Mission Trip

Where’s Waldo

It has been a crazy few months. I wanted to get an update out last month and time got away from me. Kayli graduated from Texas A&M in May and we moved her to Ohio so that she could work at Camp Chautauqua this summer. Reaghan started an internship at an architecture firm in Fort Worth, so for the first time ever, Kim and I headed out without any of our kids.

Fortunately, we were not alone. Kim’s sister Kristi and her husband Jim came with us to Asia for the first time!! It was such a tremendous blessing having them be with us with our first team in Thailand.

Speaking of teams, we have had 2 teams to Thailand and 1 team to Fiji thus far this summer. As we speak, Kim and I just made it to Japan and we are awaiting the arrival of everyone. We have several people arriving tomorrow, including our daughter Reaghan who got permission to take 2 weeks off to join us on our Japan team. It has been really sweet to hear her talk about how missions is in her DNA now and not being overseas has been tough. Kayli has even mentioned how much her involvement in our mission work and teams has impacted her and helped her as she serves at Chautauqua. It such a confirmation of the Lord’s plan and His provision and grace in our lives.

In Thailand we were able to work in southern Thailand where we took on a construction project to help build some new offices and a conference room while others taught the children and we prepared bags of rice for 500 families. On our second team we had the privilege of being with our sending church, FB Lex! We worked in MaeSot, Thailand teaching the children, hosting women’s night, youth night and special meals for the family and teachers. We also had our traditional epic field day. After a tour of Bangkok on the backend of the trip, they headed home and we headed to Fiji.

In Fiji we got to put on a VBS for the kids at 2 nutrition centers and setup basketball goals. Meanwhile the kids taught us how to play rugby. On Saturday we had a carnival and hot dog cookout for the children at the deaf hostel. What a way to also celebrate the 4th of July! The kids loved it! They come from all over Fiji to go to the deaf school, but since they don’t have family to live with, a boarding home was setup. MANNA partners with them to provide the food for the kids. To cap off the whole trip, we ran into one of our best friends, Randy, from our church in Pennsylvania! What are the chances! I love it when the Lord does things like that. I look forward to sending out an update after Japan as we then gear up for more trips in August and September.

Thank you for your support. Enjoy the photos!

From Togo to Tinca

It has been a crazy month. We ended up spending time on 4 different continents in February. In our last update we had just arrived home from Asia. I had some meetings in Texas, then we flew to Togo, Africa. We were able to visit a MANNA medical clinic in a village and Kim was able to teach physical therapy techniques to the staff there. It is a huge need. We also had the opportunity to spend time with the kids and take part in the nutrition center. The big bonus was there are twin boys who have cerebral palsy in the village. They are roughly 16 years old. They are not able to move or stand. Kim was able to work with them for a while and teach exercises and treatments that can help them. The highlight was when she was able to help them stand for the very first time. The look on their faces said it all. We are planning to take a medical team back with us in the future to serve this community more.

From there we flew to Budapest to meet up with a team and drive into Romania. We had the grand opening for a new medical clinic in a gypsy village in Tinca, Romana. This is a very underserved community from a medical standpoint and through the help of many generous donors we have been able to convert a two story building into a medical clinic for the village. The grand opening was a celebration of years of work. We were able to be a part of the first day of clinics as Kim saw physical therapy patients and Christine O’Neal saw medical patients.

Our daughter Reaghan is doing study abroad in Italy as part of her architecture program at Texas A&M. It is a required component. Poor thing having to spend 4 months in Florence. Ha! But, since we were already in Europe it made sense to stop by and get to see her. Also, it lined up with Kayli’s spring break and I have more airline miles than I know what to do with. So, we used our miles to fly Kayli over and we got to see both girls for a few days. It was a real blessing for our family.

We headed home from Italy, slept in our own bed for a night or two, then headed to Boston to speak at one of our supporting churches who help us a lot in Mongolia. As we were laying bed Kim says, “I’m looking forward to the day we can spend more than 2 days at home in a row.” It got me thinking, how many days have we been away. It turns out in the past 300 days we have spent 88 days at home. The remaining 212 have been spread out over 4 continents and time spent in I think 17 different countries. It’s been a busy few months. We will spend April and May getting all of our trips ready to go starting the first of June, and we will be attending Kayli’s graduation from college. Hard to believe how fast time is going by.

Thailand to Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We made it home from Thailand just in time to celebrate the holidays and see our girls. I headed to Thailand the end of October and went to western Thailand along with a couple others to spend time with our ministry partners there. We have a school and a boarding home for Burmese children. When we go, we always have a team with us and are teaching the school and putting on a lot of events for the community. This time we went with only a few of us to get to invest in the lives of the leaders and family there. It was well worth the visit and time.

From there, I flew to Japan and met Kim in Tokyo. We went to church with our ministry partners in Japan, then spent a few days with them planning out our team this coming summer. It will be twice the size of our previous teams and will take some extra logistics and planning. This was a tremendous opportunity to do that, and get to also spend time with them without the circus. Ha! I must say, Japan is beautiful in the fall.

We then hopped back to Bangkok and picked up a team. The team was great and all throttle and no brake as I like to say. They hit the ground running and didn’t stop until 9 pm or later every night. We put on an English camp at a public school in Bangkok, delivered food and had a VBS for a community that lives around the city dump, and got to work with our soccer team. They ran circles around us, but we had a lot of fun with them. After church on Sunday we flew to northern Thailand.

In the north, we taught English at a school, then put on a VBS and performed construction work the remainder of the trip. We got to have a special meal with the kids, paint the classroom at the church. I love getting to engage the hill tribes in Thailand and this is a very special place. Part of the team went the extra mile when they framed and drywalled the ceiling at the pastor’s house. We are back in the States and will spend more time at home in the month of December than the last 6 months combined before heading back out in January. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Where do we live again?

We have just finished back-to-back teams to Mongolia and Thailand with some detours to Korea in the middle. I was talking with our last team, and if my math is correct, Kim and I have spent a whole 8 nights in our own bed since May. The good news is, we get to sleep at home this Friday night! It has been a pretty amazing month. Here is the recap.

We took a medical team to Mongolia for the 3rd year in a row. It really is the ends of the earth type of trip. We were able to visit a crisis pregnancy center in Ulaanbaatar and spend time with at our orphanage as well. It is great seeing the kids and loving on them. The government ranked it as the #1 orphanage in Mongolia several years ago and they had a whole news documentary on it.

From there, we drove 10 hours into the Gobi Desert and had a medical clinic in 2 different villages where we have nutrition centers located. It has been a tremendous outreach to the communities and provided us an audience with the local mayor and given us favor with the schools and people. What has been a treat is getting to see some repeat patients and follow-up on them. There is a stroke patient that Kim worked with the first year and he and his wife have come back every time. The first year he couldn’t walk or talk, the second year he was able to walk with a cane. This year he told Kim, “welcome to Mongolia” for the very first time. It is really incredible to see his progress and the joy.

From there we sent the team home and picked up a team in Thailand. We started in northern Thailand working with the Lahu, which is a Hill Tribe. We have been able to start a tutoring program where we feed the children and the pastor’s wife helps tutor them in school as most kids never make it past 6th grade. She is a school teacher and was able to get us into 2 different schools to help teach English.

Next, we went to southern Thailand and worked at a school for Burmese refugee children. It is a great partnership. MANNA provides the funding to feed the over 200 children breakfast and lunch each day so that they can have good nutrition while learning. This team taught a VBS to 2nd grade for several days, attended chapel, and help do some demolition and painting on the second floor classrooms. It was a huge help to the ministry and the kids. It was amazing to see how excited the kids were to find out they were getting newly painted classrooms. Both teams were a huge blessing to the respective ministries and communities and I cannot wait to see what the long-term fruit is from both of them. We will now be speaking at churches in 3 different states in October and heading back to Thailand at the end of the month until Thanksgiving. Thank you again for your prayers and support!

Mongolia, Hong Kong, Fiji, and unlikely trio

June has been quite the adventure. We were able to serve with a team from Harbor Church in Cape Cod in Asia. We started in Mongolia. We were able to work at our nutrition center in Ulaanbaatar for several days and go to church with some of the kids. Part of the team worked on constructing a new gate, new doors and building a set of monkey bars for the kids. Meanwhile the rest of the team did lessons, skits and crafts each day. On the last day they put on a carnival for the kids. The kids loved it, and it turns out Reaghan makes a really good shark. Getting to visit some homes and deliver water filters to families was a great experience as well.

Logistically, this trip was a challenge. There are no direct routes to Fiji. So, we had to get creative. It turns out there is a direct flight from Hong Kong to Fiji 3 times a week. As a result we had to figure out when the Mongolia to Hong Kong flights matched up with the Hong Kong to Fiji flights, which also had to match up with good days of the week to do ministry work with the kids on both ends. The bonus was, we got to give the team a crazy fast night tour of Hong Kong between the flights.

Once we landed in Fiji we hit the ground running. We worked at 2 different nutrition centers and a deaf hostel. There is only one deaf school on the main island, so if a child is deaf, they have to go there, but most of the families do not live anywhere near that town. As a result, they started a hostel for the kids to live at during the school year. Think of it as a boarding home. We got to put on a carnival for them as well and have a big cookout. They are away from home, and can be isolated from society, so we wanted to love on them as much as possible and show them how much the Lord loves them.

As I write this, I am sitting at the airport in Sydney on our way to Singapore, then Thailand for our next team. It will be all throttle and no brake from here on out. I was looking at the schedule and our family effectively has 1 day between now and August 7 where we are not working with someone or trying to travel to someone. Your prayers are coveted. Thank you for your support and continued encouragement for our family.

Cambodia Medical Team

Kim and I made it home from Cambodia and it was an amazing team! Each year at this time we take a team of medical professionals (doctors, nurses, dentists, occupational and physical therapists, etc.) to help serve in rural communities in the middle of Cambodia. It has been amazing to watch what the Lord does and to develop lifelong relationships with everyone there.

This year we were able to add a VBS component to the mix. They were incredible and worn out. I think they put on 6 different Vacation Bible Schools in different areas. The kids loved it, the parents loved it, and our ministry partners loved it.

We held a mobile clinic it a village where we provided medical care along with eye glasses and sun glasses. We also setup a clinic in the hospital in Kampong Thom that we have been partnering with for years. We are in the process of raising funds to help get the hospital fully staffed and providing free medical care on a daily basis in an area with over 225,000 people. On the site of the hospital is a school MANNA is partnered with that educates 500 students.

While we were there the governor of the region showed up and met with us. So, you never know who you will get an audience with and the doors that will open. We then moved to another part of Cambodia and provided medical care in a floating village area along the Tonle Sap Lake. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, there are days where neither are sufficient to describe what you are seeing. Such was our time in the floating village. The need for these people was immense, but the love that poured out of our team was greater.

Thank you so much for your support, it is an honor to serve on your behalf. Enjoy the photos below. I’ll be in Virginia next week in meetings at Liberty University talking about missions and engagement around the world. Thank you for your prayers!

A Fall to Remember

I am having to combine two months into one update. From mid-October until now I have been overseas with teams. It has been an amazing fall between Guatemala, Thailand and Cambodia. We are home for this week for Thanksgiving and we are really excited to see our girls. Then, I’m off to China next week to finish out the year.

We started in Guatemala where I had a team working at our orphanage, in a Mayan village and down on the coast. We were able to build stoves, wash feet and hair, and deliver food baskets in a Mayan village in Guatemala where we have a nutrition center. We also took the kids from our children’s home to the zoo and had a bonfire and cookout with them. Next came a large carnival and church service followed by several days on the coast where we released turtles and put on a VBS at several nutrition centers while delivering food and building stoves. From there I flew to South Carolina to speak at a church, then Kim and I headed to Cambodia and Thailand.

Our first team was only in Cambodia. They put on a VBS for a lot of kids at different nutrition centers. The theme was Jonah and they brought a giant shark suit as a prop. This turned into an epic game of sharks and minnows with the kids afterward. We were able to teach English in the school and love on kids in 4 different locations.

Our last team spanned Thailand and Cambodia. We started in Thailand in a village on the Laos border working with the Lahu tribe. Part of the team taught English in several schools while others replaced windows on the church and the remaining people put on a medical clinic in the village. It was a challenge with all the different languages being spoken. Next, we travelled to Bangkok where we put on a carnival to promote Christmas services and medical clinic to serve the Pakistani and deaf communities. Next, it was on the Cambodia. We hosted a medical clinic at the hospital in Kampong Thom, which allowed a medical team from Phnom Penh to provide cancer screens. The remainder of the team put on a VBS for 4 groups of kids in 3 different locations. In all, this team required 8 flights, 6 hotels, 6 buses, 5 vans, 1 boat, 27 visas, 26 translators in 5 different languages for 2 countries to complete. It was a lot, but the Lord provided. We even saw one of our translators get led to the Lord!

Thank you for your prayers and support. Your generosity has enabled all of this to happen. I pray each of you has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobi Desert – The Ends of the Earth

It would take a whole book to share all that happened on our trip to Mongolia. Medical teams are amazing, and this team was no exception. We knew it would be impactful when we spent 6 hours negotiating with customs for them to release our suitcases of medicine. We had the paperwork, but the agents at the airport didn’t want to accept it. However, the Lord gave us favor and they were released. In the process, we got to meet the head of customs and have a direct line to him now. The Lord uses everything.

We got to visit our orphanage in Ulaanbaatar and love on the kids for a while. It is the only orphanage that takes in babies and was recognized as the #1 orphanage in Mongolia. They even put out a documentary on the news, in Mongolian of course. The team also got a tour of one of the pro-life centers the missionary has.

Then, it was time for our 10-hour trek into the Gobi Desert. We stopped and checked out some camels along the way. Once we got to the village we got setup into our yurts, which became our home away from home for the next week. From there, we saw a crazy number of patients. We had people the travelled 50 km just to see a doctor or dentist. They were coming from everywhere. We also had the opportunity for some of our team to go to the schools each day and provide health checkups and fluoride treatments to around 600 kids in the village. We even got to put on a clinic in a second village, 3 hours further in the Gobi and see Boldmaa. 20 years ago she was a 6 year old girl, and our very first MANNA kid at the nutrition center. Today she is married, has a son and is a teach in the school. God is good.

In the evenings the schools hosted us to put on hygiene clinics for the parents. We got to spend time with friends, star gaze at night (the Milky Way is incredible in the Gobi), and make new friends. We even had a famous Mongolian throat singer give us a performance after we treated his child.

Thank you for your prayers and support for our family. I wanted to share some pictures of our trip into the Gobi. In a little less than 2 weeks I’ll be leading a team to Guatemala, then we head to Thailand and Cambodia until Thanksgiving.

SE Asia…Part 2

As you read this, Kim and I are on a plane to lead a medical team to Mongolia. It has been a crazy and amazing month for the Jones family. We had a wonderful team in Thailand to finish up July and kick off August. We had a multi-national team as 2 ladies from Brazil joined us. It’s not often we utilize translators within our team. We started with a VBS in Bangkok with the Salmons. It was a fast paced start to a trip. We jumped in to help with the VBS, ate lunch real fast, then hopped on a plane to western Thailand.

We worked in MaeSot again and got to serve there twice in the same summer. It rained the entire time! But that helped with the heat. Part of our team built a new kitchen for the school and boarding home. Fortunately, we were located under a roof. It was a huge need for the school, and they were very excited to have the upgraded space to help feed the 240 kids every day.

We took advantage of our teenagers and spread 10 loads of sand all over the field to help with the mini ponds that were forming from all the rain. It should really help with mosquitos and drainage. Everyone got to help with the morning songs and devotions it was great to see the engagement from the kids and the joy on their faces. We hosted a youth night and a lady’s night to encourage and engage the community. One afternoon we delivered food to refugee families in the area. We were soaked, but nobody cared.

After an epic field day in the rain and swampy field, we had to say goodbye to everyone for this year. We got the team back to Bangkok and while they flew home, we flew to Vietnam to meet up with Kayli and the ministry partners there. As we were working in Thailand, Kayli went to Vietnam and spent the time teaching in a school. It was awesome to get to see how the Lord used her. Our time in Vietnam was spent working with kids at our nutrition center and attending fellowships with other missionaries in SE Asia.

We made it home just in time to pack our girls up and get them moved back into college last weekend. Then, we spent this past week prepping for our medical team to Mongolia, and we are now on a flight to Seoul. Please be in prayer for our team and favor with customs and that we would be used greatly. We will be out in the Gobi Desert about as far from civilization as you can get. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Siam to Samurai

After 57 days on the road, 12 flights, and 23 different hotels/places to stay, we are still alive, and we have a ways to go. The month of July has been packed with teams. We started in Thailand, then went to Japan. Now, we are back in Thailand to pick up another team here. The Lord did a lot of amazing things with these past two teams.

In Thailand we served at our orphanage and school in MaeSot. It is on the western border of Thailand and our project cares for Burmese children. We were able to teach in the school, play soccer, host a field day, Ladies’ Night, Youth Night, preach in church, deliver food to families, and just spend time encouraging and fellowshipping with everyone. We have seen children grow up in the school and become teachers! We have seen them get married, have children, and be used in great ways. This project has been ongoing for 20 years and each time we go back it is like a family reunion for all of us.

After we said goodbye to MaeSot, we got the team back to Bangkok. While they were flying home, we were flying to Tokyo to pick up another team.

Japan is one of the most difficult places in the world for church planters. We love getting to go and come alongside them, encourage them, and help how we can. We spent the week working at a camp in the mountains in Japan. Each year we take a team to help get the camp ready for the Japanese kids to get out of school for their summer break and for the camping season to begin.

This year we built a climbing wall, which was Kayli’s favorite part as she has been taking climbing classes in college. We also helped roof an outdoor kitchen area and replace lights in the chapel. Speaking of the chapel, thanks to this group it got a brand new coat of paint and looks great! Another part of the team spent the week cleaning out and organizing the basement tools and supplies. I’m glad it was them and not me. Lastly, we had an amazing time at a cookout with Japanese churches.

To cap it off, we took the team on a tour of Tokyo and got to see Mount Fuji. Not a bad way to end. We are now back in Thailand getting ready to pick up our next team. Thank you for your prayers and support. I hope you enjoy the pictures.