Under the Cross

Lately, many people have asked, "So, I noticed there are Buddhist idols at your school, why is that?" While my mouth gives the black and white answer in my mind I think about what those idols represent. They are symbols of a lie of the devil that we daily fight against. How daily we live and work under the loving eyes of our all-seeing Father as well as in front of the unseeing work of man's hands.

On the surface, we are just a school. Underneath there is so much more.

I have Buddhist children who during FUN reading when they get to pick anything they want choose my English Children's Bible. When they've looked in that Bible they get the Thai Children's Bible and read about the stories. My boy from the mountains who has trouble speaking Thai sits next to this boy and tells him the Bible stories that he knows. When the daughter of an woman suffering from cancer who is also an ex-prostitute comes to join my class I'm thankful I get to speak into her life. I have a little girl who was just taken from her father and his girlfriend (who is a man who has decided to become a woman) because of abuse and other illegal activity. I have a boy whose parents abandoned him, and one whose parents are in jail.

Everyday our team speaks into their lives. In all the languages we speak we tell them they can overcome. With all our efforts we show them they are worth it. With every ounce of His energy we pour His love on them.

For many of them we are their only hope. Their only hope of coming to know Christ Jesus as Savior. Their only hope of receiving a good education and not being left behind. Their only hope of a better future and a life different from their parent's.

Everyday we fight to be light in the darkness. We pray that the entrenched tradition of Buddhism and the unseeing, unhearing, unknowing statues which represent it will one day be cast down. That its influence will no longer blind our children or their families to the truth of Christ.

So at times when it seems like we live under the darkness of the idols and the lies of the devil which pervade this country, we have to remember that really we live under the cross, the victorious and gracious cross of Christ. That Christ on the cross ransomed and redeemed all who will come to Him. That He is the light in this darkness, the hope for these precious ones, and the Savior of every nation.

Flood of Kindness

Kindness: an expression of God's heart spoken into our daily lives. In the midst of the struggle, in the grit of everyday, through the mist of tears...a light shines through.



Kindness takes many forms and can be seen in the shape of...



Little known friends bumped into in a restaurant who send a special dessert to our table for Valentine's Day.



A Thai principal of our school who takes our car in the middle of the day to get our air con fixed so we can survive the heat.



A thoughtful handwritten letter from a friend in the States.



A roommate who picks up french fries as a special treat for us (because she knows how much I love them) even though she's already had a long busy day.



A man from a ministry down the road who gave up at least six hours to figure out and fix my computer.


Friends from Australia who are here working hard for our school, who have continually bought dinner for us even though we agree that next time will be our turn to pay.


My student and his mother and Khruu Ooy who all dropped what they were doing and came to help us after our car accident.

Our boss's wife giving us Honey Bunches of Oats when she got a two pack for a good price. (Cereal is expensive and so we only eat care package cereal).

Weeks like these when kindness floods over my life I'm reminded of the prayer of a young girl in Africa. A girl who prayed that the Lord would send that afternoon a hot water bottle to keep a motherless newborn alive and a doll for his older sister...just so she would know that God really loved her. Even though the missionary (Helen Roseveare) doubted that the prayer would be answered, she arrived home to find a box from her home country (the first in four years) that against all odds contained a hot water bottle and a doll, sent five months before so that God could answer the young girl's faith filled prayer. God cares about answering the prayers of His people no matter how young and has compassion on us and does wonderful things...just so that we know He loves us.

The cool thing is that we as His people are often allowed to share in His outpouring of love. Sometimes He allows us to be the vessels through which He shows His compassion, kindness, and love. The people mentioned above have shown me this week by their kind actions the nail scarred hands of my Savior and His love.

"It doesn't matter whether I travel 6,000 miles or just twenty minutes from home....What matters is whether the people we meet matter to us as much as they matter to God."

Helen Roseveare

Children of Light

Our school this year is super small...which I love. One of my favorite things about the smallness of the school is the close knit group of students that has been created. We have thirteen students and it isn't uncommon to see sweet scenes such as the following:

The fifth grade boy racing a first grade girl...

The fourth grade girl giving a piggy-back ride to a first grade girl...

Brother and sister laughing together...

Girls from every grade being silly together...



The whole school chasing some poor frogs around the pond area...

These pictures represent to me something beautiful...life lived together. Not caring about the distinctions of age, or economic class, or religion. One of my prayers for these precious students is "for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord." Ephesians 5:8-10

I pray that in living life together with us they may desire to come out of the darkness that claims their country, into the Light of our loving Father. I pray that together we would all learn what is pleasing to the Lord that we may glorify Him.