Update - July

Dear Friends,   Hello everyone!  I hope you are all blessed and very well.  I am doing well myself.  We came down from the mountain to buy our monthly supplies for myself and the children's home.  I am happy to report that my house is finished except for the huge gaping hole in the wall where my chimney will be as soon as they figure out how to manage this miracle called a fireplace.  The idea of an unventalated fire in my beautiful new house was just something I couldn't handle.  But my house is beautiful and a wonderful place of refuge for me.  It is a blessing.   Things are good.  This month we start recording the CD.  The music is done and now all we have to do is sing.  Yikes!  This is the fun part.  Pray as the plan that I should only sing 2 songs has changed to me singing back up on all 12 in the Karen language.  We need a miracle!  But when it is finished it will be one of the first true praise and worship CD's ever produced in the Karen Language.  Then we will start distributing it to all the churches in the area as well as a song book to go with it.    Recently we completed the first series of sessions for our bible school.  We have only 7 students but they are hungry to learn and very open.  I taught on the Holy Spirit and at the end they all were baptised in the Holy Spirit.  Next month we begin teaching them about worship which I am excited about.    The children's home is doing well.   All of our children have become Christian now and their lives are so changed.  We took two children from a village near mine that is entirely non-christian and very very poor and when we took them home to visit their parents recently everyone was talking about the change in them,  They came to church and worshipped God with their hearts - more than the children that had been in church their whole life.  They told me the little boy used to be so bad and hit all the other children and he refused to go to school and I was shocked because he is the sweetest boy now and so good and obedient.  God changed his little life at only 11 years old.   They told me that while I was driving them back to the village he was sitting in the back with some women from our village and we got stuck in the mud going up a mountain and I had a hard time going and the women were scared and he said don't worry - God will help us.  And the other little girl from this village when we got unstuck because God did indeed help us - I heard her say "Thank you God".  It is testimonies like this that make everything worth it.   I have also taken over buying food for another children's home that is actually in the village where I live.  I found out they didn't have food because the Thai government who sponsors them hadn't sent any for over a month.  Apparently they are always 3 or 4 months late and when the money comes it is only a small fraction of what they actually need.  So I can't have starving children only a mile from my house so we have been buying food for 50 more children and I am starting a Sunday School at this children's home as it is almost entirely non-christian.  These children come from villages so far in the jungle you can't even drive to them except by motorcycle.  So now we feed over 100 children every day.  God is so good and faithful and I am so happy that I am able to help them.   Driving has been a huge faith adventure.  I can't even go anywhere without using my faith in a big way.  Now that it is rainy season an already dangerous road becomes treacherous but I have to go visit my children so we go every week.  And God has been faithful.  He holds off the rain for me and keeps my truck on the road when it is so slippery it is like ice.    The worst of my adjustment period seems to be over.  God told me that I could be happy in the village if only I would.  So much of life is just deciding to do something and stop consulting your feelings every 5 minutes and just decide to be happy.  It is ridiculous that we let our circumstances tell us if we are happy or not.  It is all a matter of what we chose to focus on and I have so much to be thankful for.  The rice crisis is over.  I can eat rice 3 times a day now and actually prefer it now to most things.  I have cereal that I don't even eat now.  God is so good to me - He knows how to bless me and has given me so many lovely things and the awesome privilage of being able to help so many people and give his love to His children.  It is amazing.  Sometimes my patience wears out and my strength is gone but God put his love in my heart and that is always there no matter what.  I always love my chidren and God's love is what does the miracles in the world.  My prayer is that God will make me better so that I might do this work and do it the way He wants it done.  I want more than anything in the world to complete this task He has given me and do it well.  Pray for me in this - there is so much in me that needs to change and grow so that I might do more and do better.   Thank you all for your love and support.  My sponsors are all wonderful and God uses you more than you can imagine.  Sometimes I don't know how it will all work out - how we will have enough money to do all that we have to do - all I know is that somehow it will work out because God is faithful and you are faithful to give and to pray.   Sometimes I admit my faith is weak and God is still faithful.  He tells me all the time that it is not about How good I am but about how good He is.  Our children pray for the sponsors that give them food everyday and I pray for you as well.  I know that you are blessed.  Thank you.   Love, Candace PS  To make a tax deductible contribution send checks to RHEMA Missions PO Box 50126 Tulsa OK 74150 write Rev Candace Smith on the memo line.  100 percent goes to the work in Thailand