Back at it!
Psalms 147:3 – He heals the brokenheartedand binds up their wounds.
I know a lot of people who are in the same field as us don’t like to share stories about the abuse and situations that our kids get into. In the past I have been quick to share and it has caused a little bit of pain in the past. I have decided that I will share stories but I will change names and not post pictures of the kids that are going through the tough things. I like to share the stories because it gives you an idea of the things that we have to go through and help the children out of, while at the same time exposing you to the depravity of man and our need for a Savior.
We also encourage our kids, once they are older, to find the courage and strength,in Jesus to be able to share their own story. Even though their story is unique to them, there are many people who are going through the same things who feel alone and like there is no hope. We hope that their story will help others realize that even though you are going through these things, you can come out of it normal and be able to see God’s hand in it!
I would like to share an upsetting story about a few of our girls that happened just this month…
We got a call from one of our older girls. She had been back at her home for awhile because school was online and while we were in the states getting Evangeleen healthy, Chompoo needed to have as few kids as possible to keep her sanity.
In the call she said that she has been feeling very uncomfortable and that her step father, the only father she had ever known, was looking at her like she was a “real woman”. She had caught him outside of her room at night looking in with a headlamp a few times and he was always saying things like, “Why are you studying so hard? You’re just going to be a prostitute” “Drop out and go get started in your career(prostitution)” “You’re not smart, stop trying” and many other things I could not ever imagine anyone ever saying to anyone.
She said she had been contemplating suicide for the last few months and she feels hopeless and alone. We asked her why she hadn’t called us sooner and she said she knew everything we were going through with Evangeleen and didn’t want to add to our burden because she knew how bad it was for us. We reassured her that she wasn’t a burden and that if she died or something bad happened to her we would be very sad and that would be much harder for us to deal with. We told her it doesn’t matter where we are in the world, that if she is in trouble we will work something out for her to be able to get out of a situation like this, she just needs to call. We dropped everything and drove 7 hours to go get her.
As we were driving we were talking to her and her mom. We started asking about the younger sister who is 7 yrs old and she is the father’s real daughter. We found out that he was touching her and playing with her in a weird way, but no one had seen anything wrong. We decided that it would be best if she came with us anyway because we weren’t sure what exactly was going on.
When we arrived at their house I prayed the father wouldn’t be there! How do you hear all of this and be ok with it? This girl has been my daughter for years and I have to hear these things! How do I respond to that in a Godly way? Then I remembered a scene from a movie I saw, “Free Burma Rangers” (The best christian movie you will ever see FYI)
In this movie, 2, 20 yr old women Karen teachers, are raped and murdered. David Eubanks, the creator of Free Burma Rangers is sent the pictures and is very, very angry that this happened. He shows the pictures to his soldiers and they are all visibly upset. Then he prays a prayer that I had to pray for myself, which says:
“I do want to kill all the Burma army, no question in my mind,” he says, his head bowed in prayer. “Help me know how to forgive them. I don’t know how to do it. I only dare do that because you commanded it. I don’t want to forgive them, I just want to kill ’em. But I’ll obey you Lord, so help me to forgive them and to love them.”
He wasn’t there, which made it much easier to forgive and to get the girls to be able to come to our house. Praise God!
She(7 yr old) was with us for about a week when she went up to Chompoo while we were sitting at the breakfast table and this exchange happened:
Girl: “God can forgive my sins, right?”
Chompoo: “Yes”
Girl: “All I have to do is ask for forgiveness, right?”
Chompoo: “Yes”
Girl: “Do I have to apologize to the one I hurt?”
Chompoo: “Yes”
Girl: “Well, I did that and he still won’t leave me alone!”
Chompoo: “Who?”
Girl: “My dad, he still keeps teasing me!”
Chompoo: “Teasing you how?”
Girl: “He pulls the blankets off me at night…”
Chompoo: “What happens after that?”
Girl: “I forgot already”
We were all sitting there and heard this exchange in disbelief. To all of us adults sitting there listening to this we heard what she didn’t say and assumed that she was telling us without telling us what has been happening.
It is so hard to see someone so innocent and know the pain she has and will be dealing with for the rest of her life. As a father your goal is to protect your daughter(s) from pain and hurt, not to inflict it! How lost in sin do you have to be to want to do those kinds of things to your own 7 yr old daughter!!! I cannot believe that someone would do that! As I contemplated all of this I sat looking at Evangeleen and I could not for the life of me understand how someone could do such a thing! But I realized we are in the final stages and sin has complete control, it is only going to get worse and everytime we hear a sad story just a little later we hear one much worse.
We praise God that she is with us now and her and Evangeleen are inseparable! They were instant BFFs! It is amazing to see the happiness and joy on her face to play everyday! It will be a joy to see the changes that love will bring to her life.
We also got another little boy who is 8 yrs old. When we moved into the house where we are currently living the Thai man who takes care of the property did not like us. When we went and looked at the property he later told the agent(who is a good friend of mine)that we were a group of crazy christians trying to brian wash teenagers.
Well, it has been almost 3yrs now and he has got to know us and loves us. He has seen that our kids are smart and focused and aren’t wrapped up in all the things all the kids in the village are wrapped up in. He was so impressed that when he met one of his nephews, whose mother abandoned at 1 month old and father abandoned when he met a new wife, suggested that he come live with us. We were very hesitant because this could quickly turn into a bad situation for us with his family so close, but they were very persistent and kept bringing him over. We got to know him and kept praying for him and when the time was right we brought him into our family.
It has been great to see him grow in the short time we have had him and he is a great kid. Everyone calls him “Katoey” which means ladyboy or transvestite and they say he acts like a girl. It’s a little troubling for me because I don’t think you can know that at 8yrs old. He seems like a normal boy to me, but I have to be aware and if it does turn out to be true, how do you raise someone like that to love God. Forgive me if I have offended anyone with this and I know my words might not be PC, but I have not had much experience with this type of thing and all I want to do is love this little boy.
So, with just these 2 kids we have our hands full and we continue to grow! Within the next 2 weeks we will be adding 2 more kids and we have 4 new ones altogether this year, along with all the kids we had last year. It will be interesting to see what happens and how these kids grow. School starts this year on May 15 and we have 1 starting her senior year of college, 2 starting their senior year of High School and some in just about every grade of school.
Prayer list:
- House and property for us in the South of Thailand
- Wisdom on how to raise these kids to love God
- The ability to travel back to the states every year for Evangeleen’s Doctor
- A husband for Chompoo who would want to expand our ministry
