Dear Friends
Things are going well for us here in Thailand. It is cold here now in the mornings but up
into the 80’s in the afternoon. That is
the cold season here in Thailand, sweaters in the mornings and shorts in the
afternoon.
Life has really changed for us. At the start of the new term in
October, two girls moved in with us. These two girls were chosen because of
their desire to learn English. It is a
unique opportunity for them to live in an “English world”. There will eventually be 5 children who live
with us. It was a bit of a shock at
first to go from being a solitary couple to having two girls but it has been
fun. It is interesting that when you let
more people close into your heart, there are more frustration and challenging
moments, but there is also so much more joy and fun. The kitchen may be a lot messier and I know
far more about Justin Beiber now than I ever dreamed, but the house is also
filled with a lot more singing, laughing and silliness than ever before. This morning, I was preparing to preach today
for church, sitting on my sofa with my tea and Bible, when two 80 pound
teenagers came out and announced they were going to do Tai Bow about 5 feet in
front of me. They are so light on their feet they are like little kittens
playing when they jump. I had to
laugh. If I want my solitary time with
God now, I have to take a walk into the mountains, which I do almost every day. But it is just great. They are so funny and cute and lovely.
Having the girls here has opened up a lot of new things. We
have the other children from the children’s home coming over a lot more than
they ever have before. They are here to
study English because they know we teach it almost every night. It is what I always wanted but they have
never been comfortable enough to just come over. Gavin teaches math twice a
week to the boy who will come live with us next year. He is our boy genius. It is ridiculous how fast he learns.
Gavin has been teaching about Revelation in Sunday school. He has been using the vivid imagery in
Revelation to teach. Every week the
students are put in groups to read sections and draw a picture representing the
text. The first week was 7 pictures of Jesus with the final one being Jesus as
he is pictured in Revelation. The one
that got my attention was the picture they drew of Jesus in the manger. If you
look at this picture you notice that Jesus is under a house built on
stilts. It is a house like the ones they
grew up in in the village and under the house is where they keep the
animals. It is amazing to see the bible
stories from their prospective. Last
week they made a model of the throne room of heaven as described in Revelation
4 and 5. They made the 24 elders out of yogurt cups and ping pong balls. It looks beautiful.
We have felt that God’s new direction for us is, for a while, to focus
on helping about 5 or 6 children who will come to live with us. For years,
I have been helping a lot of
children to go to school and come to know God. We will continue to do that with
the 35 children who live here now at the children’s home. However, I never knew what a poor education
they get here in Mae Chaem until I worked in their school and saw it first-hand. Education is key for them and for the gospel
to be preached here in Thailand. The
Karen are mostly Christian and Bible schools are pumping out hundreds of Karen
graduates every year. The problem is
that the Thai people do not respect or listen to them because they are usually
poor and uneducated and speak with broken Thai language that educated Thai’s
despise. It is important that the
Christians become educated and “successful” in order to preach and finance the
gospel themselves. The children we have
chosen have either exceptional intelligence and/or exceptional drive. These 5 or 6 children are now the focus of
what we do and our plans for the future.
We are going to do whatever we can to make sure they get the best
education that we can afford to give them.
Our ultimate dream is to start a Christian school here in Mae Chaem but
we don’t have even close to the Thai staff and educated Christian teachers we
need to do that now. We hope by helping
a few right now, in the future we will be able to profoundly help many others.
We appreciate your prayers and support. We have come a long way since arriving here
in May. Honestly, Gavin and I talked
about going back to the US quite seriously.
It seemed like everything we were doing was totally futile and a waste
of our time. But now everything has
changed and I don’t remember a time of having such a full heart and a joyful
life in all my years as a missionary.
God is closer to me than ever before and I know without doubt He is
guiding us and with us every moment. We
are in His will and that is all I have ever wanted.
Man, Bai, Orn
and Nok with
Gavin in the
back
|
On a funny note, as I was preparing to send this email, the girls
called us in for a lunch they had prepared.
Imagine our surprise that our lunch is a soup made from potatoes (which
we rarely have here), pumpkin, ramen noodles served over rice. I think we have had our carbohydrates for the
day.
Love,
Candace
Theknowteam.org for donations.
1 comment:
nice blog
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