As Jessica transitions to teach at Grace International School, it has become necessary for us to build a support team to enable her work to continue in this new role as the school’s mission is “to provide quality, low cost education for children of Christian workers in Asia,”.  In order to do that, they require foreign staff to be part of a sending organization and “raise 100% of their own financial support and are not paid by Grace International School.”

The schools’ vision is, “To see every student being equipped with a Biblical worldview to impact the world for Christ.” .  The school was started in 1999 to address the need of many missionary families that were having to leave the field in Southeast Asia because of the schooling challenges. Now they are “partnered with 85+ organizations who serve in 40+ countries across the world” helping “over 250 families of international Christian workers advance the kingdom of God around the world.” GIS provides both a support system to missionary families as well as a place to encourage and support kids in their education and their faith.  Unfortunately the statistics of missionary kids that end up leaving the faith after high school is disappointing and the need for solid teachers and others to come alongside and strengthen students’ faith is critical.  

See more about GIS on their website here or check out some of their videos on their youtube channel to learn more about the impact the teachers and admin (with the support of their own support teams) are having on empowering missionary families to be able to fulfill their ministry callings and impacting students lives.

Jessica is excited about this new opportunity to serve and support the body of Christ in this way. 

Over the years Elijah has used his entrepreneurial spirit to start several business in Chiang Mai

Coming back to Chiang Mai, Thailand as an adult in 2007 Elijah started looking for opportunities to live out his faith and bring God’s kingdom in the workplace.  With a love of food and cooking, Elijah started experimenting with the idea of running a western style pizza restaurant. With the support of his Dad Walter, Ridgley’s restaurant was born.  After running the business for about 2 years there were some complications with the facility being repossessed from the landlord by the bank. They looked for a new place, but in the end, and also being getting burned out on the high demand of running a restaurant, decided to shut it down (thankfully without a loss, but no salaries paid to Elijah or Walter either). After a short time they ended up helping another family friend to get another restaurant going using their equipment and recipes. Years later they still had many clients hoping we would open again.  It was a valuable time of learning and investing in the Thai staff. 

After the restaurant, in 2009 Elijah and his Dad decided to continue working together and shifted focus to a bit more of Walter’s background and interest with cars.  Seeing a gap that needed to be bridged between the Expat community and their needs for communication in English and finding reliable cars, Expat Auto was started out of Elijah’s front yard.  Things progressed as the community responded positively to the service that was being offered. After about 4 years, they took a step to another bigger location, then after another 5 years, eventually to the current even larger location. Over the years, Expat Auto has been able to support the foreign and missionary community with reliable cars and services, while at the same time also modeling Christ and providing discipleship opportunities for some staff that came to know the Lord while working at the shop. During covid in 2022, as Jessica transitioned to a season of homeschooling the kids, Elijah started looking for other opportunities to support the family and in 2023 Elijah slowly transitioned out of Expat Auto and decided to try another business venture as a real estate agency.  Walter continues to run the car business.

At the beginning of 2023, Elijah started Properties Chiang Mai, a real estate agency that focuses on the local region. With no MLS (multiple listing service) in Thailand, Elijah has been working hard trying to establish relationships with other agencies and agents in Chiang Mai. Though it is a very competitive market and has been challenging, it has been a valuable time of learning and developing new relationships. We are praying that things will turn around financially and will continue to lead to meaningful relationships with customers and others in the industry as Elijah seeks to bring God’s light into the marketplace.