MISSION UPDATE: Q & A

I'm going to answer some questions I get with some frequency and explain things that seem confusing to many people.

Did you know you were going to Thailand to open an orphanage? This is probably the single most common question I receive from people who we don't know personally, but who learn of our ministry. The simple answer is no, we had no idea. But also, what we operate here isn't actually an orphanage, as none of our children are orphans. We had a strong sense that God was leading us here to work with children in some capacity. But that's all we knew. The rest has unfolded moment by moment.

If the children aren't orphans, why do they live with you? It's a great question and there's not one easy answer to it. The children are here for various reasons, which range from neglect to the family's strong desire to protect. We believe God led us here with the purpose of putting these children in our lives, and what we want desperately is for our time here not to be wasted. If all we do is feed and house them, we've missed the whole point. Our purpose is to teach critical thinking and active listening skills, to help them form characters that increasingly reflect Jesus, to assist them in establishing new and healthy habits, to protect them, and to introduce them to the One who can sustain them, whether we are here or not.

What about your three young sons? Isn't it unfair to them? My answer to that is this: There's not very much in life that's fair, in the way humans like to define fairness. Is it fair that my biological children have always been protected and surrounded by love while so many children we encounter haven't experienced that? To me it seems unfair. Is it fair that one person might die in their old age having never experienced physical, mental, or sexual abuse while another person experiences all of the above? I would, again, say that doesn't seem fair. Is it fair to my boys that we brought them here and now they have to share us with nearly 30 other children? That's up to them to decide. If they choose to look at their childhood and decide our decisions weren't fair to them, then that's the perspective they'll have...that it wasn't fair. But if they choose to look at their childhood and recognize the opportunities for growth and experience they were given, they'll also recognize it was more than fair that they learned how to love, even when it was hard. God has placed it in our hearts, including within the hearts of my adult children, to ensure those boys are surrounded by support and encouragement. My boys won't emerge into adulthood at the end of this as weak men who haven't ever endured hardship or had much required of them. And they'll reach that point having been given a very clear view of a God who not only sustains, but who does so miraculously. The hard things God allows us the opportunity to experience prepare us to be a blessing to someone else in the future. As long as there is purpose to pain, I think it must all truly be fair, in the way God knows fair to be.

How long will you stay? This isn't permament, is it? God is the only One with the answer to that question. We came with a mindset of permanence. We'd heard how difficult it is to make inroads in an unreached place. It takes years to truly earn trust and once you've earned it, someone else of your same nationality can't necessarily just scoot in and make good use of that trust. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying trust doesn't easily transfer from one person onto another. So again, it takes time to rebuild once a vacancy is filled. Our belief has always been that God called us here to do a work and He'd let us know if or when it was "finished". We're raising children and that's not something you just walk out on because you got homesick. If the time comes that God says to leave, we believe firmly He'll make it exceedingly clear. The times our faith in that conviction falters due to our humanity and missing our family and friends, God puts someone right there to remind us He sees us and He will continue to lead.

What about your girls? When will they go back to the US? That is between them and God. Both girls know how grateful we are to have them serving with us and both girls also know God is the director of their futures, not us. They have their own personal experiences with God and He'll let them know if/when He wants them to leave. We support ALL of our children in following God, even when it takes them physically away from us.

How do we know if you have enough money or maybe even too much money? We've tried over the years to find various ways to answer this question in real-time, with as much authenticity as possible. We've never felt comfortable with the idea of fundrasiing and directly asking people for money is just not something we believe we're supposed to do. Our compromise has been to share projects and needs on our website and to offer insight to those needs through a newsletter I most of the time forget to send out. Here's what I can tell you ... we've never had too much money in the sense that we had excess so we spent it frivolously. When we have more than is needed for expenses we know about, it remains in the account because we know God is providing it for something just ahead. We have a good friend who has gifted us his time for several years so that we have a spreadsheet to track incoming and outgoing transactions, and to provide accountability. When money isn't needed right away, the money isn't used until it's needed. Some months we have enough at the begininning while other months money trickles in to make ends meet. This past year or so has been challenging in many ways and God has been gracious to see to it that lack of finances hasn't needed to consume our energy. We're very, very grateful. If the time comes when the "coffers are full" and we don't require more, we'll make that clearly known. Until that time, our commitment to God, and to donors, is that we will do the work we're saying we're doing with the funding you're sending.

Are you in Asia as independent missionaries? We are not. We're here under Jesus for Asia, a non-profit organization based in Collegedale, TN. In Thailand, the foundation is called Love for Asia because the people here don't know of Jesus, but they do know of love. JFA is our home base, and LFA is the in-country support. They walk us through the visa process each year, play a critical role in the licensing and annual re-licensing process for BTY, and offer support when issues within ministry come up. Jesus for Asia has a team of people working in the office and they actively promote prayer for the missionaries, Bible workers, and unreached people groups throughout Asia. I'm quite certain the team in the LFA office in Chiang Mai grow weary of my many questions and pleas for counsel. We're very grateful for the teams in both the JFA and LFA offices and we are definitely not here independently.