About Us
Tonya comes from a family of missionaries. Her grandparents and great-grandparents served as missionaries in Africa, South America, and South-East Asia. Tonya grew up hearing stories about far away jungles and the wild frontiers of frontline mission work. Tonya and Jared met in Micronesia while serving as student missionaries at the mission school on the island of Yap in 2002 and 2003. After returning to the US and marrying, Tonya and Jared were sponsored by their church in Lincoln, Nebraska, Allon Chapel, to travel to Rwanda in the summer of 2005 for evangelistic outreach. In 2006, after they both graduated from Union College, they made the decision to join Adventist Frontier Missions, having a deep desire in their hearts to go and reach the unreached.
Late in 2007, Jared and Tonya joined the Gorkha Project in Darjeeling, India. They worked alongside Jonathan and Karen Lovitt until 2012, helping to establish a church and English language school. After that, they served briefly among the Nepali people of Nepal in 2012 and 2013, helping to encourage and strengthen the believers in that region.
In 2014, Jared and Tonya moved to Thailand where they served with AFM in partnership with the Thai Adventist Mission as administrators and teachers at the mission school in Ubon Ratchathani for two years. In 2016, they transitioned to a new target community about 20 kilometers outside of the city of Ubon to start a children’s and youth ministry in the village of Baan Krasop. In September of 2018, they completed construction of the Little Explorers Creative Learning Center, which serves as a center of influence for reaching the unreached Isan people of north-east Thailand.
Tonya & Jared Wright
We previously lived and worked with the Gorkha people of India and Nepal from 2007 to 2013. Now we serve the Isan Buddhists of Thailand along with our sons, Justus and Jon Marc. Our vision is to establish 2,500 multi-generational, spiritual family groups among the Isan Thai people of Ubon Ratchathani who have learned how to guide their communities into experiencing Jesus as a real person who cares about their lives. We want to form one spiritual family group for every village in Ubon Ratchathani province so all 1.9 million Isan Thai people in our province will be within walking distance of a spiritual family group modeling that the kingdom of God is near (Matthew 4:17). Our good friend and colleague, Nilubon Srisai, coordinates all of our programs and outreach activities in the community. She is a certified facilitator for trauma healing groups and is working to help families heal and grow.
Frontier Stories
Home Visits
“Appreciate when things go awry. It makes for a better story to share later.” – Simon Sinek
By:
Jared Wright
August 01 2021, 1:11 pm | Comments 0
I See You
We do our best and take every opportunity to let the students know that we see them past their behavior, and that we love them.
By:
Tonya Wright
May 01 2021, 1:34 pm | Comments 0
Someone Cares
In our ministry, we try every day to help our students understand in a practical way that God is a real person who loves them and is involved in their lives—to know that they are not alone and not ignored, and that Someone is always there to care for them.
By:
Jared Wright
April 01 2021, 3:33 pm | Comments 0
Potential
Long ago, the Psalmist wrote, “You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. . . . How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!” (Psalm 139:16-17 NLT). We believe that God’s thoughts for Chang and his family are precious and that He sees all their potential.
By:
Jared Wright
March 01 2021, 7:31 pm | Comments 0
Reading to Children
We are beginning to see amazing growth in the children we work with every day at our learning center and in the local schools because we read to them.
By:
Jared Wright
February 01 2021, 7:45 pm | Comments 0