• Where will you be living in Asia?

Once our financial support is raised, we will be moving to Bangkok, Thailand to serve with Asia Biblical Theological Seminary (ABTS).  In addition to teaching Old Testament classes, Greg will be serving as the Bangkok site academic administrator, which will involve raising awareness for ABTS in the city and providing ongoing discipleship for our Bangkok students.

• Where and what will Greg be teaching in Asia?

Accessibility is one of the top priorities of ABTS.  ABTS desires to make sure that students can take classes while remaining in their ministry contexts, so all of the classes are in modular condensed formats.  Greg and the other ABTS professors travel to ten different locations throughout Asia with sites in Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, and India, so that the students can stay where they are and apply the material that they are learning immediately in their ministry context.  Greg will be the primary Old Testament professor for ABTS.  This fills a huge whole at ABTS because they currently don’t have a full time Old Testament professor.

• How can the students afford to get their Masters degrees through ABTS?

Affordability is another of the top priorities of ABTS.  Over ¾ of ABTS students receive significant scholarships.  Some of them paying only 5% of what a student in America would pay for the same education.  Greg does not receive a salary from ABTS to help lower the students' costs.  Our monthly financial partners allow us to pay our living expenses rather than charging them to the students through higher tuition.

• Why are your monthly financial needs so high?

We are supported in our ministry 100% by giving.  The $8,733.42 monthly need was determined by our sending organization, ABWE, who has decades of experience and currently has more than 900 missionaries serving around the world.  We recognize that this number appears to be extremely high, so please be assured that we will not be "living rich" in Thailand.  We will rent a small 3-bedroom home in a modest part of town.  Greg will be flying multiple times each year to get to various location sights in Asia in order to teach and as Greg doesn't get a salary from ABTS our monthly donations give Greg the ability to do his ministry of getting to Asian students and teaching them God's Word.  Additionally, only 9% of our raised funds go toward home office support, which covers financial transaction fees and a number of other administrative costs.  Although our monthly financial need is high we are confident that ABWE knows the costs needed to live modestly while having a successful ministry in Asia. 

• How will you educate your children overseas?

Rachel will continue to home school our children during our time in pre-field ministry and also initially while we are serving overseas.  There is a possibility that our children may attend a small international Christian school in Bangkok where they would have Christian teachers but the vast majority of their peers would be Buddhist Thai classmates.  We will need to evaluate each year where our children can best grow, thrive, and serve others during our years in Thailand.

• How do your children feel about moving to Asia?

Isaac and Hannah are too little to understand that we will be having a huge life change soon, but Christian and Abbie are excited about moving overseas!  There will certainly be things they miss about America, but they are also looking forward to living in a warm climate all the time, seeing elephants play soccer and paint, and participating in "Rapunzel" lantern festivals.