Timothy & Christi Chaffee Newsletter (Winter 2021)

Happy New Year!

We pray Christ’s peace and presence infiltrates and overshadows every part of your 2021! We invite you to settle in and capture a glimpse of what has been happening lately.

Brielle spends her time adding splashes of color to coloring pages and is especially conscious and meticulous with remaining in the lines. She loves to grace others with her singing, but also uses her voice to attempt taking charge over her older brother and sister when she believes they’re doing something other than what she thinks they should.

David occupies himself building creative Lego lands. He exercises techniques and craftily constructs with Lego in ways I’ve never considered. After his scene is set, he creates a story to act out with the Lego. David excels in reading and playing imaginatively with his stuffed animals.

Rebekah’s interests recently have extended to assisting in the kitchen. She enjoyed baking and decorating Christmas cookies and on Sunday—which is pancakes for breakfast day for our family—she made the pancakes with nearly no assistance for the first time as I supervised her. Encouraging others through handwritten notes, Bible verses, and drawings are other areas where Rebekah devotes her time.

Christi is inspired as she reads through the Above Rubies magazine articles, even after everyone else in the household is sound asleep. These magazines uplift women to be godly wives and mothers and strive after Proverbs 31:10 (NKJV). “Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies.” 

Since our last newsletter, I have come to the realization that it’d be better for me to give most of my Lego to my children. I didn’t have much extra time to adequately commit to reconstructing and maintaining the city I’d begun, but now I am delighted to see their excitement as they build with it and I get to spend that time with them while playing Lego. In the evenings, I’ve begun reading one of my favorite chapter books to them also.

Personal Involvement

Serving in the outdoor department has given me the opportunity to learn numerous invaluable lessons. Recently, I began to learn how to repair and hook up audio cables which is important for the speakers we use in our chapel for morning devotionals and I’m sure will be beneficial when preparing audio and speakers for the Lord’s Boot Camp this summer. I’ve also recently become the official vacuum repairman at Teen Missions and have helped clear the old print shop which will be transformed into the new Bible, Missionary, and Work student center which is expected to be finished by 2022. There is a wide variety of tasks I am assigned and I’ve also been responsible to be part of a team that dug up old mobile home anchors so that new ones could be placed for incoming mobile homes for staff and volunteers and served by aiding with preparation for Teen Missions annual Mud Run by clearing trailways. The Mud Run will be on May 8th and if you’re interested in joining us, please register online!

Christi has continued strategically placing Teen Missions business cards while in public and shared part of her testimony during her scheduled staff morning devotional on December 1st. Outside of those, Christi remains busy homeschooling our children and raising them in the way they should grow. She is “Training Tomorrow’s Missionary Today” in the lives of our growing children and we’re excited to see how God uses them for His kingdom.

Testimony

Dr. Jonathan and Mrs. Joanna Yeh, whose children have gone on teams, shared the following. Dr. Yeh said, ”If you want to train your children to become servants of God, to become potential missionaries in life, whatever the profession, you must start now. My wife made a great decision that I call a master chess move to bring them to Teen Missions. After that, I learned about Teen Missions. I thought it was great. By God’s grace she made the right choice, the right move and that was a great thing that we did by coming to Teen Missions International.” Mrs. Yeh explained, “We found Teen Missions International. They have a wonderful and solid foundation. They have a lot of experience to teach and to help the young kids. For myself and for my husband, we really want our kids to encounter God and to experience the mission mind so they have a mission mind in their young age.” Dr. Yeh also expressed, “I have seen that they have gained some confidence in the pursuit of the Lord. It’s not, perhaps easy for me to put into words but rather, their gradual change to search God, to seek fellowship with their teammates, and then looking to serve God, also giving glory to God. That’s the change I saw in their lives. They start to realize that they can have this kind of opportunity to serve the Lord. They can have this kind of opportunity to really follow God’s way with their peers. Your children, your teenagers, when they come to Teen Missions, it’s a great opportunity to change yourself, how you parent. How do you remove this overprotective, like myself? How do you let God’s hand step into their lives? God used the change in our teenager to change us and through this process of reconciliation, we reconnected with our teenagers, our children and walked together for the same goal and for the same future.”

We are incredibly thankful for each of you who have partnered with us to allow us to integrate a firm Biblical foundation and integrate a heart for missions in the lives of young people serving worldwide.

In Christ’s Love,

The Chaffee’s

Praise

Praise that the pain in my joints has been less frequent and less severe.

Prayer Requests

Pray for continued support of Teen Missions and our family.

Pray for Christi and I to have wisdom with important decisions we have to make.

Pray for Christi and I to balance and prioritize everything we are involved with.

Pray for Christi as she is home-schooling Rebekah and David.

Pray for Rebekah, David and Brielle to have increasing desires to learn.

Pray for David as he is seeming to take more interest in spiritual matters. He is 6 years old and we want to be able to share with him in a way he’ll understand and discern when the time is right to do so.

Pray for God’s peace in every area of our lives.

Pray for our health and safety in all we do.

Pray for the pain in my joints to continue being less frequent and less severe.

Pray for David as he’ll be beginning behavioral therapy. Pray he’ll be cooperative, receptive, and put into practice the things he learns.