God Bless Tao (Star)

    God has been showing me so many things these last couple of months. There have been many highs and many lows.  One thing that has happened recently is a young 14 year old girl from Cambodia snuck over as an illegal alien and came to know the Lord at our little Church plant in Checkinsow  (Bethel Church).  It’s great I know, but the magnitude of the event was astronomical for me and Jillian. 

  We have been working at TLC for five months, teaching English and babysitting and had not yet seen anyone come to the Lord.  It’s true that the work that I am doing may never bear fruit before my eyes and that only the Lord knows whats what when it comes to planting seeds.  The night that Jillian and I were getting ready to go to Bethel Church, some of the MEI team from Canada, was coming with us.  I was so tired and irritated and for the first time genuinely didn’t want to go and do a vbs (sigh).

    Jillian and I prayed that God would just give us something to help us along and be encouraged.  It’s so great how God provides for us when we call out to Him in genuine distress.  All I wanted was to continue to do my best but in my own stenght, I had nothing left to give.

     So, we all loaded up and did the vbs.  Everything went well, not amazing but well.  While we were working, this scared little group of kids walked into the church. Louise told us that they were here illegally and that her friend was taking care of all three of these little kids.  Tao (Star)  was the oldest and she was so pretty, but dang shy and for some reason I gravitated toward her and just wanted to make her feel comfortable.  I prayed for her many times that night.  

     When she was about to leave with her brother and sister she gave me a huge hug that came from deep within her and when she went to say goodbye to Louise,  Louise asked her if she had ever heard of Jesus Christ.  Doaw had heard and really wanted to pray the prayer.  So right there in the middle of my favorite church plant, her precious soul was saved and I got to be there with the the MEIer’s  who praised God with everthing they had and I know were changed forever.

God Bless Bing Bing

I finally got to meet the new girl who just arrived at A.L.H (Abundant Life Home) her name is Bing Bing! She is seven years old and looks like she is four, but her face is precious.  Karen told me a little of her story and it is quit amazing!  She lived on the streets with her mother and was forced to beg for food, she also has HIV.  Fortunately, the only evidence of that life style is a slightly protruding stomach which is a sign of malnourishment.

When Jillian and I decided to go and meet her, we brought all the girls coloring books and crayons that we got at the local book store. As we came up to the house, the three girls (Du-aun, Oiy and Noon) raced out to see us.  They were so excited to get our gifts and immediately sat down to start coloring.  Pa Nom, the girls house mom came out to see us and Bing Bing was hiding behind her leg. That precious girl was so nervous to meet a white person and she reminded me of a scared little mouse.   When she came over to get the book… she was so Brave! We  only stayed and colored with the girls for a little while, and then left, not wanting to overstay our welcome. 

The next day we got a call from Karen. She told us that all four of the girls had lice and she asked if we could come over and pick the lice from their heads! On Thursday, all four of us TREKKer’s went to the girls home with juice boxes for them from seven eleven.  I spent the next two hours picking lice from Bing Bing’s head as she watched a movie on the floor. At one point, Karen’s daughter Tassanee Sanchez (age 9) asked Bing Bing if anyone had ever picked the lice from her head before she came to A.L.H. Bing Bing thought about it for a while and then shook her head “no”.  For some reason, Bing Bing’s answer made me very sad.  By the time I was done with her head, she was sprawled out on the floor asleep, with her head in my lap. Bing Bing and I really bonded that afternoon. She was so afraid of me on that first day, but now when she sees me she runs and gives me hugs. 

I think Bing Bing’s story is a lot like becoming a Christian. You spend your life begging and craving for something more. Suddenly, your plucked from that place and taken to another place, filled with real love and real joy. At first, you can’t help being afraid, not understanding and not believing that that love is for real, but as time goes on, you consistantly see how much your life has changed.  You start to meet people who want to love you and support you, people who want to care for you and believe in you. You might even meet people who are willing to pick lice from your head.

           

ALH(Abundant Life Home)

God Bless the ALH Boys!

I have been blessed to have the opportunity to work with some of the nicest boys in Thailand…well at least that I have met anyway. It is now mine and my team mate Jillian’s responsibility to take care of the five orphans (ages 12-14) and Apilak a one year old little boy, at the Abundant Life Home every Friday and Saturday.  This is fun, but not at all an easy thing to do.

There names are:

• June (Joon)
• Golf  (Gulp)
• Thoa (Daow)
• Mac
• Bunn

These boys have all been diagnosed with HIV except for Apilak, who did have HIV and then one day was miraculosly healed!

It is our responsibility to feed the boys, make sure they do their chores, go to bed etc. The hardest thing that we MUST do, is remember to give them their medicine at exactly 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. this is very expensive medicine that is being donated by a generous company and is many hundreds of dollars.

I don’t really have a problem giving the boys their medicine because all we do is wake them up and they do the rest. The only thing that is so hard for me, is giving June his eye drops. June was born with serious eye and ear complications and he has extreme allergies that irritate his eyes (there is  a chance he could go blind).

Every time I have to give him the eye drops, he goes through the same routine. First he hides the bottle, then he hides himself and then he buries his face, but in the end he just sits back and accepts the obvious pain, in order to be healed. Although it hurts me to see this pain, I know what is best for him.

I have been thinking a lot about the pain that we experience in our lives

We are blind! God knows the cure.  Although it hurts God to administer the treatment, He will heal us if we ask. We can  hide our sickness in the dark and never admit our problems, hide our bodies from God’s sight and refuse all help. Or lay down at the foot of the cross and say, “heal me!”

Love,

          Fauna

First post on Thailand

Thailand is a great place!

I have been in Bang Sean now for two weeks and I  love it here. For the most part, it is a pleasure. Diana and Michelle live about 20 minutes away, in some remote fishing village…roughing it. So it is just me and Jillian working together at TLC, she’s truly a great roommate and we get along better than I ever could have hoped. We work hard every day getting ready for these English classes that we are going to be teaching starting on the 20th.

I have had some amazing experiences already! There is this wonderful church an hour away, in the middle of the slums. Bethel…pronounced (Bet El) by the Thai people is a little town that is literally the least reached area in all of Thailand! Me and Jillian have gone to this teeny church twice and it is amazing. We teach 30 kids English and Bible stories (quit typical of the ministries here in Thailand.) The amazing thing about Bethel is that 15 of those kids have come to know the Lord in the last month. When I watch them leave at the end of our time together, it amazes me to think that those 15 kids are God’s disciples. These kids go and tell their friends about Jesus and are slowly bringing light to the least reached part of Thailand. Those kids are spots of light in the dark area!

Although Thailand was the last place I wanted to go and I cried almost every night for a week, after I found out. God has opened my eyes to see the beauty that I missed the first time. God has healed a wound inside of me and I would NOT change this experience for the world.

God bless Thailand!