South East Asia, here we come.

We have something exciting ahead, we are planning a trip to a country in south east Asia! We are really excited about this, we have been wanting to go to south east Asia for a long time and finally feel like this is the right time to get our foot in the land.

Both me and Beth have had South East Asia on our heart since we first met, and have hoped to work there missionally sometime in the future.

This time we are going to support friends that are working there as missionaries through the coffee industry (due to the political climate in this country we don't want to disclose what country here online, feel free to ask!) They have moved there as long term missionaries and have been there for about 6 months so far, and I'm shortly going to share some of what they are doing.

As one can not go to this country as a "missionary", due to it being a closed country with persecution of Christians, one needs to find another way. Our friends use the coffee industry as a springboard in to the country, and right in to peoples lives, and in this way using their passion for coffee as a mission tool.

They work with a "christian" cafe, in the capital. This cafe employs people from the countryside, giving them opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise. It also allows the people who come to work, to hear the gospel, and then some of these, go back to their own villages and share the gospel at home in their own turn.

They also work with farmers who grow coffee, desire is to help bring physical change and transformation in the coffee industry through training and equipping locals.

Something that I found very exciting is that they are just starting is a ministry with deaf people. Deaf people in this country are destined to live on the streets, there is no hope of work or a normal life as they are not allowed to attend school. They have begun learning sign language so they can employ deaf people to give skills and a quality of life. How amazing that those who no one else see and care for are cared for by God's people.

So what is our aim in going?

Our initial aim is to go and support our friends and uplift and encourage them, secondly it is to experience this area of the world and get a taste of life in missions here.

We hope to serve any way we can practically also.

Thirdly it is a distant dream of ours to bring pottery ministry (like we are involved in now) into this area of the world to build community, teach skill and help people through art.

Our friends here would like to open a cafe with a similar community feel and include a ministry like this. So I guess our heart is to explore if this could be something or us in the future.

We believe getting out as a family to serve in mission should be a regular part of our life and to continue to connect with the unreached is a calling we all have as christians, this is one way we want to be faithful to the call we feel God has on our life.

Would you like to be a part of this journey?

This country is a difficult country to reach and pretty under developed, because of that it is expensive to fly here. We are in need of raising £2500 for all our flights. So if you are wanting to be a part of this trip and invest in us starting this journey then we would like to invite you to give any thing you feel led to.

We can't wait to update you and let you know all that we get involved with on this trip and ask for you to be praying for us as we go as a family!

Here is a link if you want to give!

www.stewardship.org.uk/partners/Sjögrenmission