C2 Newsletter

The Clouser Family in Chiang Mai, Thailand

C2 News: Summer 2024 Update

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Look at us– we are officially these young ladies’ parents! After twelve years of being their “custodial grandparents,” we are happily their parents. On July 12, 2012, we received our court documents, giving us full parental rights, and yesterday, July 10, 2024, we received our adoption documents. From now on, I think we will have a three-day Family celebration each year (July 10-12) rather than just a one-day Gotcha Day.

We are finishing a fantastic summer of visits, car trips, college tours, laughter, and too much food.  Thank you for hugging us back when we approached you in church lobbies and restaurant entries.  Thank you for cooking for us or taking us out for dinner.  Thank you for asking great questions and telling us about your year(s).  If we didn’t see each other this summer, please help us make sure to get together in June or July 2025.

We will fly back to Chiang Mai on July 22. The first school day at Grace is August 7, but teachers must return by July 30.

We look forward to seeing our two pups again and starting a new school year. Zoey will be a senior, Jayden will be a sophomore, and Stephani will teach two of the same classes (yah, for a year of repetition!) she taught last year. Ken’s life and rhythm aren’t dictated by the school year, so he will be continuing to build relationships with our neighbors, be the family chauffeur, and begin to find out how God is going to use him to serve Burmese refugees in northern Thailand as well as other missionaries who work with our organization.

From Stephani:  Last school year, I had three classes of 6th grade English Language Arts and one class of seventh.  I also had one class of 6th grade Advisory/Religious Studies. Bible class can be tricky at a school like GIS since many of the students are MKs (Missionary Kids), but sometimes you get other kids from non-Christian families and new students who know nothing about the Bible and our faith. One of the students in my Religious Studies class was a Chinese boy new to Grace International School. During orientation, he asked what he would do during Chapel since he wasn’t a Christian.  When his parents came to Parent/Teacher Conferences three months later, I used Chinese to tell them how he was doing in my class. I asked them why they transferred him to GIS and what they thought of their son studying the Bible at a Christian school.  They told me he was interested in Christianity (which I already knew) and could believe whatever he wanted.  In March, my student indicated that he was close to following Jesus, and then he told me on the last day of school that his faith was in Christ.  Yes, I taught 4 ELA classes daily, but this wonderful kid who was also in my Bible class was why I was at GIS Middle School this year.  I can’t wait to see what God has in store for this young man.

Prayer points:

College choice—We’ve visited five universities and will visit Bethel University and Wheaton College next week. Please pray for wisdom and guidance about which school to send Zoey to in August 2025.

Financial support – We are still raising funds and are very encouraged about our progress, but we are still underfunded and need financial support for the coming year.

Many Blessings,

Stephani & Ken Clouser

C2 News: Spring 2024 Update

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Hi Everyone,

First things first, we will be in the US this summer from June 1st until July 22nd. Like last summer, we’ll be based in Fort Wayne and live at one of Avalon Missionary Church’s mission houses. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible.

Adoption Update: the process is still ongoing. We had a bit of a hold-up, and things that should have been finished last August were stalled until this month (April). It is a long story, but we’re hoping that we are in the final days of that process and that everything can be finalized while we are in Fort Wayne this summer. The lawyer has told us this is possible, but Ken’s return ticket is flexible, and we might have to extend his stay in the States until the final adoption hearing.

We moved to a new home in November. The community is called Graceland (No, Elvis hasn’t been located yet). Graceland is across the street from Grace International School; Stephani and the girls have a 5 to 10-minute walk to and from school daily. We are slowly but surely settling in and making this our long-term home. We’re also enjoying getting to know our neighbors. Most of the families have some connection to Grace International School. Just in case you’d like to send us mail, here is our address:

99/128 Graceland Family Residences

Moo 3, Harn Kaew,

Hang Dong, Chiang Mai, 50230 Thailand

This school year has been much easier for us. Last year, we endured too many transitions, and it was emotionally and spiritually exhausting. But this year, after going through some debriefing counseling with Ken’s coach last summer while we were in Indiana, we’re doing so much better. 

  • We’ve resettled into a new fellowship, The Gathering International Church, and enjoy being connected to this body of Christ. The girls are involved in their youth group and building solid relationships with their peers, and we couldn’t be more pleased. 
  • Stephani has settled into her new teaching responsibilities; she’s teaching middle-school Language Arts (6th and 7th grade) and one Bible class (6th grade) and enjoys her students and work. She had the opportunity to use her Chinese language in a parent-teacher conference last October. GIS has been a wonderful place to work.
  • Ken has also assumed coaching responsibilities with our organization and is connecting to a group that works with refugees in the border areas north of Chiang Mail near Myanmar, where a civil war is occurring.

Some highlights from this year:

Zoey was Mr. Beaver in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe drama at Grace International School.
Zoey is getting ready for the Spring Formal.
Jayden headed to the Spring Formal.
Zoey and Chris headed to the Spring Formal.
  1. We need a car to use this summer.
  2. Our calendar is open; if you’d like to catch up with us, hear about our work in Chiang Mai, or explore how you can join us in our work, respond to this email, and we’ll get you on this summer’s calendar.
  3. We also need your prayers:
  • The next six weeks will be busy, and the logistics of ending a school year and moving everyone across the world to Fort Wayne are always challenging. Pray that the school year will end well, that everything we need to do to get ready to fly to the US will happen as it’s supposed to, that our flights will be on time, and that we will be safe.
  • Ken’s passport is being renewed at this time. The US Embassy in Bangkok sent it to the USA in early March, and we’d like to get the new one by the mid-May estimate they gave us. That passport is also needed to complete our Thailand Visa Applications for next year and to fly home this summer. We have a six-day window between school ending and our flights to the US. Please pray that all these things will happen quickly. This prayer was answered; the new passport arrived today.
  • Pray for our support-raising efforts over the summer. We are nearing the 80% raised point and would love to raise that final amount and take a break from support-raising. 
  • Pray that we will find a balance between connecting with friends and family and finding rest during our stay in the US.
  • Zoey is graduating next year, and while we are home this summer, we’d like to visit a number of college campuses. Pray for guidance and direction for Zoey and the rest of us.

Many blessings,

Stephani & Ken

C2 News: July 2023 Update

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This picture is from the open house that Avalon Missionary Church held for us last Sunday. With our family are Ryan & Liz Wamsley, two incredible new friends who’ve blessed us beyond measure during our stay in Fort Wayne this summer.

Hey Everyone!

3, 2, 1, go!

Many of you know that we began the process to adopt Zoey and Jayden this summer. After eleven years of having legal custody, we are making things more permanent and secure for the girls by adopting them. Both parents are in agreement with this. We signed the adoption paperwork two days ago and it will be filed soon. We asked for your help with the adoption fees, and we have now raised 100% of what we projected for the adoptions. The lawyer also indicated that the adoption process will be much shorter than we first thought, and there is a big possibility that both of the adoptions will be completed by October 1st. Please pray for the earliest possible hearing. We want to express our gratitude for all of the help that you have given us; we couldn’t have done this without you!

Our time in the States is winding down quickly. Stephani & the girls will be returning to Chiang Mai on Monday, July 24th, three days from writing this. Ken will fly to join them on Monday, August 7th. He is staying two weeks longer just in case our adoption lawyer needs further information or paperwork. During those two weeks, he’ll be doing some support raising down in Ohio and visiting family there, and spending some time with old friends from Bible College and China who are in Indianapolis and Michigan.

As our time in the US draws to a close, we’d also like to give you an update on our support raising. At this time, we are nearly 85% funded and still need to raise an additional $2,000 of monthly support to return to Thailand fully funded, which will enable us to have medical insurance. We specifically need monthly support, as opposed to one-time gifts, so that we can meet that budget. We’ve been greatly encouraged by our conversations with everyone that we’ve talked with and some have indicated that they’d begin to support us monthly. If, after prayerful consideration, you’d be interested in joining our support team, the giving information is in the picture below. If you’d like to talk to us about our support needs, you can contact Stephani for the next 3 days at 260-206-8562 or Ken for the next 2 weeks at 260-418-4726.

Many Blessings,

Stephani & Ken

C2 News: June 2023 Update

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Hey everyone!

A lot is going on; here’s a quick update.

We are currently in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We’ve been here since June 3rd and it’s been great seeing family and friends that we haven’t seen since 2019. It’s also really hard to believe that we’re now halfway through our planned stay in the US this summer. We are once again in Avalon Missionary Church’s mission house and will be there until July 24th. Here is the address and our phone numbers just in case you’d also like to reconnect:

7017 Premiere Drive
Fort Wayne, IN 46819

Phone: 260-206-8562 (Stephani) & 260-418-4726 (Ken)

We’ve enjoyed seeing friends and family that we hadn’t seen since the summer of 2019. It has been good for us as a family to finally see and hug our loved ones and to be seen and hugged.

We also attended a week of orientation at Crossworld’s HQ in Kansas City and we’ve been doing support raising, trying to close the gap in our ministry budget. Would you prayerfully consider joining us as a monthly support partner to support our ministry in Thailand? We are still looking for partners who are supporting us at $75, $100, and $200 each month. We’ve included our account information below.

Many Blessings,

Stephani & Ken Clouser

C2 News: Announcement

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Hey everyone!

The Clouser family is headed to the U.S. for the summer! We have purchased our tickets to fly home to Fort Wayne for a visit from June 2nd until July 24th.  This will be the first-time home in four years for Stephani, Zoey, & Jayden, and we’re all very excited.

We’ll fly out of Chiang Mai on June 1st and land in Fort Wayne on June 2nd around 10:30 PM. Avalon Missionary Church has graciously provided a mission house for our summer stay. We’ve just started looking at options for a car to use during our stay.  A rental car would cost us nearly $2,000 dollars for the duration of our stay. We’re wondering if one of you might have an extra car to loan us during our time at home.

We’re very excited about catching up with family and friends in Fort Wayne, IN, Nashville, TN, and Greenfield, OH. We’re building our schedule and are looking forward to visiting our supporting churches most Sundays.  We are also planning an open house for early July and will send out those details as soon as we get to Fort Wayne.  From June 11th to 17th the four of us will be participating in a training orientation week in Kansas City at our sending organization’s home office. 

We’d love to see you all, but we also recognize that we only have so much time before we return to Thailand on July 24th, so any plans that can be made as soon as possible would be great!  Reach out to us by email, Ken at kenclouser@gmail.com or Stephani at stephanicramer@gmail.com if you know of a car we can borrow or if you’d like to meet up.

Stephani & Ken

C2 News: March 2023 Update

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Isn’t she beautiful? I’m talking about the burnt orange colored car, the Honda Mobilio, sitting behind the four of us.

Thank you so very much. We were able to purchase our new family addition in early February because of your generous support. Our home church, Avalon, gave us an amazingly large gift that paid most of the balance. There were several others who sent money that enabled us to buy the perfect car for our family. Our car drives like a small car, but it can seat seven comfortably. Most of the time, the back seats are folded up to make room for our girls’ band instruments. The small size helps us navigate the narrow roads confidently.

On Dec. 31st, we moved into the house we are now renting. We’re no longer subletting another family’s home, and driving their car. Our new home is a 4-bedroom, fully furnished house on a cul-de-sac, only about a mile from the house we moved out of.

Think back about 8 years. Are you now living in a different home? Do you have a different address than you had in 2015? If so, we may not have your current mailing address. Would you take a moment right now to send your address to stephanicramer@gmail.com? That would help us out immensely. From here in Thailand, it’s not that easy to update our mailing list. Our organization has a newsletter ready to mail out and we need to get addresses to them. Please update your address for us before March 25th.

Quick update on our family:

Ken is teaching theology classes at Grace International School this semester, so all four of us are either working or studying at GIS. Ken’s classes are for high school students and his position is really more of a long-term substitute role. He will finish out the semester and then hopes to study Thai language and take on a specialized role on our team here in Chiang Mai. I am really enjoying my teaching job at GIS, working with sixth grade. Right now, we are in our last quarter of elementary school. This summer, when the middle school building is finished, I will be transitioning to middle school with all of my students as 6th grade becomes a middle school year. I will teach English Language Arts and Bible. Zoey and Jayden are feeling more and more connected with their community of friends and classmates at GIS, too.

Along with your mailing address, let us know how you are doing and how we can be praying for you. We love hearing from friends and family in the States and miss you all very much.

Many Blessings,

Stephani & Ken Clouser

Merry Christmas from the Clouser Family: Update

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Hi All,

We wish you all a Merry Christmas, a wonderful Christmas Holiday, and a Happy New Year.  We heard from Jerry Cramer that a big winter storm is headed for most of you, and we are praying for you.

We wanted to share some major blessings that have come our way.  In our Christmas newsletter that went out on December 19th, we told you that our biggest need was a car and asked for help raising $15,000 to purchase one.  As of today, December 23rd, two very generous gifts totaling $10,500 have been provided to purchase a car.  We are greatly encouraged by the generosity that has been provided by God’s people for us and we are giving Him all praise.

Please pray about how you can assist us in raising another $4,500 to purchase a car. If you are interested in helping us specifically with a car, whether you can only help a little or if you can help with the whole thing, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Ken at kenclouser@gmail.com or Stephani at stephanicramer@gmail.com.  If you aren’t in a position to give, we fully understand, but we’d still like to hear from you; this season in Chiang Mai has been a lonely season for us, and we would love to reconnect with all of you. Please drop us an email or call us on Facetime, Skype, or Zoom.

Many Blessings to you all,

Stephani, Ken, Zoey, & Jayden Clouser

Merry Christmas from the Clouser Family

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Merry Christmas from the Clouser Family

Christmas break started last Friday afternoon; Stephani and the girls finished their first semester at Grace International School. It’s also hard to believe that we’ve been in Chiang Mai for six months now! 

We have many things to be thankful for over the last six months:

  • The community at Grace welcomed Stephani and the girls with open arms. Zoey & Jayden were lovingly welcomed into Christian fellowship by their peers.
  • We’ve been reconnecting with old friends and building new relationships since we arrived here.
  • We were blessed by the Hill Family, who sub-let us their house and car for six months while they were on home leave.
  • We’ve been healthy.
  • Stephani has settled into a routine with her 6th-grade class and lesson planning; her workdays and school weeks have become shorter, and she’s no longer going to work in her classroom on Saturdays.
  • We’ve enjoyed watching Zoey & Jayden play soccer; this fall, Zoey also started running cross country.
  • We’ve found a home that we will move into sometime in the days after Christmas.
  • The weather has gotten less wet and much cooler in the last month.
  • We’ve also been blessed by many of you and wanted to let you know that we’ve appreciated your emails, encouragement, and support.

The Hill family, who sub-let us their apartment and car, will return to Chiang Mai on January 2nd, which means we had to rent a house, and we’re still trying to figure out how to acquire a car. Our finances are better than they were a month ago: Stephani drew a salary from Crossworld this month, and Ken will also start drawing a part-time salary next month. We also started drawing from one of Ken’s retirement accounts; hopefully, that will be temporary. We also know that the economic picture in the US isn’t as good as it has been in previous years and that many of you have been impacted. 

Moving here directly from China has really been shockingly expensive. When they join a sending organization, most missionaries spend a few years preparing and raising support. We know that God was directing us to move straight here; we know that God has consistently taken care of all our needs, but we still stress and worry about how He will answer our prayers.

We’ve prayed about how to meet our needs and feel that we’ve been directed to ask you for your prayers of support and help in meeting those needs.  We are at sixty percent of our monthly support budget and are still looking for support partners. Our biggest immediate need, at this moment, is a car, and they are not cheap here. To get one that is 7 to 10 years old without excessive mileage and a warranty to help us out if we have car trouble will cost us about $15,000.

Please pray about how you might be able to assist us with purchasing a car. If you are interested in helping us specifically with a car, whether you can only help a little or if you can help with the whole thing, please contact Ken at kenclouser@gmail.com or Stephani at stephanicramer@gmail.com.  

We appreciate you and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We love you too!

Stephani, Ken, Zoey, & Jayden Clouser

C2 News: Giving Information

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If you’d like to assist us with a monthly support gift or even a one-time gift, the link and details are below:

Crossworld Support: https://crossworld.org/give/support-a-disciple-maker

Notes for support: Name – Ken & Stephani Clouser & Support Account: 40586

If you’d prefer to support us by mailing a check to Crossworld:

  1. Make a note on the check with our name and account number (Clouser, 40586)
  2. Mail to: Cross World USA, Finance Department, 10000 N Oak Trafficway, Kansas City, MO 64155

Blessings,

Stephani & Ken Clouser

C2 News: November 2022 Update

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Hello from Chiang Mai, Thailand!

It seems unbelievable to be able to write that we are in the middle of our fifth month here in the Land of Smiles. Ken returned from a whirlwind trip to the States earlier this month and is currently looking for ministry opportunities here after making use of a sabbatical. Zoey is enjoying all of the “aggressively nice” kids in her 10th-grade class, just finished soccer season, and has started running on the cross-country team. Jayden loves all of her classes in 8th grade, looks forward to the Wednesday night Bible study set up specifically for girls in her grade, and has joined the soccer team. I (Stephani) am gradually getting used to the rhythms of teaching in the elementary classroom.  I’m not sure I’ll ever learn to love teaching Science, but I’m starting to get the hang of planning the Science lessons. Next year, when the middle school building is finished, our school will move 6th grade to middle school, and I will move with them. I am very much looking forward to working again with that age group!

As time goes on, I realize more and more how very blessed we are to be part of Grace International School. When I started to apply, I knew that it provided an affordable education to missionary families in northern Thailand. But I wasn’t as familiar with all of the ways that the school is able to serve and bless the whole community in Chiang Mai. I would say that 80% of my students are MKs, and the handful of Thai kids who attend our school have opportunities to learn about the gospel every single day. Many of them have a relationship with Christ that their parents do not (yet) have. We also have a program for families who do not live in Chiang Mai and need to complete courses online. And we have a Special Education department that meets the complex needs of so many missionary families who have children with autism, down syndrome, and other learning challenges.

A few weeks ago, the mother of one of our 6th-grade boys wrote the following and offered the other teacher and me to include it in our next newsletters.

Dear friends of these two amazing teachers,

Our family lived in China for 17 years, and then one day, we were abruptly told to leave. After two years in the States, we decided to move to Chiang Mai. Grace International School was a big reason we thought our family could thrive here. Two of our children have special needs/disabilities, and we needed a rich homeschool environment and a good school for our other two children. All of our children are doing well here, and this makes me so happy! 

My husband and I help supervise younger missionaries in several parts of Asia, and we have a passion for helping missionaries thrive. Too often, we fall into the trap of thinking the gospel is something we have to share with others instead of something we ourselves need every day. Our ministry to the Chinese continues here also; we have found opportunities to encourage young Chinese believers, as many of them are now in Chiangmai fleeing persecution or oppression. 

We really are not doing much right now as we are only on month 4! We can barely speak Thai, are overwhelmed most weeks and feel quite lonely. I actually consider myself quite weak and clinging to Jesus. I heard this the other day, and it gave me such hope… 

“People that regard themselves as invalids rather than heroes will make great missionaries.” -Daniel Fuller

Grace Intl School has been such a blessing to our family during this time, and I cannot thank you enough for supporting these teachers. With all the hard and new stuff going on, the school has been easy. And that is so nice! 

We have been so very grateful for the support—both in prayer and financial giving—that we have received these past few months.

We have met the first phase of our 3-phase goal, and next month, in December, we will begin drawing a small salary: Stephani will have a full-time salary and Ken a part-time salary, and we will have company-provided health insurance.  Phase 1 is about 50% of our total goal; our present monthly support level is $3310. The Phase 2 goal is $4700, which will increase both of our salaries. The Phase 3 goal is $6800, which will cover two full-time salaries, health insurance, housing, car, our travel back and forth to the US every summer, and other items like life insurance, retirement, and school expenses.

We still need a lot of prayer and money to continue onward.

  • Please pray that the Lord will show Ken where he is to be involved and how he can use his gifts and talents to be a minister of the gospel here in Chiang Mai.
  • Please pray that we will continue to seek the Lord for wisdom in parenting our teenage girls.
  • Please pray that He will show us where we are to live beginning in January 2023—just weeks from now. We need to be directed to another subletting opportunity (staying in another family’s home while they are on Home Assignment) or have enough money to rent our own place and buy a car.
  • Please prayerfully consider giving a large gift that could help us get a car or furnish a rental home.

A used car would cost around 600,000 Thai baht ($16,000). Three months’ rent (needed to start a rental contract) would be around 75,000 baht ($2,000). To purchase the basic needs for moving into a home we looked at this morning (washing machine, oven, sofa, three mattresses), we would need 80,000 baht ($2,225).

A few days ago, I started asking God for someone to give us $20,000. At the time, we didn’t really know how much money we would need to rent a house and buy a car.  Today, after looking at a possible home and checking out the costs of furnishings and a vehicle, I understand why I felt led to ask for that amount!

Even if we find a home to stay in for the next few months, subletting for another family on Home Assignment, we will need to raise the money eventually so that we can have our own car and rent our own home.

If you are wondering about where to direct some year-end funds, please consider how you can help us with these large needs. If you’d like to talk with us about how you can assist us, use the link below to arrange a Zoom or Facetime call with us:

Blessings,

Stephani & Ken

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