Dear Friends,

We were recently reminded by one of our colleagues in Louisville that we hadn’t written an interpretive piece in some time. It was quite a surprise to check the Web page and find out that it had been eight months. We like to average about one every four months, so please accept our apologies for the delay.

As of this writing, good news abounds. Since Glen made his interviewing trip to the States in April, we have received commitments from the Mennonite Central Committee, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to send five volunteers to Thailand to teach in the Christian Volunteers in Thailand Program. (The program has only hosted one volunteer in the last two years, as we have busied ourselves with language learning and redevelopment work.) So it seems like the hard work and waiting is about to pay off.

In August, Jennifer Clark, Sarah Curtis, Janaya Letkeman, Emily McGinley, and Rachel Peterson will arrive and begin their one-year term with us.

• Jennifer is a 23-year-old member of the Nazareth Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cedar Falls, Iowa. She recently graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in English from the University of Iowa. She has a long history of volunteer work in the church. Jennifer has previously served short-term overseas with Josh McDowell Ministries in the Ukraine
• Sarah Curtis is a 23-year-old member of the First Presbyterian Church of Springfield, New Jersey. She recently graduated from Messiah College with a B.A. in family studies and psychology. Sarah has had several overseas experiences, including time as an exchange student in France.
• Janaya Letkeman is a 22-year-old member of the Morden Berthaber Mennonite Church of Morden, Manitoba, Canada and has a B.A. in Christian studies from Canadian Mennonite University. Janaya spent one semester of her junior year studying in Lithuania.
• Emily McGinley is a 22-year-old Chinese-American member of the University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, Washington. She has a bachelor of fine arts degree in graphic design from the University of Washington and has previously been involved in short-term mission work in Bangalore, India. Emily speaks both French and Chinese.
• Rachel Peterson is a 22-year-old member of the King of Kings Lutheran Church in Milwakie, Oregon, and has a bachelor of arts degree in marketing and communications. Rachel was recently in Thailand with other university students and stayed in a Christian Karen tribal village.

These five young women are taking a wonderful step of faith to spend a year overseas teaching English in a classroom setting, leading Bible studies, and the development of one-on-one relationships with teachers and students. More than this they will enter into a one-year period of sustained faith development through Bible study, prayer, fasting and other spiritual disciplines.

And this is where we come in. Our job will be to get them oriented, give them language training, and place them in a school setting that will challenge them. We will then meet with them for Bible study and prayer to process their experience from a Christian faith perspective. We will walk through this year with them—encouraging them and helping them to make the experience something that will be an even greater benefit to them once they get back stateside.

In return, the schools here benefit both in learning English from a native speaker of the language and in learning to closely examine how a Christian does or does not live up to what the Scriptures claim. It is a difficult walk these young adults are choosing to make. They will be constantly and closely observed. But more than this: they will be constantly loved by children eager to learn the language and to learn more about a culture they greatly admire.

We covet your prayers for the volunteers, the students, the teachers, and for us as we begin this part of their faith journey.

Another exciting development has been the purchase of a van to be used in the CVT Program. The office currently relies on one aging van (six years old with several hundreds of thousands of kilometers on it). The new van will serve to reduce expenses in visiting the volunteers as well as allowing us to visit those other 19 schools (without volunteers) for encouragement. The van was purchased through the generosity of individuals and congregations through the PC(USA) Extra Commitment Opportunity program.

How much better can it get? As always, we stand ready to help you and your church interpret mission in anyway we can. (Check out www.hallead.org). And we’re always open for visitors.

In the Peace of Him who is our Eternal Peace,

Glen and Carol Hallead
Zach, Natalie, Jacob, & Caleb

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 163