April Newsletter

Dear friends,

It was a source of great joy when Nop & Duan and also Sujitra, Boa-Daeng and Anotai visited us recently. Duan was a member of our family for 10 years and graduated from college four years ago. Nop worked with us for two years, and they got married three years ago. They are serving the Lord in Chiang Mai province.

Sujitra, Boa-Daeng and Anotai were amongst the first group of girls Yoke Fong and I received into our care. They remained with us for six years; Sujitra and Boa-Daeng have visited us on numerous occasions since then. It was Anotai’s first visit since she left our care sixteen years ago.

It has been a time of celebration for our five college students who are about to graduate. They treated us to a delicious meal and also had a meal to celebrate with the other college students. We are delighted to have obtained a position in a school south of Bangkok for Jaeng. Many thanks to Sanii (Di), one of our alumni, for helping her to get the position. All five of our graduates have been successful in finding work. How good is the God we adore!

Our selection process for our new intake of children is almost complete. They will come to visit us later this month.

Our children are very excited to return home for the hot-season break (April 3-May12), especially the children from the northern provinces who only get to return home twice a year. We will take measures to ensure their safety and will make arrangements for some of the poorest children to have regular meals while they are home. Four of our precious children will remain with us because of their particularly sad family circumstances. They are looking forward to receiving more personal attention and lots of treats.

One of our grade 8 boys has never met his mother. His father swindled her out of her small family inheritance and fled many years ago. She abandoned her little boy at birth and has refused to meet him since then. Yao has contacted her over the past few years, and she has finally agreed to allow Yao to take him to Bangkok, where they will spend some time together. He is very excited and nervous about meeting up with her after a lifetime of being apart. We are overjoyed at this new hope for them both and are praying she will love him as we do.

The cow barn is almost completed! It is beautiful and well-constructed. We have seven cows and a calf about to arrive any day now. We are actively seeking to purchase more cows. Many thanks to our generous supporters who have provided for this project that will enable us to be more self-sufficient.

We are looking forward to studying our core values together as a team to develop the leadership skills of each team member (April 12-15). As part of the process, we have invited four gifted partners of Grace Ministries to speak to us on various topics. Our dedicated and hard-working staff will then take some well-earned rest before our precious children return to us in late April or early May.

Love to each of you from all of us at Grace Ministries.