when Nick needs to stay later. We hope we can in turn bless the community as well. Being the first family in a new neighborhood…we have no actual neighbors yet. This was not our original plan when we landed, but the Lord kept leading us toward this house. There are several more homes almost ready for tenants—would you pray with us that the Lord would provide new neighbors that we can become friends with and share Jesus with?
A quick drone video of our new house to give perspective on the proximity to Grace International School and the surrounding Thai community.

Long Lost Friend and a Start to Learning Language

In February, we had the joy of seeing one of Nick’s Thai friends—Verapong—from The World Race. It’s been over twelve years since they have seen each other, but they’ve kept up with one another in spite of the distance and time. What an honor it was for Traci to meet him in person after so many years of hearing about “V”. V has a thriving ministry to the Karen (pronounced “kuh-rin”) people in the far north of Thailand and was only in Chiang Mai because his son was in the hospital due to a motorcycle accident. During our visit we were able to introduce Tim and Helen to V and they had a lively conversation in Thai for close to an hour, while we attempted to listen for anything familiar. We were all able to pray for V—for his son and for his ministry—and give a gift to help offset the financial burden of the hospital fees. We know he left encouraged—what a blessing that reunion was!

Lastly, we started Thai class…which is also less than five minutes away! So far, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. We’ll share more on that as we get a few weeks under our belt. Thank you again, friends. So grateful to have a team behind us.

Prayer Requests

  1. 1. Language

    Pray for supernatural understanding and retention of the language.

  2. 2. New Community

    Pray we are able to form friendships and relationships with the local community.

  3. 3. Visas

    We are already beginning the process of securing our second year’s visas. Pray for continued favor.

Send Your Prayer Requests

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