When a place steals your heart, you don’t know how it
happened. Was it the time a student chose to give YOU a stuffed Hello Kitty
doll out of the 600+ students and 30+ teachers he could have chosen from? Was
it the time a 15 year old boy sat on the floor and dumped out the candy jar
looking for his favorites, and you realized it was the first time in his life
he had the opportunity to do that? Was it the chorus of Good Mornings as you
walk through school morning, noon and night? Was it the teacher across the road
who taught you to make so many Thai dishes? Was it the countless bike rides to
the bridge you just can’t understand how it got to be the way it is now? Was it
the students singing Jesus Loves me and I’ve Got the Joy? What was it? What
makes it so you can’t imagine living anywhere else? What makes it so even while
you are visiting the home you were born in, you miss this home? What is it that
makes you feel responsible? Responsible for the lives of the students.
Responsible for them staying in school. Responsible for helping to build a
building. Responsible for building and
maintaining relationships with them. Responsible for teaching them manners.
Responsible for making sure they are fed. Responsible for loving them
unconditionally.
I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But I can tell you what I do know. I am privileged. I am privileged to have been born where I was. To receive the education I received. To be born into the family I was born in. To attend the schools and university that I attended. I am privileged that I had wonderful ministers and youth pastors. I am privileged that I had friends who helped shape me into who I am. I am privileged that God called me. Little me to do His work in Thailand. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like a privilege. Sometimes it feels like a burden. Now is one of those times, I feel burdened to help find scholarships so ten students can continue studying this year, and more the next year, and the year after that. I feel burdened to help build a new building so that the reality of extending through ninth grade can come to fruition. This is where I need to realize my privilege and burden need to come together as one. I am educated. I have friends and family who are educated. I have friends and family who have means to give beyond what I even know they are capable of. I must bring the privilege of my birth together with the burden of helping this place that has stolen my heart. I can’t do this on my own. I must seek His strength and guidance as I ask, and seek people to help. I must pray for the hearts of others to be opened to give, to help, to pray with us. That this dream of opening 7th-9th grade at the school, of having a new building, of having some of our best students be able to stay with us here, might be fulfilled through you.
While I don’t know what it is that made it so
this place stole my heart, I do know that God puts each of us where we are for
a reason. I am here, maybe, just maybe so that I can tell you of an opportunity
to help students receive a Christian education on the other side of the world.
Over the next weeks and months, there are many projects that I anticipate will
come to fruition. I ask that you will continue to check back, to pray, and seek
after how you might take part in changing the lives of these angels (and
monsters) that have stolen my heart. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But I can tell you what I do know. I am privileged. I am privileged to have been born where I was. To receive the education I received. To be born into the family I was born in. To attend the schools and university that I attended. I am privileged that I had wonderful ministers and youth pastors. I am privileged that I had friends who helped shape me into who I am. I am privileged that God called me. Little me to do His work in Thailand. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like a privilege. Sometimes it feels like a burden. Now is one of those times, I feel burdened to help find scholarships so ten students can continue studying this year, and more the next year, and the year after that. I feel burdened to help build a new building so that the reality of extending through ninth grade can come to fruition. This is where I need to realize my privilege and burden need to come together as one. I am educated. I have friends and family who are educated. I have friends and family who have means to give beyond what I even know they are capable of. I must bring the privilege of my birth together with the burden of helping this place that has stolen my heart. I can’t do this on my own. I must seek His strength and guidance as I ask, and seek people to help. I must pray for the hearts of others to be opened to give, to help, to pray with us. That this dream of opening 7th-9th grade at the school, of having a new building, of having some of our best students be able to stay with us here, might be fulfilled through you.
