Well, our Happy Home family has really grown since the last time I posted an update! We added seven new kids in August and September, bringing the total number now to 40 kids, a full house! Let me introduce the new kiddos:
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| Tep |
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| Brothers, Pani and Siloam |
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| Siblings, Tua and Srey Mao |
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| Sisters, Reaksmey and Marie |
People often ask me how we get the kids, where they come from. Every child has his or her own story of how they came to live at Happy Home. Most often, it is the surviving parent or closest relative who finds us, usually by referral from another NGO, a church, or a friend of a friend, and brings the children to us asking for help because they are unable to care for the children. We interview the family and visit their home to try to understand their situation, degree of need, and reasons for wanting the children to come to Happy Home. Then we, the staff of MMF, take time to pray, talk about the situation, and hopefully come to a unanimous agreement on whether to accept the children or not. We have denied at least as many requests as we have accepted in the last couple of years, usually because it seemed the family had other options for help or because the need was not that great (relatively speaking, of course.)
But now our family is full, and we will probably accept only a very few more children over the next 6 or 7 years, until our oldest kids start graduating high school and heading off to college or elsewhere. So we thank the Lord for all the children He has entrusted to our care and pray that He would knit our hearts together as a family as we continue to seek Him and trust in Him.
August and September were also the months of annual school break for our kids and we had a busy summer. Here are some highlights from the last few months:
✿ We had a great family vacation in Siem Reap again this year! We went swimming, shopping, to a playground, to the Cambodian Cultural Village, and the highlight of the trip, to Phnom Khulen, a beautiful waterfall on the top of a mountain. It was my favorite place in Cambodia so far! Thanks to our friends in the States who made this family vacation possible.
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| Bael and Chanty at the playground. |
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Swimming at Phnom Khulen.
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✿ I was blessed to be able to attend the Calvary Chapel Asia Mission Conference in Hong Kong again this year, along with Rose, David and several others from MMF. It was a great time of Bible teaching, fellowship, and mutual encouragement for the more than 40 missionaries there from all over SE Asia.
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| Hong Kong |
✿ When I got back from Hong Kong, I learned we’d had a special “visitor” to the Home the previous night. This 6-foot python was discovered trying to push his way into the big boys’ house through the front screen door! Seriously! Witt and Somearn wrangled him into a rice sack and kept him just for me to see. (Thanks so much guys!) We kept him in a makeshift cage for a week while we tried to find a home for him. Finding someone to take him was easy. Finding someone to take him and not EAT him was difficult. To make a long story short, the snake disappeared after a week. Frankly, we don’t know if he escaped or if someone came in and took him, but either way we’re relieved he’s gone and that he hasn’t resurfaced.
✿ The schools in Thailand also had a term break during September, so three of the four high school boys from Happy Home Chiang Rai who visited us in April returned for another 3-week visit (3 middle boys in back row). Sadudee, a graduate of CHH Chiang Rai, also came along to help serve. They were a great blessing to the kids and worked very hard during their time with us. We really appreciate their hearts to serve.
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| Front: Sruitt, Sadudee. Back: Somearn, Piseth, Sombot, Arm, Witt |
✿ Near the end of September, Rose’s sister and brother-in-law, Marty and John, arrived for a two-month visit. John pastors an English-speaking congregation at a Chinese church in Orange County and is spending part of his six-month sabbatical here with us. They have really captured the hearts of the kids and vice versa. They will be greatly missed when they have to leave.
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| Rose, Sadudee, John and Marty touring the slum Kbal Spean |
✿ The last week of September, the Filipino Baptist Church in Poipet hosted Vacation Bible School for our kids for the third year in a row. The theme was “The Armor of God” from Ephesians 6, with a different piece of spiritual armor discussed each day. The kids loved dressing up as soldiers in God’s army.
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| VBS theme |
✿ The first week of October was Pchum Ben, a major holiday in Cambodia. More than half the kids were able to go home and visit family during that week. For the rest of the kids, we made sure to do some celebrating of our own with a lot of silly games and a trip to go swimming at a small waterpark about 40 minutes away. Very fun!
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| Joining in the fun |
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| Set ridin' the slide |
✿ The following week, Mom, Witt and I joined the leaders from the five other Christian Happy Homes in Thailand for a leadership retreat in Bangkok. A team from North Coast Calvary Chapel in Carlsbad, CA, hosted the retreat and taught us about scripture-based Art Therapy for children affected by trauma. It was very interesting.
✿ While we were off enjoying ourselves in Bangkok, Poipet was getting hammered by heavy rains and flooding. As in previous years, floodgates were opened upriver in Thailand to relieve flooding in those areas, which resulted in a deluge of water downstream in Poipet. At the MMF Preschool, the water level rose to chest-deep in one day. Almost all the roads between our Home and Poipet were completely flooded, including the one in front of the kids’ public school.
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| Flooding at the public school |
John and Somearn were driving to pickup the kids from school on the day the waters were rising so quickly and encountered two cars stalled in the water in front of the school. John tried to carefully squeeze around the cars but misjudged the edge of the road and slid off into the ditch. About three hours later they were finally able to get the truck out of the ditch and to a mechanic, pick up the kids from school, and make it home for a late dinner. Thankfully no one was injured, just a little wet and hungry. We’re grateful our Home was not affected by the flooding, but many, many other people around Poipet were affected and displaced.
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| Oops! |
✿ The week after the conference, the same NCCC team came to Poipet to visit our home and another ministry in town. They blessed our kids with a lot of art and craft activities, tae kwon do lessons, and a big BBQ celebration.
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| Tae kwon do lessons |
Well, now most of the floodwaters have already receded, the schools are back in session, and life is getting back to normal (relatively speaking, again). As I sit and write about all the activities of the Home over the last few months, I am again amazed at how graciously God provides for His children, the abundance of blessings and goodness in our lives, and the many wonderful friends of the ministry who also love and care for His kids. God is good indeed.
A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, Is God in His holy habitation.
