Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! How were your Holidays? Please write and tell us of some of your special events. We would love to hear about them. We are currently taking a one week break from the action. We arrived at a very small beach motel about five hours south of Bangkok on Monday. We were hoping for some relaxation and some sun, but the temperatures have been unusually cold this year. It has been dropping down to the low 60’s every evening here, and not rising to 80 degrees during the day. So here we are at our beach vacation wearing long sleeves . . . no kidding. We will happily settle for the relaxation.

Well, we moved into our new house and church on January 2. The construction portion of the work on the building is about 2/3 done, but since our lease on our apartment expired on January 4 we had no choice but to move in. The first week in our house we had no windows on the back side of the building . . . lots of mosquitoes. Once the windows were installed, we were able to get out of town for a few days.

We have updated the pictures of the progress of the building on our website. Check it out at: www.beckmansinthailand.com and click on”building pictures” on the left hand column.

Our Holidays were quite different than in years past. We spent just about every waking moment cleaning and painting our house and church. On Christmas Day, Nate was asked by a friend to go to a small elementary
school and explain the true meaning of Christmas. It was a great opportunity to plant seed in a new field. He left the house at 6 AM and arrived back home at 2:30 PM. We let the kids open their presents at about 3:30 PM, and then Nate slept for the rest of the day. The following day we were back at painting the building. New Years Day was spent painting and cleaning the building as we moved in on January 2.

Although our Holidays were not filled with all kinds of activities, it was a good time to do the work on the building. Bangkok emptied out around New Years, so there was no traffic when we moved. Also this year
our winter time has been unusually cool, which has been great for when we were working. Praise the Lord for those blessings.

We still have our minds set on opening the doors for ministry in February. Please pray to that end with us. We are so thankful that God has brought in some of the funds needed for the construction. There is
still significant work to be done, and we will continue to move forward as God provides the funds. We will likely open the doors for ministry before the work is finished, so February is reasonable.

While we do the work of getting ready to open our church for ministry, we do have some other ministry opportunities for which we ask for prayer. Every Tuesday evening, during the month of February, Nate will be
teaching at a Bible institute at one of our sister churches. Also every Wednesday from now until the beginning of April, Nate and Maam will have the opportunity to go inside two prisons and teach English and Bible to the Thai prisoners. This is the ministry of another missionary, and we are helping him out for a couple of months as he takes a short furlough. Pray for these opportunities, that God’s Word will go forth with power,
and that we would see some fruit from our labors.

Maam and the kids are doing great. As a personal testimony, I (Nate) am so thankful for Maam’s help during the construction process. I have no idea how things would have gone had Maam not been there to help every
step of the way. Her low key personality and her ability to stay calm when things were not done so well were a great testimony to all observers. Those qualities also encouraged me to do the same, as some of
you know that I can be somewhat excitable.

We will close for now. Thank you for all you do for us, and for your continued prayers.

Blessings,

Nate, Maam, Ryann and Hudson Beckman
BMM Missionaries in Thailand