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Good News of Great Joy
God has woven our story.
When we were preparing to move to Thailand, we told many people the story of how God had been working in our lives for nearly twenty years to bring us to this calling and prepare us for this work. I shared about my hesitation to accept that God would be calling us to move to the other side of the world right when it felt to me that it was time to move into a more settled season for our family.
You see, it was just as we were finishing up on renovations of our first home (a fixer-upper in Colorado) that it was time for Rod to move from his job in law enforcement in CO to work on the family ranch in North Central Nebraska, so we moved to a new home that had recently suffered significant flood damage (an even bigger fixer-upper). It was just about when we were finishing up renovations on the ranch home that we needed to move to town to pour our energy into a new business venture that we were struggling to get off the ground. This move came with another new home: the biggest fixer-upper project yet. I told anyone who came to listen to our story that, as we neared the completion of our latest and greatest home renovation project, I had started to really dig my feet in. “Don’t make me move” became a mantra I repeated in contexts that hardly warranted such “drama.” So when Rod told me he was feeling called to move—not just to a new house and a new job—but to the other side of the world, I did not respond with the ready “Here I am LORD; Send me.” that my 10 year old self had longed for an opportunity to say.
When sharing our story, I admitted that I could see how the hand of God had been preparing my husband for this next adventure in every place he had sent us. Rod’s criminal justice degree, elite police academy training, and work in law enforcement had prepared him for the work he was being called to do in rescuing victims of child trafficking. When managing the family ranch in Nebraska, he had gained expertise in land management that would prove useful in helping to establish self-sustainable practices at the ZOE Child Rescue Center and Children’s Home. The knowledge and skills he developed while operating our own small businesses would also be instrumental in other projects ZOE is currently pursuing. It was not hard to see God’s hand at work in beautiful ways in my husband’s story, and I am sincerely honored that his story is my story, too. Of course we would follow God in this next adventure!
That story I told was true. All of it. But it wasn’t the whole story. There is another very important thread woven into each of those homes we lived in, loved, and left. You see, there was another calling on my life that, in the midst of all our pursuits, sometimes seemed to take the back seat. Relying on God’s sovereignty, I trusted it would all come together in His time…which often seems to be a bit slower than we expect it will be. But this last, biggest move felt like so many doors closing on my own truest calling…and it was difficult for me to make sense of why God would want to do that.
Another Thread
Let me back up a bit. Early in our marriage, we lived in a one bedroom of a house we shared with three of Rod’s fraternity brothers. After that, we spent a few months in a rented house while preparing to move to Thailand for some missions/relief work we were doing. We stayed in too many places throughout our year in Thailand to even count: but none of them were home. When we moved back to America, we rented a great apartment from which we could invest our time in my seminary studies and Rod’s academy training. It was only when we were pregnant with our first child that we moved into our first home. Building each home, for me, was always—really—about building our family.
Let me back up a bit further. When I was a girl, maybe 10 or 11 years old, I read an article in a “Focus on the Family” newsletter that was sitting on our kitchen counter. It was about a large family that had grown with a mix of biological and adopted children. I told God I wanted to have a family like that someday. He told me that is what HE wanted for me as well. I had such confidence in my call to be the mother of a large family that I always struggled to figure out what other kind of career I might pursue or what other dreams or ambitions might be worth pouring my time, energy, and talents into. In an age where little girls were taught to dream big and shoot for the stars, my heart was inescapably drawn to visions of home and family. In the deepest part of my being, I carried around a picture that God gave me of the family I would have one day: The faces were blurry, but there were a lot of them. In case I have not yet made it clear: the truest calling on my life since I was a girl, and the deepest longing of my heart, has been to have a home filled with a big, beautiful family. That desire and calling is the backdrop of every other story my life might tell.
Growing our family according to God’s timing.
While living in our first home in Colorado, we had our first two children. Honestly, compared to stories others tell, those pregnancies were easy. I was made to do that. Because the picture of my family I carried around in my head included many children that did not look like me, however, we pursued adoption next. We saved up and jumped in as soon as we were allowed (based on rules about the ages of other children in the home). Adoption from Thailand is a long, slow process. It wasn’t until 2015 (over three years after moving to our home at the ranch) that we finally brought Jeremiah home. That same year, we completed all the training and home certification to become licensed foster parents. We said “yes” each time we were asked about a placement, but each time another family was found closer to the children’s home or school district. We inquired about children on adoption advocacy lists who were in foster care waiting for a chance for permanency (usually sibling sets and older children). For one reason or another, we never received any of those placements either.
Doors Closing
When we moved to town, we moved into a home that I knew would not pass all the licensing standards without significant work, so we let our foster care license lapse. That move meant closing some doors in the process of growing our family. However, it was also at that time we were in the beginning stages of our next international adoption process. We saw Tallulah and Elijah in an advocacy post on Facebook and agreed they would be the next children we would pursue for adoption into our family. They were living in a special needs orphanage in China and China’s strict adoption policy stated they could be adopted only one at a time. Tallulah came home to our home in Atkinson in May of 2019. We would have to wait a full year (until May of 2020) to submit our application and dossier to adopt Eli. However, COVID shut the world down beginning in February of that year. Since then, we’ve been stalled in our adoption process as one of many waiting families longing to bring their children home from China.
Honestly, every day that passed with no word from China it seemed less likely the program would never re-open. For years, it has seemed unlikely that our adoption of Eli would ever be completed. Still, hope dies hard, so we did what we could to keep that door open. While we prayed that we would see Eli again on the day he became our son, we also prayed about how else God might desire to grow our family and fulfill this calling on my life.
We knew that our move to Thailand would mean we could no longer adopt children through Nebraska foster care. We knew that we would no longer qualify to adopt a child from Thailand as our family is too large for their international adoption program policies. We also knew that, as missionaries, our income would no longer qualify us for many other international adoption programs, even if we were able to figure our way through the red tape of the immigration process for adopting internationally while living in a different foreign country. We also knew that if we would ever have more children biologically, the clock was ticking, as I am now 40 years old. It seemed we were facing so many closed doors.
Our Plans In God’s Hand
We decided to leave both our stalled Chinese adoption and our chance at having more biological children in God’s hands. A pregnancy would disrupt the adoption of Eli but if we waited too much longer, we might no longer be able to have children biologically. We figured that, even if China DID re-open the program, there were so many families “in line” ahead of us (farther along in the process when it shut down), we might even be able to have a baby while waiting. When it came to be our turn to complete the adoption of Eli, that baby might already be a year old and cause no big complication.
It was just days after scheduling Rod’s scout trip to Thailand for the final stage of his interview and employment process with ZOE that I learned I was pregnant! This felt like a confirmation not only of the calling I received as a girl longing for a large family (my family was not done growing!), it also felt like confirmation that both Rod and I were walking into callings that God had prepared in advance for us.
Later, while Rod was in Thailand gaining confirmation and excitement for the journey we were soon to embark on with our family, the newest baby I’d wrapped my whole heart around died inside me.
We moved forward in the hope that God desired to knit another child together in my womb just as much as I desired him to do so. A few months after moving to Thailand, and almost exactly one year after we lost that baby, I visited the doctor for some health issues I was having. I wasn’t sure if what I was feeling was just the result of a drastic change in our diet, the severely polluted air we were breathing, or something else…but I knew something was wrong. Some tests revealed an infection, and when I went in for treatment, the doctor did some further testing and examination. When I left the hospital that day, it was with a diagnosis of Endometriosis: the most common form of infertility in women today.
The only treatments for the symptoms I’d been experiencing were hormonal and would close my womb. I decided instead to deal with the symptoms so that what seemed to be our final opportunity to grow our family would not turn out to be yet another closed door. I also worked to accept the fact that IF the door could still be considered open, it was barely a crack: there was a chance I could still get pregnant naturally, but it was very slim.
Hope and Loss
Over the next several months, I talked to God about what he was doing in my life. I asked if I misheard him when I was a girl, or if I had gotten off-course in pursuing and prioritizing his calling on my life. I felt reassurance of his love for me about all things past, and we talked about what he might desire of me next. While my longing to continue to grow my family did not go away, I decided it would be trumped by the deep gratitude I feel for the blessings already in my life, and somehow my unsettled seeking was balanced equally with the peace that surpasses understanding. Thinking about what else God might have in store for me, if it was not more children, even started to feel fun and exciting. He has already proven time and time again in my life that he has good things in store. The journey is always onward and upward.
It was when we were in Taipei, the day the big earthquake hit, that I discovered I was pregnant. The hope and excitement I had to grow my family felt new all over again. In some ways, I wanted to shout it from the mountaintops: look what God has done! However, I also felt a very real need to keep it quiet. The moment our pregnancy became public, it felt to me our adoption process would be ending…and I wasn’t ready for that. If we ended the adoption process and then lost the baby, like we’d lost the last one, we would be losing both of our boys in one fell swoop… and since walking beside a dear friend when she lost her beloved child at 34 weeks, it still never really felt “safe” to make such an announcement given what was at stake for our family.
While we anticipated the news for years, it was only a little over three months ago that China officially, permanently, closed their adoption program. Our Elijah is now 12 years old and will never be able to come home. The grief of this knowledge was admittedly tempered with the joy of the boy growing in my womb…and the comfort that we had not somehow made the wrong choice in praying for a baby while also praying to bring Eli home. But I still was not ready to make “Facebook official” the news of the little boy growing in my womb while that joy was still intertwined with sadness surrounding the other son we had loved and lost.
Unto us a Child is Born
On November 20, 2024, Noah William Keim entered this world. The next day, I am sure many of my stateside Facebook friends who were on the other side of the world while I was growing enormous, were surprised by our Facebook posts announcing his arrival.
While the news of the arrival of a new baby is easily met with joy, my joy is undeniably magnified in the context of the whole story. God is weaving a masterpiece, and I am right in the middle of it!
This child is so very deeply loved and undeniably wanted. This thread of our story bears the fingerprint of God as surely any other part. Carrying this child in my womb, bringing him into this world, and nurturing him each day is such an immense privilege. He is my hearts’ deepest longing, an answer to countless prayers, the preservation of a promise, and an embodiment of my truest calling. God has done this, and I am forever grateful.
For this child I have prayed, and the LORD has granted me that which I asked of him.
1 Samuel 1:27
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Setting and Crushing Goals
Ever since I was young, I have wanted to be able to do gymnastics. I would watch my best friend do back handsprings in the grass and I would watch the videos on YouTube of eight year olds doing backflips, and I always thought it was so cool. When I lived in America, I did clogging and I never wanted to do gymnastics more than dance. At our house in America, we had a trampoline. Since I knew we were moving and I wouldn’t have one anymore, I spent ALL day on that thing.
After my last dance season was over, I started watching YouTube videos about how to get flexible and how to tumble. When I tell you I spent all day doing gymnastics I mean ALL day. It was all I ever wanted to do. After months of practice I got my backhand spring and back tuck on the trampoline, and I became very flexible. I would record my progress, so I have THOUSANDS of photos and videos of my progress on my phone.
Even after we moved, I kept it up. One of my friends also wanted to be super flexible, so we were constantly texting and sending videos of our skills to each other.
The problem was that we didn’t have a trampoline anymore and I didn’t have many opportunities of practice my other tumbling skills. I practiced on a trampoline any chance I got, but that wasn’t very much. And slowly without me even realizing I stopped stretching so often and eventually slowly losing some of my skills.
I told my mom I wanted to go to gymnastics, but even though we looked we couldn’t really find any places to go to. All of the ones we saw looked like they were only for little kids. One day, my mom was talking to someone who recommended a place her kids used to go to.
This gymnastics place is very different from what I thought it would, be but in a good way! You can come any weekday to either the first or the second class. It’s completely up to you for what ever works best for you. You don’t have to sign up for a class, you just pay when you come. All classes include all skill levels and ages. Most of the kids are Asian, but everyone can speak English.
One of my favorite parts about the whole place is the teachers. The teachers are super fun and positive but also give really great tips and corrections. They push me to be better and help me feel confident doing skills that used to scare me while also making the experience fun and exciting. I’m also getting my flexibility and strength back.
One day I was at gymnastics, doing the exercises, when I broke my foot. I was jumping on and off a mat and my foot landed in a divot in the floor and I broke my 5th metatarsal. Right before vacation….great. Well after about three months of crutches and boot, I finally got to go back to gymnastics. My foot was sore for the first couple classes, but I ended up getting all of my skills back in no time. We also started going twice a week instead of only once.
My mom and I thought that Jeremiah might really like gymnastics, so when I went back Jeremiah came with me. At first he was he didn’t not want to go and all, but he eventually started to love it and is constantly practicing at home.
When we go into class, everyone starts running 10 laps around the gym. Then we do our workout exercises before stretching. For my exercises, I do 200 heel lifts on the beam, jump on and off a mat 40 times, do 40 V ups (I don’t know if that’s what they are called) and 20 push-ups. Once we are done with that, we move on to stretching. When we stretch, they push us into our stretches which sometimes hurts but helps so much. They always pop our backs after that which kinda hurts but in a good way.
Once I’m done I do 10 back bends, 10 handstands (I try to hold them for at least 5 seconds), 10 front walkovers, and 10 back walkovers. And then we split into little groups and practice different skills according to our skill level.
I am currently practicing a round-off backhand spring and a back tuck (backflip). I just only recently got my ariel (no handed cartwheel) but it is still hard. I can also now confidently do a standing back handspring. We spend most of our time doing floor exercises. I have done bars twice and vault once, but I have never done beam. (Thank goodness! Beam terrifies me!) I love learning tumbling skills because if you are confident enough you can use your floor skills anywhere.
I am a very determined and dedicated person. If I want to learn something or have some skill, I won’t stop until I get it…even if it takes years practice! Being the determined person I am, when I finally achieve something I have been working towards, I get so excited and feel so accomplished. It’s one of the best feelings! Going to gymnastics has been so much fun and I’m really glad I get to finally accomplish my goals!
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Hitting the Bullseye
I have always been interested in archery. I have practiced with a toy bow and arrows and a toy crossbow, but only a few times with a real bow and arrow. When we went to the special needs retreat this year they had archery, so I tried it out. I only had three arrows to shoot and I got a bullseye on my second arrow. At the end of the retreat, I was called up on stage at the closing program. They announced that I was the best archer and gave me the target that I got a bullseye on as a reward. I was so surprised and excited!
After the retreat, my dad took me to this place called Arrow Rest. It’s a place where you can shoot a bow and have a nice drink. The instructors there are really nice and are very helpful. If you are interested in archery, I recommend this place.
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Learning Thai
As you probably know, our family lives in Thailand. You also probably know that, in Thailand, they speak Thai, not English. While kids are taught English in schools here, and there are several translators living here, 98% of the population knows either no English or only enough to sell you their product. Understandably, us few foreigners here should learn their language instead of expecting them to speak our language. So, that is what we have been doing, even before moving here; Learning Thai.
For a few months before we moved to Thailand, we were learning how to read and write Thai while also trying to learn the vocabulary. Using an online course, we actually got pretty good with reading and writing. However, our vocabulary was not there. The only words I could remember, were the words that are actually English words said in a Thai accent like สลัด (Sa-lad) and ชีส (Cheee-s).
We moved to Thailand only knowing how to read pretty well (although not fluently) and only knowing “Hello,” “Thank you,” and “Goodbye” (which happens to be the same word as “Hello”). Obviously, we weren’t going to get around as well as we wanted only knowing one word. Therefore, we started studying Thai at Lanna Language School. Within a few weeks of 2-hour classes on Mondays, we were already learning a lot more than we ever could have with online courses. Our teacher at Lanna, Khruu (Teacher) Lukmii, was very surprised that we could read and write Thai, yet knew no words. Usually when learning a new language, teachers prefer to teach vocab before trying to teach grammar rules and how to write. However, she soon got used to spelling words in Thai for us and said we had the best pronunciation of any of her students.
Instead of online courses, we were now learning Thai from a native Thai speaker. Our Thai improved immensely and were soon able to order food and buy groceries confidently in Thai. As great as that was, we didn’t think we were learning Thai the best we could, and needed more help. Additionally, Lanna Language School was 45 minutes to over an hour away from our home (depending on traffic)! Lanna Language School is located in หางดง (Hang Dong) district. Our family, however, lives in ดอยสะเก็ด (Doi Saket) district. That made it about 45min-1hour trip just to get there, and then we would eat because our class was in the late afternoon, and then come back home when it started to get dark. That made some days nearly 5 hours for Thai class. It was such a time commitment and challenge living so far away, especially because we needed to move to a new house which was an additional 20 minutes farther from หางดง (Hang Dong). Plus, my parents, who attended separate Thai classes, wanted more classes per week and the thought of making the commute to Lanna Language School more than once a week was insanity.
Our good friends, Lori and Simpson Tsang, (other ZOE missionaries) recommended their teacher ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) to my parents. Lori and Simpson both speak great Thai and they lived in ฟลอร่าวิลล์ (Floraville) our old neighborhood. ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) taught from her house which was only 20 minutes from our house. So, my mom and dad started going to her classes in addition to Lanna. They loved it. They both got noticeably better and more confident in their Thai, and they enjoyed the much shorter commute. Us kids only met ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) once when she taught us how to make Grathongs (don’t know how to spell that in Thai), but our parents wanted to see if we would like her and consider changing classes. We had the chance to do that when Lori and Simpson went to America for a few weeks to raise support and visit friends and family. Since Lori didn’t want to stop paying ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) for a few months, she and ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) offered for Selah, Jeremiah, and I to take over the classes and see how we liked learning with ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em). It was really nice and generous from both of them because Lori payed for all the classes and ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) kept it at the price of teaching one person instead of three.
In addition to going to Lanna every Monday, we started taking lessons with ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) on วันอังคาร (Tuesday) and วันพฤหัสบดี (Thursday), for around 6 weeks. We loved it. One thing about ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) that was (and is) very helpful, is the fact she is a Christian, as well as a born and raised Thai person. She knows and understands all the culture and religious practices of the Buddhists, even though she doesn’t practice or worship along side them. When we would learn with Khruu Lukmii, it was different. She was a devout buddhist. She even made sure we knew that the “ghosts” and “spirits” were real. I, as a Christian, do believe in spirits and demons and maybe even ghosts, but I am not going to buy a shrine and cover it in flowers and soda (they really do offer soda and candy to spirits) to ward them off. ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) explains the importance of different flowers on shrines and teaches us about Thai holidays such as Songkran and Loi Grathong (click to learn more about). She even told us about certain buddhist monks that practice black magic and sorcery, and how to stay away from them.
After a few weeks, we decided to quit Lanna Language School and go full time at ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em’s). After a lot of trial and error we now have a weekly schedule. Mom and Dad go for 2-hour classes every Monday and Thrusday afternoons. Selah, Jeremiah, and I, have class every Tuesday afternoon. And then just Selah and I have class on Friday mornings. On Tuesday, we learn vocabulary. And on Friday, Selah and I, improve our reading and writing (which I am really good at). Even though we could read and write pretty well before Thai class, our Friday classes with ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) have improved our reading and writing skill exponentially. All the Thai I have scattered throughout this post, I can read in seconds. I am constantly complemented on my speed when reading and my pronunciations are better than most foreigners (including my parents), especially when they are only taught vocab before reading and writing.
Some little things to know about Thai:
Thai is a tonal language, meaning they have different tones which change the word. One good example is with ใกล้ (Glaai) and ไกล (Glaai). ใกล้ (Glaai) is pronounced with a falling tone where your voice starts a little high and the falls in to a lower tone and it means NEAR. ไกล (Glaai) is pronounced in a flat even tone (mid tone) which is how you would basically talk and it means FAR. Yes, ใกล้ (Glaai) and ใกล (Glaai) are complete opposites just because they have different tones. Learning a tonal language has also showed me that English, and every other language is a little tonal too. I mean, to show surprise we take a higher tone of voice. To ask a question, we usually rise the tone, or if answering a question with a question you make your voice fall a little bit. Tones in English can make the same word be either a command, a question, a statement, or an accusation.
Second thing to know about Thai. English has 24 consonants and 5 vowels (6 if you count Y but who does that?). Thai has 44 consonants and 16 vowel symbols which can mix and match to make at least 32 vowel sounds! Every consonant belongs in one of three classes, High Class, Middle Class, and Low Class. The class the letter belongs in will change the tone of tone of the word. Most letters belong in Low class, but there are two letters, อ(Or Aan) and ห(Hor Hiib), that will sometimes be silent and put in-front of words to change the tone of the word. ห (Hor Hiib) is a high class letter that either makes the “h” sound or is silent and changes the word or syllable to High Class which will change the tone of the word. อ (Or Aan) is a middle class letter that is a consonant that is silent and silent to change the word or syllable to middle class which, also, changes the tone of the word. อ can also be considered a vowel and makes a sound which is kinda like “or” but the “r” isn’t pronounced.
Third thing, the way to figure out the tone of a word is the most confusing thing on the planet! ครู เอ็ม (Khruu Em) even says so! Here is what a Thai tone chart looks like;
as you can see, when figuring out the tone of a single syllable you have to take into account, the class of the syllable, the length of the vowel (for most vowels have along version and a short version), whether the ending consonant is soft or hard, and then you have to figure out what it is with the tone mark on top. All of that to find out the tone of a single syllable! And you cannot just ignore the tone because it literally makes the difference between, “I like to ride on my bike,” and “I like to poop on my bike.” I am not kidding. “Poop” and “Ride” are the same word with different tones.
Some other things about Thai is, like how in English we say “please” to be polite, they add คา่ (Ka) if you’re female and ครับ (Krab) if you’re male, to nearly every sentence. I would say it is one of my worst problems when speaking Thai to forget to add ครับ (Krab).
Also, you should rarely trust the transliterations. For example, if you come to visit, you may see the spelling of “Hello” spelled like this
This is incorrect. The Thai word for “Hello” (and goodbye) is สวัสดี and then ครับ (Krab) or คา่ (Ka). สวัสดี should be transliterated like Sa-wat-dee not Sa-was-dee. Here’s why, the letter “ส” makes the “S” sound unless it is at the end of a syllable, then it makes a hard “T” or a “D” sound. However, when amateur translators and/or computers translate, they just see “ส” and go, “Hey, that makes the ‘S’ sound!” and translate it like so. There are several letters that make different sounds if they are the end of a syllable than when they are at the beginning or middle of the syllable. In fact, that is why were pronouncing Jeremiah’s Thai name wrong his whole life. When he was first adopted, his birth certificate showed his Thai name as ประการ, and they transliterated it, Prakarn. This is totally incorrect. First of all, “ป” (Bpor Bplaa) makes a sound that is in-between a “P” sound and a “B” sound. It is not one or the other. “ป” is not a sound in the English language and does not make the “P” sound. Secondly, in Thai they roll or trill their Rs. Not really a mistake in the translation but it was another way we were mispronouncing his name. Thirdly, the “ก” makes a sound in-between a “G” and a “K” sound. A little more like a G but not a K. Fourthly, “ร” is one of the many letters that make a different sound whether it is at the beginning or end of a syllable. In the beginning or middle of the syllable, it makes the trilled “R” sound. At the end of a syllable, it makes an “N” sound, don’t ask me why. But instead of translating it one way or the other, they just put both sounds it makes. Therefore, it shouldn’t be written or pronounced Prakarn (Pra-car-n) it should be written and pronounced something like BpraGkan (ปรa-กaan).
I could go on and on about other little things in Thai like how if you mix 2 “ร” (which make a trilled R sound), you get (Aan). No idea why. Or I could talk about how ใ and ไ are the exact same, making the “I” sound (as in ice). Or how some vowels go on top of the consonant like อั (ah) or below the consonant like อู (oooh) or to the left of the consonant like เอ (eh or ay) or on the right of the consonant like อา (ahh). I could talk about how the consonants, อ ว ร, can all become vowels. But, I won’t, because that would be too long.
P.S. Here are some very boring videos of us speaking Thai.
*Fun Fact* We made these videos with Khruu Em. She can send them to the government to prove she is teaching us Thai, and we can use them to get school credit for learning a foreign language. But, though Khruu Em is fluent in English, she is not confident in her spelling so we wrote the subtitles for her.*
Yes, I know, my voice is terrible.
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Homeschool (Not at Home)
Every Monday, we go to Homeschool Co-op. Homeschool Co-op is where people who are homeschooled can come and take classes with other kids and their parents.
I have taken three semesters of Co-op. the classes I took were in the first semester were Lego Engineering, Watercolor, and Outdoor Games. For the second semester, I took Futsol (Indoor Soccer), The Physics of Failure, and Paper Airplanes. I don’t remember all the classes my brother and sisters took those semesters.
Last semester, I took Baseball, Lego Math, and Thai Culture and History. Selah took Choir, Swimming, and Chronicles of Narnia. Josiah took Self-Defense, Thai Language, and Digital Portfolio. Tallulah took Chess, Creative Solutions, and Musical Theater. My mom taught Chronicles of Narnia and dance.
Always at the end of the semester there is a program where people can show what they learned. For example, I had to sing the Thai national anthem and Tallulah had a Christmas play. Josiah got some awards for his digital portfolio class. Selah did a dramatic reading and sang with the choir.
Besides taking classes there are lots of other fun things like a science fair I participated in. Also, Josiah played his piano in the music recital. Co-op is really amazing and I’m glad my mom found out about it.
BYE!
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Loi Grathong
Just as there are many holidays that are celebrated exclusively in America, there are holidays that Thailand goes all out for. Some of that is tradition, some of that is their culture, and some of it is to attract tourists. Whatever the reason, we get to enjoy a few more holidays throughout the year. Now, we are not worshiping the River Goddess like the Thai people, but we can still enjoy the fun and games surrounding these holidays.
There are mainly two holidays that foreigners take part in here in Chiang Mai. Songkran, which is the world’s largest water festival (when Chiang Mai becomes the Water Fight Capital of the World), and Loi Grathong (one of the world’s largest Lantern Festivals). It isn’t considered the biggest lantern festival in the world, mainly because China far surpasses the population in Thailand, and some of the countries like Japan and South Korea get a little more tourism than Northern Thailand, but this festival is huge.
Chiang Mai was the capital of the Loi Grathong holiday, but the advance of modern technology and airplanes slowly hindered them until the government had to limit the flying of lanterns to only a few places. Every year, the airports have to cancel literally hundreds of flights because of the danger of lanterns getting caught in plane engines. As far as I know, it hasn’t happened yet but it is a reasonable concern. So, the new “capital” of Loi Grathong is Doi Saket: the small town that our family has been calling home for the last year. It is super cool that we get to live in the capitals of two large and fun holidays. Where we come from in Nebraska, our town is the Haydays capital (which is a holiday we made up). The neighboring town of O’Neill is the St. Patrick’s capital and another neighboring town, Stuart, appointed itself in-charge of the 4th of July. These “local holidays” are cool and I always enjoyed them, but they are not nearly as big as the holidays here in Thailand!
I was fortunate this year to have my golden birthday on ลอยกระทง (Loi Grathong). For my birthday, we went downtown to my favorite breakfast place in Chiang Mai, Butter is Better, and had a nice big breakfast. Then we picked up an ice-cream cake from Dairy Queen (a birthday tradition we have started here in Thailand) and went back home to open presents. My gifts mostly comprised of sodas and candy (what I asked for). That evening there was a Chiang Mai Youth Campfire Cookout. The Cookout was a gathering of all the youth groups in Chiang Mai. We got together for hot-dogs and s’mores, a small worship service, and in- the-dark games. This year, the main game was Capture the Flag. It was fun, but I intentionally kept the fact it was my birthday a secret. As you can see below….
I love it when people sing happy birthday to me. There was no way I was going to have literally hundreds of kids singing Happy Birthday to me. No way. I specifically told Selah and Jeremiah that if they said anything about it being my birthday to anyone, I would be personally responsible for their sudden, unexpected death.
Anyway, after the cookout our parents picked us up and took us to that lake where they were setting off all the floating lanterns. They had bought some and we sent them off ourselves.
This was super cool! It felt like we were signaling for Rapunzel to come home. Apparently, Rapunzel and I share a birthday. There were lanterns everywhere. The one thing that almost ruined it was how crazy it was. Now, I am an introvert who likes peace and quiet. Some of the people at the lake, though, were crazy, insane, maybe drunk, pyromaniacs. People were constantly shooting off fireworks, and some wayward lanterns got very close to other people. There was even some guy meant to send fireworks blazing into the air from the shore of the lake next to us. He didn’t aim right however and shot a firework straight into the ground next to us! Fiery clumps of dirt flew everywhere including my hair, though it didn’t light my hair ablaze. There was even a friend of mine there who came up behind me, lit a small bomb in front of my face and threw it at the ground near my feet where it sparked and fizzed madly. I did not like it. Not one bit. I am not scared of fire, but more people die from fireworks than sharks, so there is reason to be aware.
Why do they send of flying lanterns? Well, traditionally, they use them to send prayers and wishes to the spirits. It is also supposed to bring good luck. Nowadays, it seems to me they are mostly used to pull in tourists.
Flying lanterns aren’t the only lanterns set off here, though. There are floating lanterns that float in the air called Khom Loi or Khom Fai (Fai means Fire). Then, there are floating lanterns that float in water.
These things are cool. Our Thai teacher taught us how to make them last year. But, this year she is opening a new school near her brother’s Thai school so they held a Loi Grathong event together at the Pantip Plaza. Khruu Em (our teacher) has only been teaching out of her house until now so she doesn’t have as many students as her brother who has a school and multiple other teachers working with him. In fact, we might have been the only ones from Eden School.
Anyway, we made our Grathongs. First, they cut the stalks of banana trees into thick circles which becomes our base. Secondly, we use small nails and staples to stick cut banana leaves onto our circles. Then, they taught us how to fold our banana leaves in cool triangular “petals.” There are many different ways to fold the leaves to make different shapes, but they really just focused on the simple ways because it was a whole bunch of Farangs (foreigners).
After we made them however we wanted, we would cover them with bright flowers such as marigolds and orchids. Then we had lunch. Khruu Rutchira made a whole bunch of amazing Thai dishes. She made พัดซีอิ๊ว (Pad See Ew), Pink Noodles (I don’t know what they are called or even how they are pink but it’s really good), ส้มตำ (Som Tam), she also ordered these amazing curry puffs with either peanut curry or chicken curry. She also had a whole bunch of sweet floral teas. For those who don’t know, (most of you), พัดซีอิ๊ว (Pad See Ew) is a Thai dish that is comprised of soy sauce, vegetables, your choice of meat (I think it was chicken), and these large flat rice noodles which look really weird and have an odd texture (but I like it). It is one of Tallulah’s favorite Thai dishes. If you don’t know what ส้มตำ (Som Tam) is, then I know you don’t read all my posts. If you want to know what it is, click here.
Before lunch and the making of Grathongs (floating lanterns), they gave us a little history lesson. The practice of Loi Grathong started in the 14th century. The main religion of Thailand is Buddhism. 90-95% of the population is Buddhist and the rest of population is muslim or smaller less known religions. Christians only make about 1% of the population. Though most of the Christians live in northern parts of Thailand like Chiang Mai, Christians only take up around 16% of the population in the city. The small villages like the one I went to in Doi Chang or Doi Inthanon make up most of the Christian population.
Anyway, while Thailand is a Buddhist country, the Buddhism in Thailand also shows heavy influences from Hindu and other religions like that. One thing the Thai people took from the Hindu religion is the worship of the River Goddess, KhongKha (คงคา), which is their name for the Hindu River Goddess, Ganga.
Now, the rivers in Northern Thailand such as the Ping River that flows through Chiang Mai are disgusting. They are muddy brown and smelly and filled with trash. Thailand’s “solution” to the problem is to make Grathongs. The floating lanterns are beautiful and fragrant, especially if you add the traditional joss stick or incense candles to them. The making of Grathongs is representing repentance and the asking of forgiveness for dirtying up the rivers. The Buddhists take this very seriously, though as Christians we can’t help to wonder why they think vessels full of nails and staples and candles would help clean the water. Whatever.
At first the lanterns were made very simply and carefully, but over time, professionals figured out how to make them real works of art. It is very similar to how Americans make jack-o-lanterns. Some people take them way too seriously and some just accidentally make the most beautiful things without any effort. I am not one of those people. I am terrible at making jack-o-lanterns and Grathongs. However bad I am at making them, they are both still fun to make, though they both make a big mess. Jack-o-lanterns make a mess with their guts and Grathongs make a mess with banana leave scraps.
During Loi Grathong, they also have large parades with huge elaborate floats covered in lights and decorations. Khruu Em showed us pictures and asked if we were going to go and we said probably not but asked if her daughter Marin got a lot of candy. That made her confused. Apparently, it is mainly an American tradition to throw candy off of floats in a Parade! I thought that was just a given of parades but she had never heard of it before. I thought that was interesting.
Loi Grathong was a super cool way to spend my golden birthday and it it was a once in a lifetime experience that we have gotten to experience TWICE. It just shows that doing what God calls us to do can be rewarding. The experiences we have had since coming here are pretty amazing and we are blessed to be able to enjoy these things about Thailand while living here!
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My first ZOE outreach!
A few times a year a short term team comes to Thailand to work with ZOE International. Whenever a team is in Chiang Mai they go on an outreach with the ZLT (Zoe Leadership Training) students to share the gospel and spread awareness about child trafficking. My dad has gone on just about every single outreach because he works with the ZCR (ZOE child rescue). I didn’t realize that I was even allowed to go for a while but as soon as I heard that I could go on a ZOE outreach I told my dad that I would love to go with him. But before I got the chance to go I broke my foot and Josiah got to go instead. I was really bummed that I couldn’t go so I told my dad that I wanted to go on the next one. So as soon as the next one came and finally I got to go on my first outreach with my dad and Josiah!
ZOE Outreach Day #1
It was about a three hour drive to the Hmong village. The Hmong village is on Doi Inthanon mountain which is actually the tallest mountain in Thailand. When we got to the village I went with Chome (my roommate) to our room and unpacked a little. Then we headed off to dinner and when we finished eating we played some fun ice breaker games with the team and ZLT. My favorite game we played was the game my dad was in charge of. Basically about 10 people from each team (we split into four teams) would get in a line and would hold a long skinny pole with only our two pointer fingers. Then as a team we would all have to lower our pole to the ground with out letting any of our fingers off of the pole. If on person even slightly lifted their finger off, the whole team would have to restart. The first team to get all the way to the ground wins. It’s actually a lot harder than it sounds! After we played a couple more games we headed off to our hotel rooms and went to bed.
Zoe Outreach Day #2
We woke up kinda early to go to breakfast. I believe we had fried rice with ham and eggs which was really good. Then we went to the Hmong church. We didn’t stay for the whole service because the preaching was in Hmong and if we were to stay they would need to translate it into Thai and then into English which would have been to much of a hassle. It was still really cool to go to a church service in a completely different language that I have never heard before. We then went back, had lunch and listened to a couple testimonies. After that we split into little groups and started walking around the village. We would go up to peoples houses, talk to them, give them goodie bags, pray for them, and invite them to come to our thing at the school that evening. I think we went to around 3-4 houses and even though I didn’t understand most of what they were saying it was a really cool experience. Many of the people in the village have a much different life style than I do and lots of them are very poor. It was really cool that I got to go and pray for them and help them out even with just a goodie bag and an invitation.
When we were finished we headed back for dinner and then we went to the school and started to set up. Then people started showing up. There weren’t that many people but that’s ok. We started with prayer and worship. Then the ZLT did a drama and we helped with one too. After that we gathered around some people who wanted prayers and prayed for them. Out on the street there were even some people who were stopping and sitting on the curb to watch. Then we distributed the rest of the goodie bags and went to our hotels to get some rest for tomorrow.
Zoe Outreach Day #3
We again woke up bright and early for breakfast and some worship. After that we went to the school to get ready and set up. When the kids came out of their classes the ZOE staff welcomed them with games and prizes to get the kids in a fun mood. One of the STM (short term mission team) members dressed up in the iconic ZOE elephant.
But it soon became more serious when the ZLT did their drama. You could hear the room go more quiet and the expressions on the kids faces started to become a bit less goofy. The drama drama showcased a trafficker manipulating, and abusing children. The things that some children have gone through are unimaginably horrible. There were no words in the drama only a scream. Out of everything I did and saw through out the whole outreach I think that drama was the most impactful for me.
We had the kids split into little groups and rotate through stations. The stations were about the different types of child trafficking and one about the gospel. The children rotated through the stations learning about each one and playing different games. We had the older kids in one big group staying in the main area and the younger kids rotating throughout the classrooms. And then when they had gone through all of the stations the kids switched. The older kids went through the stations and the younger ones stayed in the main area. Then when our help wasn’t needed, my dad, my brother, and I went back home.
I had so much fun on this outreach. I learned things I didn’t know before, I had experiences that I don’t think that would have anywhere else, and it was definitely something I would love to do again!
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The Inconvenient Truth about Child Sex Trafficking
Since working with our investigations team, my view and understanding of human trafficking, especially child trafficking, has expanded to a degree I wasn’t prepared for. Imagine if you will, your nose pressed up against a canvas painting. For all you know, everything you see is all the picture is. It would be easy to think you know the entire picture from that close-up perspective, but it isn’t until you step away from the canvas that you see just how diverse the painting actually is.
If you’re like me, the topic of “child trafficking” can easily be understood from that analogy. Everything I knew about child sexual exploitation I learned from the media, Hollywood, and scandals of a notorious pedophilic billionaire found hanging in a prison cell. God used those stories to get me off my couch and into the arena to combat this horrific scourge, but what I’ve come to discover is that what I “thought” I knew about child trafficking and what I have “learned” firsthand, are not just different, but categorically transformative.
I’ve never met a child who had been trafficked by a Russian Organized Crime syndicate. I’ve never met a child who had been exploited by an A-List celebrity. I don’t know any children who were on private islands or exclusive parties or private jets. I don’t know of a kidnapped teenage girl on vacation, whose father has a very particular set of skills acquired over a very long career. To be clear, there ARE children who are victims of these circumstances, and their stories are no more or less valid, important, or impactful than any other child victim. What I have encountered is far less “sensational” than the stories that get media attention and Hollywood scripts yet is vastly more common and much more difficult to combat.
I know of children sold by their parents or relatives. I know kids abandoned and taken under the wing of a seemingly benevolent adult who now provides shelter, clothing and food, only then to exploit their innocence later. I’ve heard stories of kids who willingly surrender themselves to pimps as an act to make money to help provide for their impoverished and often disabled family. I’ve seen traffickers under the age of 25 exploiting their underage “friends” for a share of the profit. While there are sophisticated and transnational criminal rings involved in trafficking children, my experience shows the problem is vastly more widespread and disconnected. Arresting one trafficker has little to no bearing on the operation of another.
We regularly see kids willingly and actively posting seductive photos of themselves online, complete with their weight, bust, and waist sizes to secure employment as cocktail waitresses, servers, hosts, and more. Their uploads are in response to active posts from legitimate businesses looking for extra help on busy weekends, special events, or for high-profile guests. The business’ solicitation itself might be benign, but the hundreds of folks surveying those posts with far less than positive intent are now in possession of a name, a face, social media information, and clear vulnerabilities.
Unlike the portrayals I’d seen on the big screen, of the cases I’ve worked on, most traffickers have been female. Nearly all of them are barely adults themselves. The narrative I believed involved prowling men ripping children from sidewalks on their walk to school, not women luring children away because of their innocence. But women initially appear less threatening and can easily seduce, lure, convince, or manipulate a vulnerable child without ever threatening violence.
Additionally, if you’re like me, our hearts break at the thought of little girls being exploited for sadistic pleasure, but we’re ignorant of the massive market for boys as well. No matter the fetish, there is an eager and evil entrepreneur ready to supply the demand and make a buck. Don’t deceive yourselves, trafficking is business, and it is BIG business. Drugs can only be sold one time, but a child can be sold repeatedly. It is a pure market economy: where there is a demand, someone is eager to offer the supply.
Children are commodities, and many of them are held against their will in dark rooms, with little food and no access to the outside world. Yet, of the rescued children I’ve encountered, many are victims of being deceived into becoming willing participants. Their traffickers/pimps dress them well, share a greater portion of the “profit,” and allow the children to come and go with more freedom. The children make more money than they could elsewhere, so they come back again and again “willing” to endure the abuse. They envision themselves more as employees rather than commodities or hostages. That mindset, coupled with the nature of their “business arrangement” make criminal proceedings much more challenging. “Are they really trafficked if they are free to come and go and are paid for their services?” Absolutely YES! But as long as police, prosecutors, judges, and the public’s narrow understanding of trafficking is shaped by the narrative portrayed on the big and small screens, the majority of child victims fall below the radar and their nightmarish exploitation continues.
The industry is incredibly lucrative, and if the public believes trafficking is defined by a narrow parameter, the industry often operates unchecked. Like the vilest version of the arcade game “Whack-A-Mole,” when one bar, massage parlor, restaurant, hotel, or other business is raided and closed, operations pick back up shortly after without missing a beat. The exploitation isn’t just happening in the darkest recesses of the internet or remote alleys in mysterious cities. It’s everywhere and not even very well hidden! The demand is unmatched.
Like most “good” people, it’s hard to fathom how anyone could dream of sexually exploiting a child. But the reality is, it’s a slow fade. I know of no one who woke up one day and decided to rape a child. I’m sure that’s happened, but it absolutely cannot be the norm. The fade all begins with pornography. We’re all attracted to the salacious, the off-color, the taboo. It has a draw, a thrill, a risk. Porn provides all of that and more. Like barbs on a fishhook, once set it is damn near impossible to get free. Porn allows the viewer the rush without the risk. But it never fully satisfies. Before long, consumers need more salacious, taboo, and beyond-the-pale content, not suitable for civilized company. Healthy friendships that should build up, edify, and strengthen one’s character are traded for alluring and arousing images for cheap fixes and thrills.
Like any other drug, once the initial buzz wears off, the user returns to their “normal” life which is often pitted with tragedy, hardship, depression, loneliness, and isolation. They need another fix to disguise the pain, and this time a larger dose is needed. Before long, they’re on to more dangerous and lethal substances. Porn is EXACTLY the same, but instead of the user hurting their own bodies with substance, the victim is the person in the image, often threatened, beaten, and/or drugged against their will to make them a willing participant. The slope is greased by the thrill of looking at “barely legal” individuals (PAUSE: let’s be honest, do we really believe the pornographers are diligent on checking IDs to ensure the person is in fact an adult?). Downward they go and next there’s the rush of viewing, sharing, selling, and producing the truly illegal content of Child Sexual Assault Material (CSAM). The only rush left is experiencing the child from the screen in the present and physical form.
Make no mistake, the viewing of porn is not innocent, benign, victimless, or harmless. Porn is the purest gateway drug that fuels the sexual trafficking enterprise. Again, it’s a business. The reason there is a supply of children to sexually abuse is because there is a tremendous demand for them. That demand is created by pornography, and whether the pornographer also participates in trafficking or not isn’t the point. The hook has been set, and others are ready to land the fish. The greatest dent society could make in the trafficking arena would be to stem the demand for pornography. It truly is that simple and requires no training, no money, no formal education, calling, or special gifting. Stop viewing, sharing, and purchasing pornography. Until then, kids are going to continue being prey for predators.
At this moment, we are aware of a known exploiter of children. He was arrested in Europe and served prison time for possession of over 80,000 images of child pornography. After serving his time, he moved to Thailand and has been seen near children: always with his favorite camera slung around his neck.
Stay tuned and I’ll next fill you in on the 8 types of trafficking, showing just how nebulous and shape shifting this nightmare truly is.
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Our Trip to Valley Coffee
Living in Chiang Mai is really exciting because of all the fun places we can go. Once we went to a really nice place called Valley Coffee. On the way to Valley Coffee we had to go up a mountain and through vines as if we were in a jungle! Valley Coffee is a fun place where you can eat, play, and walk in the river. It’s kind of like a place called Rock’N River that we also love to go to.
On the day we went to Valley Coffee we went with our friends. We immediately liked it! Even though it had just rained, it was still fun. My friend and I found lots of cool stuff. For example, we found a keyboard, a shoe, and a glass bottle. We ate there after playing in the water and the food was super good.
The scenery was beautiful. There was a door in the middle of field and it looked really cool for pictures. Going there was so much fun; I highly recommend it!
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My First Outreach
Many times throughout the year, ZOE has prevention outreaches to many places in Northern Thailand. Every few months or so, a short-term missionary team, usually from America or Australia, comes to Thailand for ZOE. They do several things around ZOE, volunteering anywhere and everywhere they are needed. And then comes the outreach. This is where the short-term team, ZLT Students (Zoe Leadership Training), and the Child Rescue Team, go to the little villages in the mountains and preach the Good News of Jesus and spread awareness about human trafficking. Since my dad is part of the ZCR (ZOE Child Rescue), he goes on nearly every single one. And, when there is enough room, some of the missionaries’ families are allowed to tag along and help where needed. Well, there was extra space and I went on a prevention outreach to Doi Chang (a mountain village, known world wide for its quality coffee). It was a really great opportunity for my first outreach because it was ZOE’s first youth team, 15 or so teenagers from America.
I rode along half the way in Nick and Heather’s (fellow Zoe Missionaries) truck and then we all met at a PTT (gas station) to gather and regroup. We still had about and hour or two ahead of us so we all grabbed snacks at the Seven-Eleven. Something I noticed right away is that teens are much more adventurous than most adults. Especially when it comes to food. They ate fun chip flavors like Ghost Pepper, Hot Chili Squid (my favorite), Garlic Bread, Seaweed, and many more. They would see something they haven’t seen before and just get that. Most people who come to Thailand, unless they are young tourists, are more likely to stay with their safe and reliable Coke and Snickers instead of trying something new. I personally enjoyed this. I have become much more adventurous in my food while living here. As a Nebraska kid, seafood always kinda grossed me out, I couldn’t handle spice, and I was not comfortable eating anything without knowing about everything in it. Now I am sure I have eaten intestine and not known about it. Sometimes at restaurants, I just pick the thing with the funniest-sounding name I can find and eat whatever I get. I love most seafood now, and can handle pretty spicy things. It was kinda refreshing to be around several other people who were just as adventurous.
I rode with some of the teens in one of their vans the rest of the way and compared chip flavors. They, of course, were still jet-lagged and several of them would get car sick so they slept most the way and missed the amazing mountain views. We were driving through rainforest-covered mountains the whole way and we were surrounded by awesome views the whole time. We even stopped at a view-point before getting to the village and took some photos there.
We got to the village and had lunch before heading to the local village church. One thing to understand about all these little villages in Northern Thailand is that, they are not all Thai. There are people from surrounding countries and several other tribes and groups that are too small to be considered their own nations even though they have their own languages and traditions and clothes and cultures. The people we visited were the Akha Hill Tribe. They, obviously, spoke Akha (or Akhanese) which is probably similar to Thai but still another language altogether. This led to a few language barriers between ZOE people and the older people of the village. However, the younger people who went to schools were taught Thai and sometimes English. Several of the ZLT students also speak other languages so we could still get around just fine.
Well, kinda. Language wasn’t the main problem with getting around. I don’t know how these people get around in these villages. They are twisting, winding, skinny roads with no organization whatsoever. And every single turn has steep inclines that feel like 80 degree drops. The two-way roads looked like they couldn’t even fit one car. How it works here is, on the skinny streets, if you are going one way and someone else is coming the opposite way, the person who made the least amount of ground backs-up and lets the other through. How the van drivers got around is beyond me.
Anyway, through a lot of winding and turning, we got to the church and split up into small groups. Each group had a translator or two, ZLT students, STM (short term missionaries, I know the acronyms are confusing), and some volunteers who lived in the village. The teams would spread out throughout the village and just go knock on people’s doors and offer to pray for them and invite them to the church for a worship service. I tagged along with one group where our “village volunteers” were three small girls who knew exactly what they were doing. While leading the way to the different houses, they would run around and just hang on to our arms and take our hands to show us something, as we walked down long, steep roads and went from door to door talking about Jesus and prayed for people and invited them to come to the worship service that night. After that we went back to our gathering place and ate dinner. Then we went back to the church and welcomed people as they came to the service.
There was an outdoor seating area as well as the inner sanctuary of the church. Everyone who came went into the church and so only a few people were outside. Me and Dad stayed outside because we both hate hot stuffy rooms overflowing with people, but also it opened up space for people to be close to the message. Fortunately, they set up a camera inside that was connected to a projector outside so we could watch everything going on inside, such as the worship, dramas, and prayers.
(P.S The Akha people showed some of their culture as well)
After everything, we handed out goodie bags which the STM had helped prepare. We went back to our hotels and slept.
ZOE had reserved rooms at several different motels for the missionaries while the ZLT and ZCR members had these large cabins with multiple mattresses and rooms. Me and my dad stayed at Hotel Charlie which was comprised of several small “duplexes.” Our room had about a two-feet wide walkway, in-between the first bed and the wall. There were two beds with thin hard mattresses and pale pink bedspread. Also, there was a small balcony with an amazing view and a small Thai-Style bathroom. Thai-Style bathrooms are small, tiled rooms with a toilet, sink, shower-head and a drain or two on the floor. There is usually nothing separating these things so you can literally shower while using the sink to brush your teeth. After the shower, almost everything in the bathroom is covered in water so you have to be careful where you put your towel.
Now, as far as I know, no outreaches are the exact same, but they usually have the same layout. The first day is the door to door stuff and the worship service. The next few days though, is going to schools and spreading awareness about human trafficking. So that is what we did the next day. The school in this village was large with a big gymnasium/auditorium. Behind that was a good-sized open-air coffee shop for people to rest and regroup.
Something that ZOE does really well, is how they teach about human trafficking. This is a serious topic. It’s a scary topic. It’s a topic that doesn’t really get discussed around children. What ZOE does is they have people leading the younger kids in crafts and games that teach about trafficking while teaching about Jesus while the older kids are in the auditorium learning about trafficking. The speakers in the auditorium will make sure kids are listening by telling them how many times to clap randomly throughout the speech which is kinda fun and will throw prizes to kids who answer questions correctly. The STM and ZLT also had silent dramas showing the seriousness of trafficking in kind of a fun way but still very serious. It isn’t just fun and games. It’s serious and the speakers will talk for a long time teaching kids how to be safe and telling them how to be aware of what might be going on in their own village.
While all this was going on, I didn’t really have a specific job. Heather’s main job at ZOE is these outreaches and I was basically her assistant. She organized everything and I helped her make sure everything stayed organized. I would go around to all the different stations and tell them when they would need to rotate or come back to the auditorium. I would run and grab things for people and help set up things, just be wherever I was needed.
We had lunch there and had a few more things to do there after lunch, but mostly we just hung-out with kids and with each other. We also got to benefit from the coffee shop and get coffee from there although we had a hot water machine and instant coffee and cocoa drinks whenever we wanted.
After that we got back to our rooms to shower and rest before going back to the gathering place to sing worship songs and eat and play games. One thing I know we all appreciated was the team of cooks who had come with supplies in advance and spent the entire outreach cooking for us while we worked or had fun. The food was the best Thai food I have ever had and we had something different for every meal. They rarely had leftovers because we were all hungry and it was all so good.
The next day was similar to the second one, though it was our last day in Doi Chang. We all packed up in the morning, had breakfast, got in the vans, and headed to another school. How ZOE ever discovered this school, I will never know. It was a rather large school but was completely hidden in the mountainous jungle. We spent over an hour on the worst roads known to man to get there. Skinny and ridiculously bumpy. The craziest thing was that some ZLT members were sitting in the back of the truck the whole way and they even fell asleep while us inside the cap were trying not to hit our heads on the roof of the truck. It was that bumpy. We got to the school and basically did the same thing we did at the other school with fun stations for younger people and older kids in the auditorium.
They did the dramas and the skits and then we had fried chicken and rice that they had cooked for us ahead of time and packaged in individual plastic containers. Then we packed up and headed home.
I totally enjoyed that outreach and have gone on another since then though Selah is talking about that one. It was nice having all those teens to hangout with and talk to though it was kinda crazy and hectic. I am not saying I am the most mature teen in the world but I am the most mature teen that went on that trip. They were a lot of fun but I just wished they would turn the volume down a bit.
I would love to go on many more outreaches. The atmosphere and the people at ZOE is probably the best atmosphere in the world. Our family likes to think of it like there are many cultures, none better or worse than the others, but ZOE culture far surpasses every other one. The people at ZOE are the most kind, most faithful, most fun, and most enthusiastic people in the entire world and our family is blessed to be connected to them like we are!
