In 2008 we were timidly getting to know each other. They were just children, at-risk but now gathered under the roof of a ridiculously compassionate couple who had suffered poverty themselves as children; people I was also just getting to know.
And now.
Miki is married.
Entorn is married.
Both stepping into this next responsibility of adult life with hope and optimism that comes from having been well fed, well loved and well educated in the context of a stable, grace-filled family. A solid platform on which they can each build their own families now.
Gotta love it when this happens!!! And we celebrate and congratulate and praise the God of sparrow-focused compassion Who gifted us with their care when they were so vulnerable.
"These are my children. Do something!" I heard it as clearly as we ever hear these things we claim God spoke to us. "Feed my sheep." That's how Suradet says he heard it.
So we did.
And on wedding days full of joy and flowers and sunshine, it feels so good to have followed those leadings. It's all worth it when you can see the clear fruit of your investments.
And also.
I won't, but I could list you names of children that left our care prematurely. We didn't get to see them to that place of strength where you can launch with confidence into a future that isn't determined by poverty. Children who's living family members don't have the capacity to understand the need for education and take them back to send them to work to make money for the household. Children who's living family members got too terrified of COVID and were convinced the safest place was to stay isolated in the mountains. True orphans who's elder siblings made things more complex. Children who's academic struggles brought their living relatives 'shame', hindering our attempts to find special education opportunities. I could go on. Each of these premature goodbyes still stings.
I have friends who are foster parents in Canada, in a system way more structured and legal than anything we work with in Thailand, who say the same things are in play for them. We don't call these children 'vulnerable' for nothing. Life everywhere, life there, is so complex. And generational poverty does its damnedest (bad word intended). We make agreements with living family members, but we do not override the authority of blood relatives. We are in no way like a 'residential school.'
So we do what we can do.
And sometimes they grow up and leave to go to university or solid jobs, and keep coming 'home' for holidays and family meals, and find life partners and marry them, and we are so happy and quick to say "yay God" for this!!! And we should.
But my heart is often drawn back to the other ones. I still pray for them by name.
Love like you won't get hurt, but you do.
And I write these things today because you really can't have one and ignore the other. Because it's really a thing to be authentic and tell both kinds of stories. Because we are entrusted with so much, and absolutely must be honest about it all. To our supporters. To ourselves.
And a huge, huge thank you to Sponsors and Supporters who get it, who stick with us when it's complicated. Without you, we couldn't be there for any of them.
