Merry Christmas from the Clouser Family: Update

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

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

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

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


C2 News: October 2022 Update

Hi, Everyone!

Here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, our family has been settling in and getting used to our new home.  I’m investing in my sixth-grade students at Grace International.  Zoey and Jayden are each involved in different things at school and making friends.  Let me tell you more about what’s been going on.

School started in August. Jayden is in 8th grade and Zoey is in 10th. Both of them have been thrilled to meet so many other classmates who share interests and who have been really welcoming and kind to them. Zoey is playing JV soccer and really gaining lots of skills on the field. Jayden is in drama club at school and is loving it. Both of the girls get to go to Wednesday night Bible studies called Anchor Groups. These are grade level groups that meet in homes with senior girls leading the study and a parent or two to guide them. We have been so relieved and impressed by the opportunities that our school gives our girls to grow in their faith.

We have started going to a church that meets at the Night Safari (a zoo), called Safari Church. How cool is that?!  It’s pretty close to our home and has a youth group that meets each Sunday right after the service.

For me (Stephani), all the many transitions have been very challenging. I think that the biggest difficulty of all of them is the move from teaching secondary to teaching elementary. For one more year, 6th grade at Grace is the last year of elementary—next year, after the middle school building is finished, 6th grade will become a middle school grade. The elementary day is intense, every day has a different schedule, and I’m teaching Science, too!  My colleagues and principals have been very supportive and helpful.  My students are just perfect.

Recently, we had parent-teacher conferences in the elementary school and I met parents of nearly every one of our 42 sixth graders. Almost all of them are serving in ministry and I was so encouraged to hear about what they are involved in.  Each of the missionary parents was very appreciative of my role as support for them. Here in Chiang Mai, people don’t have to put their kids in boarding school or stop ministering to home school their children.  They trust us to educate them and to disciple their kids.

In a couple of weeks, Ken will make a trip to the U.S.  There are some important details he needs to take care of, but he really hopes to visit as many of you as he can. He hopes to visit Avalon, Grabill and First Missionary Church (in Berne), as well as Good Shepherd Church in Greenfield.

One of the scary parts of missionary life right now is the expense of travel. Ken’s tickets will total close to $2,000 and he’ll also need to rent a car for the two weeks that he’s Stateside.  These travel expenses are more than our budget can tolerate at this time. The trip needs to be made but, we’d really like to find a way that it won’t wreck our budget .  If you are not already supporting us financially, would you consider helping with the costs? Any amount of financial assistance will be helpful. Or if you have a vehicle that he could borrow for those 10-14 days, could you let us know?

Stephani

A quick update: In our last newsletter we told you that we had raised 25% of our budget needs, we’re happy to report that we are now at 41% of budget. We give praise to our Lord Provider and we thank you for how you’ve blessed us with support and prayer. 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

If you’re interested in meeting with us by Zoom or Google Meet or FaceTime, please use this link to schedule a time, we’d love to talk with you! https://calendly.com/kenclouser/60min

C2 News & How You Can Help

This coming Saturday, July 30th, will mark our 4th week in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  We’ve settled into our home which we have sub-let until January 2, 2023. We’ve also visited Grace International School and Stephani is now doing some online training to prepare for the new school year, which starts August 1st for teachers and August 10th for students.  We now know where to buy groceries and have started using all of the phone apps that are essential for living here: Grab (food and car rides), Bolt (car rides), Food Panda and Tuk (food delivery), and Lazada (think Amazon in Thailand). We’ve also visited 2 of the international fellowships here and have enjoyed our experiences, especially because we hadn’t been able to attend an in-person church since the first week of January 2020.

Ken has also started driving in Thailand, the car came as part of the sub-let agreement. Driving in Thailand is kind of a daunting task because of the necessity to drive on the left-side of the road. Driving will allow us to cut some costs, Grab & Bolt rides were getting expensive, and it will give us more of a sense of independence and the assurance that we really can do this life in Chiang Mai.

While Stephani is preparing for the start of school, Ken has been reaching out to our supporting churches and supporters in an effort to arrange meetings and to help them switch their support to our new organization, Crossworld.  If you’d like to know more about Crossworld there are links below:

Crossworld: https://crossworld.org/

About Crossworld: https://crossworld.org/about

He’s also been attempting to build a bridge for our finances until we’ve raised full support. To that end, he’s applying for 2 jobs with Compassion International, they have offices in Chiang Mai, and he’s also been exploring some remote work with some companies who are needing information technology help.  We would greatly appreciate your prayers for favor both in the short and long term

Our plans with Crossworld are to do discipleship-related ministries; we’re still praying about where to join God in His work here. Of course, the discipleship that Stephani will be involved with will be focused on her students at Grace. For Ken, there are tremendous opportunities here: there are two refugee camps to the north of Chiang Mai on the border with Myanmar and there are several organizations who are doing ministry here in Chiang Mai where we could also help.

In regard to our support needs, in 2016 we were fully supported and in 2018 when we returned to China we communicated with our supporters that we would not need full support and asked them to bless others with the money that they had been giving us. Our goal today is to return to the same level of support that we had in 2016. At present we have raised about 25% of those needs.

Getting out of China and into Thailand was very expensive; flights and moving expenses were very costly. Setting up a home and living in Thailand has also been a little more expensive than what we budgeted for and the school enrollment and health exam fees have to be paid. If you’d like to know more about our plans and what we need in regard to support, please send us an email, we’d love to meet with you to share our hearts. If you’d like to support us through Crossworld the link is 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

If you’d like to help us with our immediate needs and do not need a receipt, you can also use the link below:

Support us by Paypal

Thank you for your prayers,

Ken & Stephani Clouser

 

 

 

 

We made it to Chiang Mai!

As I (Stephani) type this, it is July 11th. I’m sitting at the dining room table in the house we are subletting in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The girls are finishing a movie they started a couple of days ago, while Ken and I were out on a date. Ken went on a hunt for coffee beans, walking to a roaster he found on Google Maps. I’m using the new school-issued laptop that I received this morning.

Let me go back and review the last few weeks in Chengdu.

The girls’ passports became available at the end of May and, instead of waiting on them to be delivered to us, Ken flew to the northeast and back in one day to pick them up. A few days later, we had tickets to Bangkok and had chosen a pet export agency.

Those purchases and decisions were made during our last two half-days of school, June 9 and 10. Monday to Wednesday had been incredibly emotional for Zoey, Jayden, and me. Each day, there were leaving ceremonies for classmates and teachers: times for students and teachers to acknowledge the impact those leaving have had on them and to encourage them in their next place. So many of our students or classmates were leaving and then the three of us were going as well! On June 9, Ken’s office hosted the staff end-of-year banquet, his last big task as Team Director. On June 10, there were lots of goodbyes and Ken had his own emotional goodbye with the staff in his office. They have been a very tight-knit little group and there were many tears.

The next two weeks were filled with the details of moving. We held a moving sale during the same afternoon as a family we are close to and who lived in the same building. I started packing up the other things we needed to ship to Thailand, adding to a huge pile of boxes and bags and reorganizing everything just once. The girls even pulled apart all of their Lego sets so that they could be shipped easily. We took time to go to our favorite restaurants one last time and saw others off as they left for the airport.

Grace International School, where I will be teaching and the girls will be studying, has been letting me know how to prepare the documents needed for my work permit. They also put us in touch with a teacher and her family who will be going home on home assignment for six months and need a family to sublet their house and drive their van for six months. They were very busy getting ready to go home and only had time to send us a picture of the living room; we totally understood and just decided we’d see the rest of the house when we arrived in person.

Five days before we left, we applied for the Thailand Pass. Last November, Thailand began allowing people to enter their country, but they had to first get a Thailand Pass. On June 1st, only non-Thai people had to complete those requirements and then they were completely canceled on July 1st. Since our flight was on June 27th, we still needed to show evidence of vaccinations, buy departure tickets (since we were entering on a tourist visa), and buy 1-month of COVID insurance in order to receive our Thailand Passes.

Two days before our flights, a shipping company came and boxed up everything that we wanted to be shipped to Thailand. They were super-efficient and friendly, so it wasn’t nearly as stressful as I thought it would be. Those things should arrive in about a month.

The day before we left, I gave all of my kitchen goods (plates, bowls, glasses, pots, pans, mixing bowls, spatulas, etc) to a stranger who had enquired after such things in a buy & sell group I had been in. She was overwhelmed and so very grateful. And that made me feel good. As I am writing this, the lovely stranger contacted me to tell me she is “using gifts from you almost every day. It reminds me of how gracious and faithful our Father is. I am so grateful!! I pray our Dad blesses you more and fills your life with His abundant love every day!” Now I know that she is a sister in Christ!

On Monday morning, the 27th, a driver came and picked up our two dogs. They spent a night in the pet export agency’s office in Chengdu and then flew cargo to another city in China where the daily high temperatures in late June stay in the low-70s. That Monday to the following Friday, when we picked up the dogs at the Bangkok airport, was the most stressful part of the moving for me. They flew another cargo flight from China to Thailand on Friday, July 1st. The agent sent me videos each day, but I could see that one of our dogs was very stressed.

Travel and Bangkok

We left in the school van about an hour after the dogs were picked up. The Chengdu airport, the international terminal, had very few people and it looked like all of us were on 3 flights that were leaving around the same time. We had taken others’ advice and gotten there three hours early. During check-in, we were asked to produce documents proving that we had done the things required for the Thailand Pass. No matter how many times I said, “But we wouldn’t have the Thailand Pass without doing those things,” the airline staff still needed to see the proof. We also had to fill out a Health Customs survey for each of us. We were told to go to security at 12:30, which seemed confusing. It was just before 12:00 and usually, you just want to get through security and have more time at the gate, right? At 12:30, we found out that no one staffs the security area until that time because with only 3 flights leaving around the same time, why have people just waiting to check passports, scan luggage and look at health codes?

Our flight to Hong Kong had about 16 people on it, all sitting in 4 consecutive rows. And the Hong Kong airport, usually just teeming with travelers, was a ghost town. Nothing was open, including the water fountains. Fortunately, I had heard that was the case and brought PB&J sandwiches and other snacks. Before we could board our next flight, we had to again show proof that we had bought insurance, departure flights, etc, to have the Thailand Pass. Our flight to Bangkok wasn’t quite as empty and we arrived around midnight.

We stayed in an AirBnB near the airport during our first night and then moved to another one in the center of the city that is pet-friendly, even though the dogs would only be there with us one night. After checking in to the apartment, we went to a large hospital and got our Moderna vaccinations. All of us had been fully vaccinated in China, but with Chinese vaccines that are not nearly as effective. We had learned that you could get just one booster shot of the Moderna vaccine to be considered protected. With the Chinese vaccines, there were virtually no side effects for any of us. The girls and I had very sore arms for 3 days after our shot that week. We also experienced fevers, nausea, headaches, and body aches.

On Wednesday, we had an opportunity to spend the day with old friends of ours, the Sang family. Sissy and I have known each other since 1998! After Ken and I were married, he and Sissy’s husband would meet weekly for prayer and accountability. When Zoey and Jayden joined us, their three kids were wonderful playmates and friends. When we moved to the States for two years, they returned to China after their own home assignment and they started living in Chengdu. We followed them to the same city in 2018 and the kids attended the same school. They returned to the States again in February 2020, then moved to Bangkok nearly a year ago. Now, our two families are in the same country again!

On Thursday, we met another friend for dinner. This time, our friend was actually more of an acquaintance in Chengdu, but one that we communicated with weekly. Aiqing and her husband have a restaurant in Chengdu that makes the best pizza in the world (in our opinion). They have also moved to Bangkok and will open a new restaurant there soon.

Friday, Ken and I went to the airport to pick up our dogs, Trixie and Nani. They were clearly overheated and extremely thirsty. Nani had never learned to drink from her bottle, no matter how many times I had put peanut butter on it. Trixie’s bottle was turned so that she couldn’t drink from it even if she tried. The driver who took us to the airport was very supportive and gave us more water when we ran out, as the dogs just drank and drank. We got them fed and bathed just in time for guests.

The Ungos family had lived in Chengdu for many years and Nani had been their dog for the first 7 years of her life. In June of 2020, they moved from Chengdu and needed to rehome Nani and that’s how we became her family. They came over for dinner and to see Nani. We are hoping that they can visit us in Chiang Mai in the future, not just to see Nani again, but so that we can visit with them more.

Being with the Ungoses and the Sangs really reminded Ken and me of what we had been missing these last two years as most of our fellowship and others in ministry either moved away or were stuck outside China. Or maybe it was because we are now finally outside China that we spoke more freely and just felt our hearts were lifted by the evening’s conversations.

Arrival in Chiang Mai

On Saturday, July 2nd, the large van we had hired to drive us all to Chiang Mai arrived to pick us up. Ken had disassembled the dogs’ crates so that everything would fit in better and we rode comfortably. The dogs got to be on the seat next to me or on the floor at our feet, the driver stopped several times so that we could walk the dogs, and fun videos were playing for us in the van to make the 10-hour trip seem to go faster.

We arrived to find that the house we are living in for the first six months of our lives in Chiang Mai is so much bigger and nicer than we could have imagined.

After 24 years of living in Chinese apartments, 6 of those years being on the 24th or 25th floor of a high-rise, we now live in a single-family home that has a small yard and trees around it. After 24 years of walking, riding buses, taking the metro, or hailing cars, we have a van that we can drive (when we’re ready). What?! I mean, there are three bathrooms upstairs and one bathroom downstairs. There’s a nice-sized dining room beside the huge kitchen! There’s a small den where we can escape the heat. There’s even a huge porch area we hope to add outdoor furniture to and enjoy. And did I mention the yard? I mean, how perfect for two schnauzers! It’s even all fenced in, so they can go outside without a leash. Of course, we still go outside with them. For one thing, they will figure out a way out of the fence if we give them the opportunity. Also, there are large, black scorpions here and the centipedes are poisonous. I have also heard there are occasionally snakes. Yikes!

We have been in our house for 10 days now. The housekeeper, who comes twice a week, is a very sweet woman who has charmed our dogs. We are starting to learn about the cafes and stores that we have around us. I have been to the school three times for various things and it’s not far away (well, we can’t walk to school anymore, but it only takes about 10-15 minutes to drive there). We have met two families who are on our new team and they are great (probably because they’re from Michigan). Ken and I even managed to get to one of our favorite Italian restaurants downtown for a late anniversary date.

School will begin on August 1st for me and August 10th for the girls and all the rest of the students. So we have another couple of weeks to continue to settle in. I am starting to learn about the sixth-grade curriculum (it’s elementary here, a first for me) and Google Suite (my previous schools used Microsoft). Ken has started working on the application for our new sending organization, Crossworld. They had asked that we do this once we were outside of China.

Ken will continue to get some rest throughout August. He most likely will be headed to the States alone, visiting both Fort Wayne and Greenfield, later in August, for about 10 days. We hope to visit Indiana and Ohio as a family during Christmas break and then spend the summer of 2023 there also.

Your help is needed

As you are all aware this shift to Thailand and in our ministry means that we now have to move to a support raising model. If you are willing and able to support us, please reply to this email and we will send you the information about how to support us. If you would also like to hear more about our plans, we’re willing to share our plans in an email, or if you’d like we can meet with you on Facetime or Zoom, or Google Meet. We also need to raise a prayer team and would love to hear from you if you’d be interested in praying for us.

Stephani & Ken

The countdown to Chiang Mai

As we write this email, we have 5 days until we leave China for Chiang Mai.  Once we are in Thailand, we can be a little freer with what we can say.  This email will be brief and is meant to inform you of our pending timelines.

This coming Saturday, a shipping company will come to pack the things that we’ve decided to take with us to Thailand and that same day they will take those things away and they will be shipped by sea to Bangkok and then they will be transferred to our home in Chiang Mai.

Next Monday morning, our two schnauzers, Trixie & Nani, will be picked up at our home and they will fly that day to Kunming, be boarded there until Friday and then they will fly to Bangkok.

Also on Monday, we will fly from Chengdu to Hong Kong and then on to Bangkok, Thailand.  We should arrive late Monday around 11:45 pm. The first night we will stay in an AirBNB near the airport and the next day we will relocate to another place in Bangkok.  On Friday, we will pick up our dogs and we will then travel to Chiang Mai on Saturday morning.  At this time, we do not know whether we will travel by plane or by van, space for pets to fly in Thailand is limited. 

Sometime on Saturday, July 2nd, we should be walking into our next home.  We have arranged to sub-lease a house from teachers at Grace International School who will be going on home assignment until January 2023 and we’ve also arranged to lease their vehicle during that time. This arrangement will give us some breathing space and time so we won’t have to rush to rent a house and buy a vehicle.

Pray that our travel plans would flow like they are planned and that all connections would be made. Pray also for our transition from China; all of us are tired, there is a lot of work to closing down a home in one country and moving to another country. 

Once in Thailand, we’ll soon send another email with more details.

Ken & Stephani

The latest: We are on the move

The Clouser family is moving! We are relocating to Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Yes, after 24 (Stephani), 9 (Ken), 8 (Zoey and Jayden) years of living in China, we will move to Chiang Mai, a city we have visited many times.

Recap of the last 4 years:
In August, 2018, we returned to China after being in Fort Wayne, IN, for two years. After the girls enjoyed being in a school classroom, Stephani found she loved teaching middle school, and there was an opportunity for Ken to teach the Bible, we joined a company called Leadership Development International working at Chengdu International School in Chengdu, China. Jayden was in grade 4 when we started and is finishing up grade 7 in a few weeks. Zoey came as a 6th grader and is almost finished with her first year of high school. Stephani has remained in middle school throughout the four years, teaching ELL and leading the ELL teachers at our K-12 school (we provide English Language support for kids in grades K through 10). Ken started out teaching Religious Studies to all of our middle schoolers: grades 6-8. After our first year, he was hired to be the school Team Director, sharing leadership with our Head of School. Ken has been in charge of the member care (spiritual and emotional health) for all of our staff and cultural training and housing for foreign staff and families.

One year ago, Ken finished a year-long fellowship with The Colson Center, called the Colson Fellowship. He read numerous books and spent hours once a month, meeting with his cohort to discuss the books, hear presentations from each other, and also get to meet guest speakers. The focus of his learning was on Christian worldview and each person was challenged to live out their calling in a way that is shaped by the gospel. Each of the people in Ken’s cohort were living in China, Korea, and Singapore.

Last Fall, Ken and I started sensing that God had something different in mind for us, that we should be ready for some change. Several years ago, China changed its laws for non-profit companies and made it nearly impossible to open one. So, our current country of service is not an option. For months, we knew were going to move to another Asian country, but we didn’t know which one. We were really conflicted in March when we announced to staff that we were leaving because we had no idea where we were going.

After looking for teaching jobs in numerous places, Stephani found a job at Grace International School in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Zoey and Jayden will study there and Stephani will teach 6th grade. GIS is an MK school, which means that tuition is kept low for the missionary families whose children study there. It also means that Stephani will not be paid a salary, but need to raise support.

Ken is looking for jobs now that we have a location nailed down. For the first year, he will be building relationships in the community, looking for discipleship opportunities, connecting with area churches, and possibly leading a Colson Fellowship cohort.

Currently, we are talking to two sending agencies that could help us. For these four years, supporters and churches have sent financial help to LDi Foundation. They will continue to assist us with this for the next three to six months. Our needs were quite small since both of us were earning salaries. Now, we will need at least four times as much to cover housing, transportation, food, insurance, etc. If Ken gets a paid position, we would still need to raise twice as much as we currently receive.

We are not our usual peaceful selves these days. There is a lot to stress about, though we are trying our best not to be anxious about anything. One thing that concerns us is that we have never lived around COVID. It’s never been a possibility and so the normal daily protections that we have acquired as habits seem almost silly. Now, they’ll be crucial. We are also concerned about how our two dogs will handle the travel to Thailand, since they’ll need to go there after us, rather than with us.

Our Prayer requests:

• The girls’ new passports would get to us quickly so that we can buy tickets
• We would find a home and vehicle quickly
• Ken would be offered a paid position
• Support raising would go smoothly

If you would like to join our support team, there are two ways that you can give.

1. If you don’t need the receipt for tax purposes, you can support us on PayPal. Please select “Friends & Family” so that we avoid PayPal’s fees:

Ken & Stephani’s PayPal Me Link

2. If you need the receipt for tax purposes, you may send us support using the link directly below. Please designate Campaign: C038.

Ken & Stephani Clouser

Lastly, check out our new website: https://c2newsletter.wpcomstaging.com/

We’ll be consistently posting our updates there and you are also invited to leave your comments or messages.

Blessings,

Stephani, Ken, Zoey, & Jayden