Chucky Cheese!

Hello Friends,

There is so much to tell, and so little time.

It is 12:25am, the end of an extremely long but wonderful day.

Over the past two and a half years Cynthia has a built a great relationship with her house help Jan, this has provided an opportunity for us to teach sunday school to the children living in Jan's village for the past two Sundays. The village she lives in is owned by one man, he is the owner of a major construction company, and everyone living on this piece of land works for him. At the end of our time with the kids today we were shown around a few of the houses. There were many tin roofs, fire pit stoves, wild chickens, shoe-less children, and sweat beads (dripping off almost every body part). Jan mentioned that she and her husband were 'moving up in the world' because they recently got a door for their place. In past conversations we have also been told that Jan's husband is really great at making swimming pools because on a daily basis he helps with the building of huge mansions for foreigners. The idea of spending your entire day building big beautiful homes for others, and then coming home to celebrate finally getting a door for your own house is mind boggling. Turn this idea over in your mind a few times...crazy eh?

We spent two and a half hours playing games, singing songs, acting out bible stories, making crafts and above all, loving on these children. This was our second time with these children; it was great to see their faces again and to really begin to remember their names. We are finding it very difficult to remember people's names because they are just so different from names we are used to. Some of the kids we played with today were Woot, Tang, Doon and Fie.

Woot is an energetic young boy, maybe 10 years old, who was abandoned by his mother at a young age. Apparently she ran off with a foreigner, but its difficult to know all the details. When kids experience such traumatic things at a young age it means that there is no way to really know everything they have been. Woot's father is an alcoholic and doesn't give him a lot of attention, for the most part he is being raised by the house help. It was such a joy to be able to just play, and love this boy... even if it was only for two and a half hours. One of Woot's favourite things to do is to run up behind you and grab your wenis (the flabby skin on your elbow) and yell "Juck-a-gee!" ... which to us sounds a lot like, "Chucky Cheese!". It actually means 'tickle' in Thai. This game catches on pretty quickly, and before you know it were running around holding onto to our wenises (wenises? baha) and screaming "Chucky Cheese!".

We have one more Sunday left with these beautiful children. Pray for protection of their innocence. Pray that these children would receive opportunities today and in the future. Pray that our eyes would be opened to see these children through God's eyes, and that God would truly break our hearts for what breaks His. Pray that we would be able to lavish these children in God's prefect and unconditional love, and above all, that they would know how deeply they are LOVED by their Father.

Thank you for your continued prayer!

In love and light,

Laura