Jenny doesn't know how to drive but I'm learning give us exposition what are we doing right
now learning every day right now I have about 35 children in the back of my truck and we
are going to Sunday night worship and it's awesome it's so exciting I'm very thankful
to Judah that he trusts me driving his kids around I feel like it's pretty feel pretty
trusted we're driving around the road we're in and we are yeah we're driving down the
road the scale of 1 to 10 how secret is that location oh I just gave it away yeah you might
need to bleep that out it's some secret you couldn't even find it on Google Maps if you
wanted to I could except for Nathan who could and also probably the location info and the
camera for anyone else probably not the past couple of weeks we came down to Thailand we've
been working with help save the kids I went on the trip just to love people and yeah just
to do what I could to be a blessing to them and I went to Guatemala with the same group
same church at least and it was awesome the last two weeks I've been in Thailand I've
been working with help save the kids we were there to help take photos and take some footage
so that they could have some advertising photos for what they're doing there on this specific
trip the love just looked like building relationship with the kids and with Diane and Judah and
just yeah just really growing close to them and just laughing and having fun and just being
free Diane and Judah are a mother and son team and they've created a family unit and
people are welcome in and they treat their kids as their own kids I know them for seven
years ago and I know that they are like they have a heart really have a heart about the
children and about the ministry yeah Ray is awesome he's just really gentle guy just really
nice really sweet I'm a teacher as well like a teaching the children and also I'm a pastor
of the church don't have anything bad to say about him he's just really cool Diane's just
like a mom to everyone you know she's just great and it was late in the day and the son
was going down and he was feeling hungry and she's just so kind and and so sweet and just
loving and just a true example of I think how we should love people and he does funny
and he's unlike anyone I've ever met he gets things done in a very interesting way but
everything gets accomplished yeah originally I'm from Australia I had the opportunity while
I was in school to travel throughout Thailand on trips with other classmates there's about
20 of us each year and yeah I went back and I finished up school and went on to do business
and trade and 2006 I decided that I would give it all and head to Thailand and at the time
I thought I'd just go for a year and do something that's kind of challenging to myself and
different than the norm and see what I can you know do for people in that year and in
the first nine months I was really just rocked by what is possible for a person to do and
decided that this was something that I wanted to commit my life to out here in Thailand
and well I'm right on the Thai-Burma border I came out here with the idea of education
for Korean children from Burma I wasn't sure how that was going to happen but I had met
Korean people quite a few years before that and had relationships all up and down this
border and so came back to see what I could do the thing that was on my heart though was
certainly education we were able to with agreement from leadership on both sides we
were able to bring children across and further their education here.
What's it called? Maybe Canada? If they see the yellow snow they don't eat it.
I think that when they come they're very serious that's one of the first they were very obedient
unusually obedient kids but also very serious they'd never had toys really to play with
as children they hadn't had that kind of educational development that we just take for granted
in the West we give children toys from when they're born they had not had that kind of
education the education system in Burma is wrote learning and so they had not had creative
education to think in that that much broader way and to reason it was not a part of their
education system and so that really was perhaps the biggest change that's taken place as we've
lived with the kids and I think that that by living with them that's immersion into
the English language and so they learn English really quickly because every day we're with
them every day we speak with them they also learn Thai and Scorcharan and Burmese so
they have five languages most of them have if not more but they learn language quick
because they all interact with the different languages and so in any one day you'll hear
them you'll hear different languages in the house as they speak to one another.
The kids that come here are from the poor Karen group from Burma after really four years
of education the children are really expected to begin to work they work in the fields their
parents work in the fields that's really the kind of most of them would expect that that
would be their life. I just think when I grow up I will be working in the agriculture place
and help my parents like this I do not have any dream about a graduate or something like
that. They come from a rural background but also life is difficult from when they're very
young age they've got responsibilities at home of fetching water there is no running
water in their homes there's no electricity in their homes because of the 60 year war
that's been happening in inside Burma that kind of hardness and difficulty of life many
no tragedy loss of family members and the poverty of going hungry.
And I think that for a child that is so important especially a child that has come from atrocities
in civil war that they've come from a place where their families are broken their families
are hurting their parents have been hurt and so they become herders and it's this snowball
effect I think within families that there is not there is not freedom shared.
Well we've had a visiting team over the last two weeks so things haven't been the usual
our usual day is schooling plus sports and really lots of other activities but with the
team here we're fairly flexible because we're a small staff and we have 68 kids and so we're
able to just cancel a day's schoolwork and do something else instead and that's what
we've done on a number of days with this visiting team from Calgary.
Yeah when we went to the fair that was pretty sweet we all kind of took a group of about
four kids we were like playing different games the kids were playing the game where you just
throw the dart and like pop the balloon to win a prize and every kid on my team won a
prize so I was pretty stoked about that they all got to go home and something.
Some of my other favorite parts were just teaching them how to skateboard I brought
my skateboard along and they really enjoyed that and just had a lot of fun and the other
part was I painted a mural and just said love and they all helped out prime the wall and
do the fill and I just got to kind of like show them a little bit of like how that goes
and enjoying things that I'm so passionate about.
I think the favorite thing that we did probably for most people was going across Burma.
The kids live at the school away from their families so it's pretty sweet when they get
to go home and see their families because they don't get to see them all the time.
It's really good because we can go together to the kids house and pray and I think the
kids with the family and the kids with their courage encouraging yeah it's really nice
and I try with the kids with the team we work it together.
The trip to the kids homes was amazing and every house we went into they wanted to feed
us they wanted to give us something.
And that was really cool their families were really sweet they were really happy to see
their families I could tell their families just welcome this in with open arms and fed
us and give us drinks and all that stuff and we just kind of got to spend time just sort
of hanging out with them and yeah it was really awesome.
The other thing that we did in the afternoon was to play a football match against the local
hospital staff and that was a return match that had beaten us by one goal on the first
game that we played a month or so ago and so we wanted this return match.
And they were just so passionate about it and the girls would be cheering for them and
their boys just running so hard playing against kids that are probably twice their age and
maybe twice their size.
Yeah the football game was awesome I know the kids are also passionate about football
so it was sweet to get to see them perform and just have a blast and they're really
good they were playing against people who are a bit older than them.
The first half time we weren't there one but the second half they also scored us back
one so we had just one one we did not win.
And it ended up being a draw but I was definitely really proud of how well they played and just
their passion out there and they worked really hard so it was good to see.
And it was a great game though a great match and just it was just fun it was just fun.
So we really had a very good time in the soccer game yeah it was a very good game we just
fellowshiped not the competition but we fellowshiped and decided when New Year's they were to play
with us again.
So we're having another match in the New Year and hopefully that will be our win.
I also have a preschool kindergarten in that area and so we went there to visit.
And it's the first time really that I've spent any length of time with the children
since the school began in June as it's not so not possible to go very often.
If this pre-prime year can do was not here these kids would be left by themselves for
the day while their parents worked they would just have to take care of themselves at this
age they would be responsible for feeding themselves and perhaps yeah at this age they
would be looking after another baby and the parents would be away.
At the preschool we got to see the kids and talk with them and share story with them sing
songs.
It was really sweet because it was like the next generation of the Korean kids that our
kids were teaching and they're just showing them some songs and a couple different games
and the little preschool kids did their song and it was just really adorable.
Felt pretty special you know that they were just sort of giving back to where they came
from and encouraging the next generation of kids that are coming up.
Like five years ago and fifty kids is coming to this side.
When they come they just stand like a roll and no talking because I stay in the house
and the Burma Seer said I must be already arrived I think no I arrived because I did
not hear anything.
Well they came you know and they were very quiet they were very shy they were withdrawn
serious as we expected they would be.
And when I got to see them they just look to you no smiley or anything of that and even
when you go to talk to them and they do not talk to you they just love you very seriously
like they are something very heavy or very scary or they just scare like they will think
what happened with me what will happen with me and they stay like that for maybe few weeks.
We try to learn that and keep that very closely we try to go to talk with them eat with them.
Within two weeks they began to change they knew that they were somewhere so different
and that was what was amazing to them.
They would look around and wait for punishment or they would look around and expect that
they would be in trouble or where they had been you know they still used the stick you
know if children were not good but when they realized that there was no punishment coming
they just began to really loosen up.
You know one night Dade we were having worship and one of our staff he just began to speak
about how much God loved him how he knew that he was so loved it was very very powerful
and when he finished I really felt I needed to offer to these children and I said who
wants to have what Dade has got in his life and they just rushed forward to sit at my
feet and it was really awesome there wasn't one that sat back it was a rush to come forward.
They knew they had heard something that was different they knew they had heard something
they had never heard before a love that they had never come in contact with and it just
so radically impacted them and they came forward and we just prayed for them and they were
never the same again it just was like this gigantic leap forward for them because the
things of the past began to fall away from them and they knew that they had a new future.
Deep down inside of me I really believe that we're here to love one another that it's not
just something that you can hear as a cliche I honestly in the core of my value in the
core of my being after having lived a life that was so selfish for me in Australia and
coming out and realizing that there's different levels of giving of yourself and there's a
point where you give all of you until there's nothing left and you realize that that is
where unconditional love is met and there is no greater love that's the most important
thing for a child is to feel loved and so that love will see that child grow to be someone
that is confident and someone that is significant in this world someone that will be somebody
someone that will see challenges and imagine and dream and all those things are created
out of being in a situation of love and so I really do believe at the core of it all
that we as a people are to love one another unconditionally that there are people out
there waiting to be loved that are waiting to feel the complete acceptance of what it
means in the relationships you know in many of the homes in with many of the parents
there's been tremendous amount of breakdowns and even parents suicide since we've had
children here you know really really traumatic things because life is so difficult they do
not have hope now these kids they have hope there's a lot of love here and I think that's
made a tremendous difference to them they just begin to really understand what joy is
and they have joy to know what it is to play to be kids to be carefree you know as as Christians
we can hope for the impossible we can believe and dream for great things and we've really
encouraged our kids to dream and to hope for a future that's very very different.
I believe at the core of the home now without anyone wanting to enter our home we just
Women have last been your man
That is not the light of God.
