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Dear Friends,
Hello everyone! I haven’t sent out a report for a while because the children were on their summer break and I was in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />America doing fundraising. I have been back since June 6th and things are going very well here. It is the nice, cool but very humid rainy season. I always look forward to rainy season because I forget about the mud. But even mud and mosquitoes are better than the extreme gross hot weather of the hot season. I had a great time in America (mercifully missing the hot season). It was great to meet so many people who care about what God is doing in Thailand, people who give and pray for us. I was really overwhelmed. The children are so excited because now we have the money to buy beds for them thanks to a wonderful generous pastor in Toledo. I also went crazy at a garage sale in our neighborhood and bought tons of new clothes for them as well as having some beautiful clothes donated by one our faithful sponsors. It is so awesome to see the kids looking so cute in their new clothes. Clothes are not expensive here but they are also not very good quality and I will buy clothes for the kids and in a month or so they have holes! Nice thick sweaters are not easy to find either and we need them here in the mountains.
When the new school year started again we accepted 7 new children into our home. It is really amazing how fast they assimilate. When we first started it took forever to get the kids trained and excited about God and excited about the future. Now we have such an atmostsphere here of worship and the presence of God as well as personal responsibility and integrity that the new kids just jump right in and change it seems over night. We have one girl who comes from a non-Christian family deep in the jungle and she came to us because there was no school for her now that she had graduated 6th grade and she so desperately wanted to go to school. A friend from her village came to us and told us that this girl had walked 5 miles one way everyday to school for years – that is 10 miles a day. Her family didn’t care if she went to school and wouldn’t help her so she just went herself. She came to us wearing the bracelets that they believe ward off evil spirits. Usually it is so hard to get them to cut off the bracelets because they are raised with such fear but in a week she cut the things off and became a Christian. She is like a little sponge you can’t believe it. She will just sit and watch whatever you are doing and has a million questions. She really is a remarkable little girl.
There is a new children’s home close by our home and we are teaching there 3 times a week as well as starting a Sunday School at the largest children’s home in the area with 120 kids. Our goal is and has been for several years to teach in every children’s home, every week. We are inching closer and closer to this goal. I estimate now there to be close to 400 children in children’s homes in our town. Pray with me that the doors would open for us to minister to them regularly. We had an awesome service last night withabout 100 youth in our weekly Friday night youth meeting and at the end about 20 kids came for prayer, to be born again or just to rededicate their lives to God. When I look at them, especially those fresh from the mountains I feel God’s heart for them. Last night as I stood up to preach, my prepared sermon was suddenly not what I needed to say. I could feel the desperation that God must feel for them to know Him. Not religion, not the tradition in which they were raised but a real and living God, beautiful, powerful and perfect just waiting to help them with every second of their lives. Life is too hard to live without Jesus, especially for them. I told them my own story of my search for God and about the day I stood on a beach and California when I was 24 year old and I said God I don’t care how long it takes or what I have to do or how much it costs me I am going to find You. The real You not religious tradition but You. I don’t want them to spend their lives pushing away with both hands the only One who can make them happy so they can run after something that never will. It was powerful and so we start again. To build something strong in these young people. Something that will stand in the trials and suffering of life and give them hope for tomorrow and strength and grace for today. I believe with all my heart that no matter where they come from or where they started or how bleak things look for them, when God comes into their lives, with all His beauty, power, love and glory, their lives will be glorious. Not easy but wonderful It has been the case for me.
So keep praying for us. Every year we have new children, sometimes it is a challenge to teach at the same time brand new children as well as keep growing those we have had for 4 years who are so advanced. Last night when all those kids came for prayer, I prayed for them but then my older children that are well taught and know God stepped up to pray and minister to them one on one and cry with them. That blesses me more than anything else. They are beautiful examples of God’s love. Thank you to all those who give to make this place possible. You are awesome and we honor and pray for you. We pray God continues to make Himself REAL to you as well. God Bless,
Love,
Candace
PS: You can send a tax deductible donation to Rhema Missions PO Box 50126 Tulsa, OK 74150 Memo Rev Candace Smith 100% goes to the work in Thailand
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