Jennifer Tibbetts

Dear Friends,

I'm in need of your prayers again.  Tomorrow I will speak for about 30 minutes on Third Culture Kids (missionary kids and others who have grown up cross-culturally) in my village where there are many TCKs as well as retired and active missionaries whose kids are TCKs. Please pray for me as I share information about the challenges TCKs face and the many good resources that are now available to help TCKs process and debrief their grief so that they can thrive.  (If you would like to know about any of these resources, PLEASE let me know!)  Pray too that those who hear will be able to get these resources to those who need them.

Then on Sunday I will speak for 10 minutes at our church on my work with OMF.  In January, our church became a financial supporter - praise God!  I hope many of the church family will also become prayer supporters after hearing me share.  Thank you for praying that I will speak clearly and not too fast :) and give just what God wants me to share.

Alysha and Jacob have announced that they have joined the party and expect to add one "Moore" grandchild to the family around January 19, 2023.  Wow - praise God from whom all blessings flow.  Meanwhile they are doing well and enjoyed hosting Joshua over Memorial Day weekend as he drove down from Virginia to be with them.

Nuansee (Thai) and Awm (Cambodian) are doing well and continuing to come to church.  This past Sunday we read through the first chapter of a Thai discipleship guide.  Nuansee took the guide home and by Wednesday she had finished reading the other 11 chapters!  Wonderful!  Today I was looking up more materials to give her as she continues to grow in the Lord.  Wednesday was my birthday and Nuansee made me a delicious Thai dinner.  It was special to spend time with her and Awm in their home in a little Cambodian/Thai village about 30 minutes from my house.  

Awm has not yet surrendered his life to Jesus, but he is eager to come to church.  When Nuansee and Awm attended Awm's grandson's wedding in Minneapolis a couple of weeks ago, Awm told his daughter Kim that he couldn't go into the Buddhist temple anymore.  Kim said to Nuansee, "What have you done to my father?"  Nuansee replied, "I haven't done anything, he decided on his own!"  Each week our church has Communion.  Awm says he is not yet ready to take it. What a joy it will be one day to see him go forward to take part in this, declaring his belief in Jesus.  Awm has told me about a church in Colorado that sponsored his family (him as a single dad with 5 kids ages 14-7) when they fled from the Khmer Rouge and entered the US many years ago.  He read a Cambodian Bible back then and talked to a Cambodian pastor.  I just got Awm a Cambodian New Testament audio Bible because Awm's sight is severely damaged due to being hit on the head by Khmer Rouge when he was young.

38 OMF workers have gone through Debrief training.  I have gotten some positive feedback on this, but also some sense that there will need to be adjustments for different cultures.  I need to set up some follow up meetings to figure out how we can best incorporate this into our work so that our TCKs have a chance to process and debrief on a yearly or bi-annual basis.

Victoria is in the beginning stages of raising support for her work as my administrative assistant.  Please pray that she will have the courage to contact potential supporters to share her vision with them and that God will lead the people He has intended to join her partnership team in finances and prayer.  

Megan is just beginning a project of developing a training module for workers planning to head to the field on TCK issues.  Pray for her to have wisdom to know how to design this module, what to include and how to make it interesting as well as useful for people from multiple cultures.

Scott is on a four day personal retreat at an Airbnb about 1.5 hours from here.  He is seeking the Lord about the future including whether he should apply for a pastorate.  Please pray for him.  Please pray for me too as I often get restless in my OMF work - too many emails and not enough in person time.  I need to know whether the Lord wants me to just keep enduring or whether He has something else for me.  My boss would like me to be in Asia for a month in October or so and I would love that, but I am not Covid vaccinated so it doesn't look very promising due to Asian country restrictions.

I will be leading the music and Scott will be leading the kids' games for our church's VBS June 13-17.  Over 40 kids are registered already.  Please pray that God will bring children and that He will touch their hearts and their families through this.  Right after VBS, my sisters Sharron and Susanna are coming for a long weekend visit - I'm excited!

I had a wonderful visit with Joshua, Megan, Natalie and Michael in April.  Natalie has a very creative imagination so we played with her Frozen Castle, made suncatchers, picked dandelions, played on the playground and it was a blast!  Michael is a doll baby - full of smiles and 16 lbs 12 oz at 4 months old!  Josh and Megan put their house on their market and sold it for over asking - a blessing.  Josh has been in Virginia doing training with the Navy since the end of April.  Megan is completing some nursing hours, taking care of the kids, overseeing the Navy moving all their belongings, doing lots of Navy paperwork.  She will travel with the kids to be with Joshua by late June.  

And God gave me a wonderful extra gift while I was with Josh and Megan.  After days of painting, putting together furniture, etc., a day opened up when they didn't need me.  So an OMF friend and my best friend from Bible college who live north of Seattle took me to the tulip festival which was at its height - so beautiful!!  My favorite part was talking to all the internationals who were there - from China, a Buddhist monk, Kenyans, from Italy, etc...

Had a wonderful visit with my parents.  So glad to have godly, loving parents.  We enjoyed seeing some dolphins on a boat out of Clearwater as well as a beautiful old hotel.  And they bought me some lovely plants (early birthday present) and helped me put them in the ground.

Thank you for praying!  

With gratitude,

Jennifer