An On-Purpose Family

 Oh I miss them so much!!!

And I have to admit, when this whole thing in Thailand started in 2008, I honestly could not have imagined where it would go.  The degree to which this connection with our family at Hot Springs feels like an over the top, extra gift from a lavish God in terms of this being extended family – like very lavishly extended family – what a surprise.

I may be serving as Highview’s interim pastor right now, and delighted for the opportunity to be in the thick of that right now.  But the real calling of this latter part of my life is what happens at Hot Springs under the umbrella of New Family Foundation.

And just to remind us, or in case anyone new to what we're doing is reading this:

New Family Foundation is the name of the charitable organization set up by Pastors Suradet and Yupa with their own Thai Board of Directors beginning in March of 2018.  Highview Community Church in Kitchener ON Canada came alongside Suradet and Yupa in their care of orphan and at risk children in northern Thailand for the first 10 years under a different organization.  When Suradet and Yupa made the change, we made the commitment to continue that support and remain the Canadian connection.  That’s when I stepped into the position of being the Canadian Representative for New Family Foundation under the umbrella of Highview where I serve as Missionary in Residence. 

Now, for clarity sake, you will also often hear us refer to our family there as being at Hot Springs.  That’s the name of the Church Suradet and Yupa planted about 15 years ago and where the children were first welcomed to come live with them on the property.  So New Family Foundations/Hot Springs, we often use that interchangeably.

That means each child we care for has a Canadian Sponsor.  And it means that, under normal circumstances, I travel there two to three times a year.

But then came Covid.

 It’s a remarkable thing to realize how much into ourselves we’ve been here in the West as a result of Covid-19.  Understandable.  This pandemic has disrupted our lives for a long, long time, and we’re focused on what our own governments are doing, how it impacts our own kids at school, our own case numbers, our own rolling out of the vaccine. 

But it’s called a global pandemic for a reason, and in fact one of the first cases of Covid-19 outside of China was identified in Thailand. 

That was back when Megan and Norma and Esther where there with me.  The last time we were there back in January 2020. 

Since then Thailand has reported remarkably low numbers of the virus.

And I won’t give statistics because they are changing all the time.  But if you look it up you will likely be quite amazed at the comparison of case numbers and deaths between Canada and Thailand, especially considering that Thailand has approximately twice the population as Canada.

How do we account for this?  There will be studies I’m sure.  And it might be impossible to be able to determine every factor.  I think a few big differences between Canada and Thailand that may account for their better success in handling the pandemic would be things like having a very compliant culture that listens to public health restrictions, having a no-touch greeting, a practice of already wearing masks to guard against pollution in the cities, and most importantly, the fact that they do not care for their elderly in institutions but in their own homes. 

Take all that for what it might mean.  Just an interesting study on how culture may affect human experience during a pandemic.

For our kids specifically, during the initial wave, the children were already on their school break from mid March to mid May, when most of our kids go back to spend time with any family they still have, many in the mountains.  This was actually a safe place for them to be, remote and unexposed with everyone in the village staying put.

At first all they did was delay the start of school, but by the end of May the Thai government was able to switch to online learning, and our kids were called back to Hot Springs.

I will let you know that we lost two our kids in that space.  One Praweet, his grandmother was too afraid to send him back to be ‘close to the city’, and kept him home.  Makes me sad.  He was just a little stinker.  Another, Min, had been staying with her brother the whole time, and was not able to adjust to the back and forth of schooling online and then in the classroom.   

I tell you that so you can know that our Sponsors sign up to give a piece of their hearts away to children whose circumstances can often be unpredictable.  In the infrastructure that we’re working with, there is no legal custody situation here.  Just need to be reminded of that.  Full disclosure.

So for the first part of this school year for them, which began in May, Suradet and Yupa were doing remote learning for 20 kids (18 Sponsored children and two Staff children). 

Just let that sink in for a second.

No laptops were being supplied by the school boards there.  We were able to get them three extra computers, since the one school computer we have there in the study room, and the one computer Suradet and Yupa have for their own ministry and personal use, just wasn’t going to cut it.  This money came in so quickly when we put the word out.  Thank you so much for those who made this happen. 

By July the children were back in class.  Early in January there was another two week stint of remote learning.  But right now, as of this taping at least, the children have once again returned to in class learning.

Whew!

The situation with Covid is a constantly changing dynamic, as we all know.  So we will keep you posted as much as possible as things change.

Next...the New Property Development.

Just a quick back story.

In 2014 there was a military coup in Thailand that remains in effect with ongoing challenges to the monarchy and protests and all of it still being a ‘thing’. 

One of the changes in this new regime was to crack down on charitable foundations, especially ones that claimed to be supporting children but were actually using that as a front for the drug industry and child sex trafficking.  So a good clamp down.  But what it meant we have to get these kids situated on ‘deeded’ property, and the sooner the better.

That new property is basically down the road, closer to the schools and only about five minutes away from the church.

The story of this property and how we have obtained it is rather long and convoluted, and I have been keeping everyone up to date through blogs over the past four years.  Yes, that’s how long we’ve been working on this.  Thank you for everyone who has prayed for us to receive the deed, and to Evelvation Church in Waterloo for partnering with us in building the road.

We have already received some funding towards digging the well, installing electricity, and building the required wall around the property from Grace Presbyterian, C3 Kitchener.

These are good starts.  But we need to finish paying off the property and get started on our building.   That’s going to take a hunk of money, and the final amount keeps changing based on inflation and other factors.  Sometimes, if I let myself forget that God’s been all over this from the beginning, and He’s way bigger than any challenge, I can become a tad intimidated.

But I am encouraged that recently we received the opportunity to do a dollar matching deal.  We have a donation of $20,000 that the donor will match dollar for dollar.  That would give us $40,000.00, hopefully by August, to make a good dent in the total amount.

I won’t get into the details quite yet about how you might participate, except to say, please be watching for that communication.  So for every dollar you give, it goes twice as far.

Where does all this lead us during a global pandemic?

Achy.  At least I am.  There's no end of work to do on this end, so I'm not bored or restless.  

Just...

I miss them so much.

Or did I say that already.