Awesome Times at the House of Grace

 We just spent the last two weeks at the House of Grace in Nan province- North-east Thailand. The House of Grace is a children’s home that takes in kids who live in remote villages where they have no chance to get an education. The kids live in the house 10 months of the year and go to school at the local public school. There were 35 kids in the house from ages 7-18. The house is run by an amazing Thai Christian family who disciple and care for the kids. We had an amazing time here and fell in love with all the kids! Our kids also had a great time because there were lots of toys and fun stuff for them to do. 

Here are the boys playing on the swing-set.

The kids were incredibly hard working and industrious here. They all knew how to cook over open fires and had many other skills. Here are a few boys cooking up some mystery meat over the fire! (There is a lot of mystery meat in Thailand!!!)

Thailand is a land of dogs! I have never seen so many dogs in my life! Jonny loves them all, but this dog Rambo was particularly special to Jonny boy.

I wish I could have gotten better pics of the property, but there were chickens and chicks running around everywhere- dogs, cats, you name it! There was also an open drain that the kids thought was very cool! The kids really did have a blast here!

Our team ran a discipleship class for the kids each evening. Here we are on the last night praying for the students.

Here are some of the girls reading from the sourceview bible (the one that is broken into 4 speaking parts- its very fun to read aloud!)

Even though our kids can't speak Thai they had a lot of fun playing with the kids. There was always someone interested in entertaining the "farang" kids (Thai term for foreigner)!

Here I am shredding a coconut with one of the girls. Holy smokes, this is a lot of work! We are so spoiled that we can afford to just buy shredded coconut in the store in the West!

One of our main activities during the day was to go around to the local public schools and teach English. This was an incredible opportunity to share the gospel. These schools are all buddhist schools but we were able to openly share the Good News and pray for the students in each class simply because we were teaching English! My partner Thaisa and I taught the students the Bible story of the Good Shepherd. We taught vocabulary from the story and then read the story to the students in English with Thai translation. We then explained the story and I would often share my testimony, giving a clear salvation message. We ended each class with prayer and then were able to hand a Thai children’s tract to each child at the end.

This was such an AMAZING opportunity to share the gospel and plant seeds in the lives of hundreds of kids who have likely never heard the gospel before. I am still shocked that we were able to do this in a public school. The teachers and students were so thankful to have us there. It was an experience I will never forget. Here are some more pictures from our two weeks in Nan.

Thaisa and I teaching English :)

Before we would split up into classes to teach English we would get to do a general assembly with the kids where we would sing Christian songs, perform a drama, and share testimonies. Here they are praying after a testimony time.

Ki-Wook sharing a testimony with our wonderful translator Lim :)

We have just recently moved down to central eastern Thailand in preparation for crossing into a new nation. This nation is communist and closed to the gospel or evangelism so I will not be able to post while we are there. Jody and I will also have to temporarily close our Facebook accounts to avoid being recognized as missionaries. We will be back in Thailand at the beginning of March and my plan is to write a few posts while we are away and post them once we are back in Thailand. Please be in prayer for our team that we would be able to usher the presence of God into this nation and encourage the underground believers. Also pray that we would have opportunities to share the Good News. We are allowed to talk about our faith if the conversation is initiated by the person we are talking to, so we are praying that we would have lots of these types of opportunities!

Thank you all for your continued support and prayer! Please keep praying for us as we are feeling the weariness that comes from moving around all the time. We know that God is moving and we are so excited to continue to do his work here in Southeast Asia, but we need prayer covering that “we don’t grow weary in doing good.” Love to you all!!!

A Thai snake! The boys loved finding this!!! Not poisonous ;)

We got to attend the Church of the family who runs the children's home. It was a wonderful time of fellowship. I love praising God with an international body of Christ!!!

Christian is an 18 year old Brazilian on our team and our kids adore him! He is a big help to us :) 

Every time we take the kids out there is an inevitable "Asian Swarm" that will begin to form!

Jody making friends with the locals :)

The boys get fed treats everywhere they go! They have come to expect it, which is something we need to continually remind them about! Don't ask for treats, we tell them, but they always end up being given something anyways!!!