Not a subscriber yet? 

Sign up here.

Hi, !

TL;DR

• We had had made grand plans to do more updates this year, but learning how to prioritize family and caring for the babies well have certainly humbled in our plans!

• Please pray for Reagan and I as we continue to balance family, work, school, and loving our neighbors well.

• Our ministries are restarting in addition to a few new ones we've gained from the pandemic! 

• Pray for our support raising efforts. We're back to raising support again as a few of our donors have dropped off. We have 78% of our needs met and will need to raise an additional $1,571 USD per month. It basically equals to 10 families who would like to commit at $157 a month. 

Long Version (5 min)

Hi Family,

So sorry it's been so long since I've had a chance to update you all on the current status of our ministry. It's been a rather challenging few months since becoming parents, juggling seminary, and working full-time now in the church. It's been a humbling experience but well worth the battle. From sleepless nights to running ragged, Reagan and I had a lot to grow into as parents of twins. I know I've had to shape up in many different ways. Time is no longer fluid, but prioritizing a healthy rhythm is king. It's hard to believe how brutally disciplined I've needed to become to maintain family, work, and school demands. Energy is so precious these days. For Reagan, she has had to step back from many ministry duties to be more present with the boys. It's still a work in progress, but we're making it day by day. We are thankful that God has given us this opportunity to grow as individuals. 

Family

The family has been good, and the boys are growing steadily. Judah and Ezra are starting to recognize each other. Judah, our skinny one (maybe not anymore), has been such a good eater. He's curious and super determined. Even at eight months, he's able to push himself up on shelves and walls so that he can stand. Ezra is catching up and crawling all around. He's our mellow child and loves being beneath the tables and chairs. He loves crawling into areas with wires and digging them out. Ezra is our super texture feeler. He will touch everything and feel everything he does. 

Ministry

There are currently four areas of ministry that Reagan and I are overseeing: Compassion, Mission, Missional Living, and Digital Media. We will expand on each of these ministries in successive letters, but here's a quick summary of each so far.

Digital Media 

This past year was a challenging year for all of us. For me, 2020 was the year of ministry changes, role changes, dynamic team changes, and the workload changed significantly. I also came out of that year feeling pretty exhausted and worn out. The Digital Media ministry was a challenge to form because it was not just another "technical" ministry. The question that we were trying to figure out was, "how do we get the church to serve together amid the pandemic?" Though we can't be with others in person, there are still many ways to interact using digital tools. We desired for it to be an avenue for our church to be able to serve together. It was not to become a ministry that a select "technically proficient" few to do, but as a new avenue for anyone to help regardless of their skillset. Since the start of this ministry, we've looked into social media, experimented with ads, trained and brought up a team of over 23 individuals, and shared over 150 videos since the inception of this channel. 

Compassion

This month we will focus on Home for Refugees. We are in the process of helping resettle a Muslim Refugee family from Syria. Othman, Batoul, Tasnim, Sana, and Raghad have been assigned to us by the International Rescue Committee. With the help of our compassion team, we've created an exploratory team to determine what it takes to settle a refugee family in partnership with Home for Refugees. This month, our entire team has been scrambling to get them a place to settle in and find work. Our progress so far includes:

• assembled a test team of interested individuals

• raised over $4000 for the refugee family's emergency fund

• assigned roles for each team member (groceries, healthcare, job search, etc.)

Mission

The pandemic has put some brakes on this ministry for quite some time. Over a year and a half, to be exact. Even though we haven't had a chance to restart our short-term trip plans, we've been able to continue the work of praying and financially sending resources to our mission partners. This past weekend, we've hosted an after-church luncheon to bring greater awareness to missionary work and help our church planting partners connect personally with our congregation. This work is vital for our partners' health and gives greater exposure to others at trinity who may be interested in pursuing a similar calling. We hope to in the next coming months explore the following:

• missional movie nighs to bring more awareness and education

• continued luncheons and education to increase Missions IQ

Discipleship

These past few months, we've had to be a little creative in how we meet and spend time with folks because of the pandemic. In the previous update, I mentioned that I began mentoring another member in our church named Danny Park, who hopes to serve as a missionary in Japan one day. The other friend that we started to mentor as well was Maggie Wright. Maggie and Danny both have aspirations to one day become full-time missionaries, and it's been a pleasure to be able to connect with them both in learning about their passions and desires in how they can better prepare themselves for the mission field. Danny was recently sent out to Israel for years to further his Hebrew education, and Maggie recently left for Tanzania. 

Missional Living & Personal Outreach

Evangelizing in the Orange County context is tough stuff. People are less friendly here and generally keep to themselves. At the same time, this is not that much different from Thailand or other parts of America. People have to be invited into our lives and pursued. It doesn't always happen without an open heart. These past few months, Reagan and I have had the privilege to visit and have dinner with at least three families units in our complex. We've been slowly praying and walking our neighborhood and waiting for the Lord to continue to open doors. 

In the midst of that, I've been working closely with Pastor Eric (our senior pastor at Trinity) in formulating a discipleship initiative in training our congregation for better engagement with the complex challenges of our time. We hope to cover a different range of topics from mental health to LGBTQIA+ rights just to name a few. We call this training the Wisdom Initiative. As our church family learns and wrestles with the complicated issues, we hope that they will make more informed choices in loving their neighbors more effectively.

• Wisdom initiative: We are looking to provide a path for our church to pursue biblical wisdom on essential and challenging questions.

Well that's all we have time for today! Talk to you all soon again. In Christ,David, Reagan, Judah & Ezra 

How About You?

We try to take some time each day to pray for our ministry partners, and we like knowing we are praying for specific, current things in their lives.  , we would love to hear an update on your life and how we can pray for you.  

Talk to us!

Support Update:

We have 78% of our needs met and will need to raise an additional $1,571 USD per month. It basically equals to 10 families who would like to commit at $157 a month. If you would like to learn more on how you can partner with us, you can ask us, check out our website, or click the button below!