Hello Chiang Mai!

Here we are in the Chiang Mai International Airport on Wednesday night. Our flight was delayed by 3 1/2 hours, but we got here safe and sound. Thanks for praying for us.

And this is our new home at the Create International headquarters in Thailand! We are feeling very blessed by the gracious Create International staff here who have provided us two great bedrooms on the 2nd floor above their offices and work areas. We love the accommodations here especially compared to the concrete prison-like cells we had in Australia. We have windows, furniture, air conditioning, Internet access and really firm Asian beds! Oh, and we have the Johnsons for neighbors! Woo hoo!


Lastly, here is an old photo of the King of Thailand to pay him due respect.

Thanks again everyone for praying us all the way here. We will be celebrating the 4th of July with other Americans here in Chiang Mai on Saturday, going to a new church on Sunday and starting the School of Frontier Media officially on Monday morning. Of course we will keep you posted.

Bless you guys heaps!

Hello Singapore!

Yeah! We are safely ensconced in Singapore. It was a bittersweet day leaving Perth. We all have such a great affection for the place and all our newest friends we have left behind. It's tough to have had another set of goodbyes to the BIG goodbyes we had to make last December. We think serving with YWAM must be full of a lot of hellos and goodbyes. Emotionally I think it's been hardest on the girls leaving Perth. They really created such strong relationships with both the people and the YWAM base life itself. Please pray for them as the transition to Thailand is harder on them.


The flight from Perth to Malaysia was delayed by over an hour. Consequently we got in very late into KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport), and then the hotel put us in the wrong room and we had to move at about 1 in the morning. Well, that's the short version. Anyway, the 2nd room was awesome and we got about 5 hours of decent sleep. After a quick, complimentary breakfast we were headed back to the KLIA for the flight to Singapore. We very nearly had our carry on bags confiscated (The official word I use when they want to stow the bags rather than letting us carry them on to the plane!), but they relented at the last minute and all our bags made it onto the plane! The flight was up and down before we had much of a chance to read any books. Shortest flight ever!


We still had some trouble purchasing our tickets out of Singapore to Thailand from AirAsia. We had tried many times online unsuccessfully, and finally over the phone they encouraged us to just pay for them at the airport. We tried this morning and still no success. When I called the credit card company in the states 12 hours later they blamed the problem on a bad magnetic strip on the credit card or failure to key in the expiration date correctly. They want to cancel the card and send a new one to me in Massachusetts. That's not going to help us get to Thailand, I say. Instead, we took out more cash from the checking account using the debit card again and at least we have tickets to Thailand now. What an adventure living on the edge!

By the way, Changi International Airport in Singapore is one of the nicest airports we've ever seen. So clean and efficient. Our day in Singapore has been very low key. We checked in around 1 pm into the YMCA on Orchard Road with a great view of downtown Singapore. The three big views of the city in this report were all taken from the rooftop here.

We've only walked a few blocks away from our hotel today and found amazing Asian food and an 8 level mall with a bazillion shops! You can imagine what that does for three girls in search of bargains! Physical force was used to restrain them from a crazed shopping frenzy.

We were delighted to be mistaken for Australians today. It wasn't the accents. Maybe just our amazing whiteness and proximity to Australia makes us likely candidates?

Free internet access at the hotel means we get to post this report complete with cool photos from Singapore. So far so good, friends. Thanks for all the prayers! We literally live on them as you can see by this report.

Bless you guys heaps!

Goodbye Australia

Early Morning Perth

We have less than 24 hours before we board a plane for Southeast Asia. We are really going to miss it here in Australia and hope to be back sooner than later. Our future base location may now be wide open at this point even though our commitment to Create International has only increased.

We came here to Perth to serve with Create International and just completed the initial training program required to join YWAM as missionaries. Meanwhile the founders of Create International have relocated to Thailand and personally invited us up for firsthand training with them. You can see that this exciting move to Thailand is working out for the best for us and this ministry at this time in our life.

Allyson testifies about our PNG experience during our outreach "report back" event.

So here we go! We leave Perth tomorrow. In effort to make the best use of your missions dollars, we are actually saving a significant amount by taking 4 flights through 4 countries to get to Chiang Mai rather than the more direct 2 flights that would have been more expensive. (I'm not sure how it's cheaper for the airlines to cart us all around Southeast Asia, yet this is how the they save money on airfares.) Consequently, we have an overnight layover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then a day and half stop in Singapore for some much needed R&R before arriving in Thailand on July 1st. Our next training program starts July 6th.

We covet your prayers for us as we travel and for many travel mercies for all four flights. There are also lots of restrictions on luggage and carry-on weight that have proven to be challenging already. We have tentative reservations for at least one flight and some hotel bookings in other countries to manage. In Singapore we are staying at the YMCA in the heart of the city. It all adds up to some crazy busy travel in the next few days.

Featured here with our outreach leader Samantha on our DTS graduation day.

Regrettably, we are also under-funded for this transition into Thailand, so please pray for our funding to increase so we can met our financial obligations in Thailand in a timely manner. As mentioned in our last official newsletter, we have lost almost 20% of our budget since December due to the dollar's drop internationally. We think often of the financial sacrifies people are making on our behalf and it's very humbling.

Lastly, because Google no longer is supporting our ability to send bulk email to our list, we made a recent switch to Google Groups as a provider for our newsletter, and lost a bunch of readers along the way. Many people have chosen not to sign up and we respect their choice not to follow our story any longer, yet it is obviously discouraging for us to be dropped by so many. This only makes those of you subscribed to our blog here even more precious to us. Thanks for tracking with us and being such a blessing with your prayers and encouragements.

Reflected in the window below the Create International office in Perth.

Thanks too to those of you who shared fun anecdotes and left comments for Allyson on her Facebook birthday page and provided for her birthday celebration. It was a very bright spot in June for us and her turning 40 is worth celebrating after all, isn't it?

This Baldwin boomerang is getting flung into Asia. We'll catch up with you again after we land on our feet in Chiang Mai!? Bless you abundantly for reading this and staying with us on this journey.

Boomerang Vol. 9: Cairns, Australia & Beyond

After the great receptivity to the gospel we experienced in Papua New Guinea (PNG), our time in Cairns, Australia among Aboriginals was more heartbreaking. The mainstream Australian culture is often at odds with the indigenous cultures resulting in estrangement, rejection, frustration and excessive substance abuse and alcoholism. We saw all of this up close and personally while serving an indigenous ministry in Queensland. We lived in an aboriginal community in the Daintree Rainforest providing sermons, children's ministry, worship times, community cookouts and men's and women's church meetings. Sadly, it was not uncommon for some in the congregation to show up under the influence. There is a great need for this community to be served with grace and humility in order to bring healing and restoration to the beautiful, enigmatic original peoples of Australia. If God showed us what successful ministry looked like in PNG, than the Cairns outreach showed us a glimpse of the tremendous remaining need for ministry worldwide and God's love for all the peoples of the world.

We then returned to Perth and were graduated from the YWAM missions program. The training has been both extensive and excellent. We are more excited than ever to be missionaries! Consequently, we have accelerated our training timetable. Instead of remaining in Australia until January 2010 to start the next required YWAM training we need to serve with Create International, the Lord has led us to go immediately to Chiang Mai, Thailand to take the course in July. The Discipleship Training School (DTS) we just completed is the required training to serve as a YWAM missionary worldwide. The School of Frontier Media (SFM) is the training program specific to Create International.

In this SFM program we will learn how to use many forms of media in appropriate, culturally-sensitive methods of evangelism. The first three months are a lecture phase with numerous experts in the field covering a wide range of relevant topics. This is followed by a practical outreach phase in an unreached area of Thailand to apply all we have just learned. The goal is to create an evangelistic film in the language and culture of this unreached people. This is the exciting, frontier missions work we have been so eager to do!

In the meantime, Sam has returned to the US to live with his grandparents. He will spend this next year finishing his senior year of high school and preparing for college, where he anticipates pursuing a degree in linguistics, mathematics and computers. Our plan, Lord willing, is to meet him back in the States after our school is completed. We already miss him terribly out here, yet we are confident that this is a good choice for Samuel at this time. Please give him a big hug from us if you see him before we do!

Rachel and Abigail are doing very well through the transition of this school ending and another big move coming. It is not always easy, we are finding, to be the children of training missionaries, yet they are remarkable, faithful girls who are trusting God along with us to provide for their needs.

We have been amazed at God's faithfulness through his servants like you who have supported us in prayer and financially this year. We are humbled by your generosity in the face of a faltering worldwide economy. God is still able to provide for those who trust in him. The economic decline does effect us, though. In the past six months we have essentially lost 20% of our support due to the dollar's decline. Our even leaner budget has made meeting our financial commitments to provide necessities, required YWAM training and our kids' education difficult. We have been blessed with gifts for our travel to Thailand yet still could use some assistance with our tuition and expenses when we arrive in Chiang Mai. In total, our need is $4,400 over the next two weeks and $3000 before August 1st. This number looks large, yet we have seen God provide in amazing ways for us and other missionaries out here. We know God is capable of providing all we need even as he asks you to help. Please join us in praying for this need and thank you in advance for your wonderful support of us as we work to fulfill God's call.

You may send gifts and donations for our support to Ripe for Harvest and please designate Account #247 in the memo line but please do not include our name on the check. Send it to:
Ripe for Harvest
2824 N. Power Rd #113282
Mesa AZ 85215-1674
Ripe for Harvest is able to issue a tax deductible receipt in the USA, whereas YWAM Perth in Australia is not.

We may upload a photo journal like the one we recently did for PNG, however, if you are our Facebook Friends we have uploaded over a 100 photos from our time in Northern Queensland. The Atherton Tablelands is truly one of the most beautiful places in Australia and we took a lot of photos of amazing Australian countryside, sea shores and rain forests. Enjoy!

Some people like the blog and others prefer the online newsletter format. We will continue to do both and some of the time the content will be redundant. However, the blog will always have more in depth information than our online newsletter. Thanks everyone for subscribing online to one or both of our sites so we can stay in touch with all of you.

If you need more information, you may always email us both at baldwinboomerang@gmail.com or go to http://groups.google.com/group/baldwin-boomerang and request a subscription from us. And please be sure to send us your stories and updates as well! Also, Rachel has been winning praise for her blog which shows an insightful young woman's take on our experience: http://fromrachek.blogspot.com.


Everyday we are out here is one filled with gratitude that we have the best job ever! Thanks again for making that possible for us time and again. A special thank you to everyone who helped make Allyson's recent birthday in Perth well celebrated. We'll next catch up with you when this Baldwin Boomerang lands gracefully in Thailand!

PNG Photo Journey 10: Children of Kerema

The Children of Kerema

For our final PNG Photo Journey I am focusing on the beautiful children of Kerema. It was spending time with former child soldiers in Uganda and impoverished Zambian AIDS orphans on a World Vision trip (with John & Nancy Tobey) where I heard God's call to serve in His mission to the world. My family grew in enthusiasm for this work too, and wanted to participate rather than always waiting at home when I took these overseas missions trips.

It's literally a prayer fulfilled to find ourselves in some distant land contributing to the expansion of God's great kingdom. Now we are living a life of service doing surprising things like sharing children's sermons in Papua New Guinea. God loves these children even more than we do. Let me introduce you to some of the Papuan children we met in Kerema.

"Why so serious?" True story: we found that occasionally we scared the very young because they had never seen a white person before. This little guy wasn't scared so much as studious. Perhaps he has a bright future as a doctor.

It was beautiful to see how the Papua children took loving care of one another. Families in PNG can often be quite large and parents often raise other children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS or other devastations.

My friend Adrian shot this photo while I was taking some video. Poor little kid ran away after that, which may have been another scary white man sighting experience.

When Papuan children smile, they give it all they got. You can witness a few of those big, big smiles here.


The children of Kerema are very affectionate with one another and it's not uncommon to see even older boys and girls holding hands or embracing.

You've reached the end of our PNG photo journey! Thanks for taking the time to see how the Lord blessed our experience in this great, exotic land. There is no doubt that God loves all the little children of the world, including these very special Papuan children. Say a prayer for them that their cultural move into modernity doesn't destroy their inherent family values and that they would continue to grow in the love of their Father in Heaven who cares for them enough to send His son to the cross for them.


Our next post is likely to be an official newsletter about our experience amongst Aborigines of Australia, the conclusion of our training in Perth, and our big move to Thailand in two weeks!

PNG Photo Journey 9: Kerema Market

Kerema by air as we depart. It's fun to be on a plane that allows you to use your electronic equipment! I have about a half hour of video footage from this plane ride that I will be able to view someday!

For today's photo journey I thought we'd take one last look at Kerema by touring the local market. Now imagine that the temperature is over 90 degrees and it's humid, but that's not going to stop you from doing some late afternoon shopping. So here we go!

Kerema post office is in the distance behind the basketball court on the right. You can see some shop stands in the left past the court.

Peace! (My friend chillaxes on an empty shop stand...nothing for sale today.)

T-shirts and meri blouses for sale.

Busy Kerema street during rush hour! It doesn't usually look this busy but there may have been a sale that day.

Kerema is a good place to buy bananas and betelnut. But what you really want is the pineapple. Oh, and the tapoica chips are also yummy.

Big Kerema intersection. Great place to bump into a friend and have a chat for a bit. That's the post office behind the AIDS sign.

More corner shops. Buy stuff here cheap. The wood stands are stradling a gully. The smaller stands under the umbrellas are where you pick up your addictive substances such as cigarettes and betelnut.

And another shop selling various snacks. This man reaches deep in his back pocket to purchase a stick of gum.

A few Papuan fellows outside the old bank are having a good time hamming it up for the camera. This community proved to be very amiable but friendly. If you offered a greeting it was always returned, yet usually required some initiative on our parts.

Kerema was our home for six weeks and we poured a lot of love and devotion into this place, only to have returned to us a hundredfold. Everyday there brought its share of challenges, yet it was worth it to be there to see the community transformed during our time there. We already miss this place and expect our travels will someday bring us back. Until then we say in Pidgeon "Geev' um praiz lon Papa God."

PNG Photo Journey 8: Day of Rest

Day of Rest at the Beach!

Everybody needs a day of rest every once and a while, even hard working missionary trainees! We had the great privilege of enjoying the Kerema beach on two of our days off during our six week stay. We also used the beach as a short cut from the High School to the Primary School one day when I had my camera with me. When we left the High School one of the staff said they were taking us to the $1,000,000 view of the beach. They were right and here it is pictured above. I shared this photo with the community later on and they loved it. How could you not? It makes Kerema, Papua New Guinea look like a tropical paradise! And it is.

In addition to having beautiful black sand and warm, inviting water, the beach also features these amazing caves. Just don't go into them before high tide or you will be swimming under water and against the tide to get out! We explored a few of these without flashlights and it doesn't take long to get deep into darkness. It's places like this that contribute to PNG's sense of danger.

We had great fun playing on the beach with Pastor Dixon's children featured here in one of my favorite PNG shots. There was a thin coat of water on the sand making this reflection of the active sand castle builders. Notice the black sand, which I believe may be a form of volcanic sand.


A photogenic bunch, aren't they? This is another of my favorite PNG shots. The Papuan lifestlye is pretty laid back generally speaking and people can visit the beach pretty much whenever they feel like it as along as they aren't working. On Sunday afternoons it seems the whole town can be found on the beach playing soccer or volleyball, but the rest of the week it's virtually desolate except for a few children skipping school!

Here's a view from inside one of the caves with an opening of sunlight above and a view out the tunnel to the waterfront. This one was great fun to walk through, but definitely not at high tide!

Papuan's use these boats to go fishing. I never did go out on one but I hear it's quite an adventure.

I'm sorry now that we didn't get to the beach more often. It was a long hot 20 to 30 minute walk from where we were staying, but always proved to be worth it when we got there. Interestingly, you have to cross the airport tarmac to get to it, which the locals do without fear because they know the plane schedule. Us foreigners on the other hand always looked both ways and up into the sky before we crossed over to the beach side and back.