Together but far apart

I am in Canada right now; I came to share all the wonderful things that God is doing in Thailand. But everything went crazy, and the world grounded itself, and I can’t even go home. So, to take advantage of the situation, I am improving our communication with you, finishing a book I have been writing, and embracing a slower schedule. All we have is our faith and our attitude, And I am going to nurture mine.

In the photo, you see Anchalee and I, and our lovely children. I am separated from them and have no idea when I will get back to them. But we communicate digitally, and I know they are healthy and safe.

Anchalee is mom and dad now. She takes the kids to the field every day, no school. She has built some structures that will be very useful for our future: An 11,000-liter water tank, two field huts, and a building for migrant workers stranded in our village. In addition, she has fought a forest fire and killed a cobra that wanted to fight.
She continues to preach, and the village still does house church and Sunday church. But the village itself is locked down and you can’t go down the highway unless you have a very good reason. I desperately wish I could give her a hand, But God is on top of all things and He will not forsake us. He will bring us the help we need. And we will get back together again.

The Blog Returns.

Glowing Hearts Family in tribal outfits for Church

The Blog Returns.

We're back. I can make all sorts of excuses as to why I didn't keep up the blog, but what difference will that make. I apologize for the nearly five year delay. But look how lovely everyone turned out. Especially me (back row middle)

A lot has changed in the last few years, and I know that life moves on and things need to be shared. So, I am starting again, and I hope that this new blog will be received with the love that we had received previously. 

This entry is about the kids. They are bigger and they eat more, people tell me this is normal. They are in great health and doing well. All of them are becoming their own people and are very different from each other.

Jessica (16) bloomed into a beautiful teenager. She is the boss around here. She cracks the whip (figuratively) and all the kids snap into action, finishing their chores, doing homework, and getting showered up. But she is an example as well and she does more cleaning than all of them combined. She likes to clean - how very strange. Jessica is also in a band at high school and is taking Chinese lessons in her limited spare time.

Genesis (10) is the sensitive creative one, too much for her own good I am afraid, but she is always being herself. She loves to draw and to sing and dance. She loves all animals and she will sit for hours at my computer, as I show her animal pictures and she thinks up questions to ask about them. Eventually, she needs to be picked up and removed, she will not leave on her own.

Gideon (10) is doing very well. We felt at one point his autism would seriously limit his life, but Gideon finds his own fascinations. Gideon is doing well at school, which is a surprise. There is no concession made for autistic kids here, no teaching assistants and no special treatment. It is sink or swim, and Gideon is swimming. Gideon is also still the best dancer of the kids in church. He is always the lead dancer whenever a special number is performed.

Shiloh (7) is silly, that is the best way to describe her. She doesn’t take anything seriously, which is fun for her but can be a challenge for everyone else. Rest assured, sure she is having more fun than anyone.

Benjamin (5) is a confident go-getter. He does everything full force, but he always makes sure everyone is included. Ben is clearly brilliant; his daily observations are often surprising, and his language skills are at a higher level than any of his siblings at his age. But he is also the baby and man does he know how to make that work for him.

So, it is 2020 now, and we are blessed. 2019 was very challenging but that just means God thinks we are worth upgrading. We have new ideas and a new vision. Our expectations are for good things for next year.

I am going to leave off the rest of the details though. I expect to be in Canada from late February through March and I don’t want to use up all my stories.

God bless everyone and I hope to see you soon.

Along comes Benjamin

So much has happened in the last several months, including a really great trip to Canada that we will have to just give you the short version. Things are good, we are blessed. Each day has its own challenge and we rise to meet them as they come.

We would like thank everyone for making us feel so at home on the way too short trip to Canada. We are grateful for all the love and support.

We would also like to thank The Australian team, led by our good friends David and Jill. In a single week they transformed our motley farm house into a much more modern version. Installing ceilings, fixing the scary upstairs electrical, finishing the kitchen cabinets that I had nearly given up on, creating a pretty pink room for the girls. And also bringing a wonderful message of love to the local church which made a real impact with couples and even Anchalee’s mom and dad. Which started a very good season spiritually for the congregation.

Storage tank for irrigating tea via drip tape. 

Our agricultural projects are moving along. We had a setback with the tea irrigation however.  The water tank at the top of the hill completely self-destructed in a rather dramatic fashion.  It seems the pipe leading to the tea got plugged and the tank was overflowing until it could no longer handle the stress of 6000 litres (I had always been careful not to fill it to the brim, but we did not know it had stopped releasing water). We will be replacing it now with a plastic store-bought version. We no longer have the time or desire to build another concrete tank so high on a hill. Just another lesson learned in a world where it seems everything I do I do for the first time.

Water tank as it is now. The rest is scattered down the tea field.

And now for our awesome and most extraordinary news:  We have welcomed to our home a beautiful baby boy named Benjamin. Benji‘s mom was forbidden to take him home. Her parents already care for another child by her, and the fathers of both children are absent.  So she has given him over to our care. She did spend the first month with him, so he did get some natural nutrition. Benjamin is two months old now, he is in perfect health and he is a very quiet and happy boy except from about 8:30 PM until about 11:00 PM. At that time he is loud and demanding. We are working on it.

Benjamin, such a blessing.

We are very happy to have this special boy with us. We thank God for His tender mercies and His hand in all our works. This new life is such a comfort and a healing for the still strong feelings we have from our short time with David.

Pastor's house is finally under way

Another bit of news that I am sure many of you are wondering about is the construction of the pastor's house There was a long wait to get started but now the build is in full swing. The pastor and his wife are still overwhelmed with the generosity of those who contributed to this project.  The pillar and beams are up, the floors are roughed in, the walls are going up and the metal for the roof will be going up shortly.

Our Pastor and his family

Thank you once again to all our friends. We are so grateful that we are living this life, enabled to give a home to these kids, and to be a help to those in our community.  We hope to see some of you over here soon, so you can see for yourselves the fruit of your sharing.

God bless you all.

Kim, Anchalee, Jessica, Genny, Gideon, Shiloh, And Benjamin

Goodbye David, We'll See You Again.

Farewell to David

If you have been following this blog you will have seen that our focus recently has been our youngest son David. David has left us to be with God. It is a sad time, but there is also relief and gladness that his suffering has ended.

We do not know all the thoughts of the Lord; there are times when His greater plan seems to conflict with our prayers and even our understanding. We have never prayed harder then we prayed for David. We prayed for his healing, for mercy, for his life and sometimes even just a rest from his constant battle to breathe. God heard the cries of our hearts. He has answered and set us at peace, but not in the way we declared and believed.

Our website is leastandlast.com. I registered that domain more than a decade ago; the name comes from a revelation that our concern should be for the least and the last among us. It is the things we do for those who cannot offer us anything back that demonstrates our heart most clearly. We cannot give God anything He does not already have, yet He redeems and shelters us. We should do what we see our Father do.

When we brought David home he had been abandoned and left to die. A local man had rescued him and David found his way to us through a pastor. He had only been given sugar water for days. He was tiny, weak and filthy. We cleaned him and fed him and he was a happy and quiet baby.  We did not know he had a serious heart defect.

We knew that God had spared him and brought him to us against the odds; that he had destiny and a purpose.  A month later his breathing became labored so we took him to the hospital where we learned he had pneumonia and a hole in his ventricular septum.

David lived just 22 months and about 16 of those months were spent in hospitals. Anchalee was by his side for nearly all of that time, night and day. With four more kids at home it was a time of testing for all of us. When we searched God’s Word we frequently returned to Job, a book that had more and more relevance for us as David’s troubles increased.

Through this time we prayed and read the Word, and many people around the world prayed as well. We heard from God about other things, but never anything about David. This too reminded us of Job, when the Lord was silent through his trials.

Despite David’s hard fight, when the pain was not too great; he was happy. He loved his mom and dad. Always ready to give a big smile and a high five. He loved to be sung to, despite our terrible skills. When we ran out of real songs the alphabet song was the standby. He liked that one. Other nights when he was just too stressed we prayed him to sleep.

About a month ago a drug resistant lung infection had made his condition worse. We watched him pass out from lack of oxygen 100 times or more, only to see him fight back.  He fought like his namesake, he never gave up. But eventually the doctors became convinced that it was only the drugs keeping his heart beating. They asked if we would agree to stop the medicine.

I had prayed that there would be no decisions like this to make. Devastated we put David in God’s hands and allowed for the medicine to be turned off. Expecting to see him pass away, we were surprised to see his vitals improve. For the next three days he was stable.

Despite our optimism it was made clear to us that we needed to be clear about funeral arrangements. Anchalee had been through such a fight for this little guy, and it only ever got worse. She decided that she could not bear to see him lifeless; she could not bear to bring him home like that. She was actually voicing concerns about her own sanity. Because of this I supported her decision to allow the body to be donated to the hospital.

At home on the fourth day, we got a phone call, informing us that David had only minutes left. We asked what we should do? We thought we should go there. They told us no, it will all be taken care of and that we could not possibly get there while he was still alive (the hospital is 120 km’s away). We were told to come in two days to fill out some papers.

Once again we felt he was gone. We mourned and comforted each other. We praised God for allowing us to share David’s life, that he trusted us with his time on Earth. Two days later we went to the morgue to start the paper work. We were shocked to discover the morgue had no record of David.

We went back to the ICU and were shocked again to find that David was still alive.  They never told us that he did not pass away as they had expected. We no longer knew how to think. It was so confusing, so emotional that no feeling would express it. We wanted to be happy, angry, sad, it was so wrong to be put in this position. Bewildered, we went and spent time with David.

David looked tired but peaceful. He opened his eyes and recognized us. He smiled and he held our hands. Anchalee gave him a kiss, and he tried to speak in a soft little voice that I had rarely heard because of tubes in his throat. It seemed like he had something to say, but he had not yet learned how to talk. It sounded like “dad”.

We did not know was that David was telling us goodbye. He waited for us - he was ready to go and he passed away shortly after. His face was the picture of serenity, something new for David. And so we lost him for a third and final time. But things had changed.

The stress had lifted, we were OK.  Anchalee changed her mind. She wanted a funeral now, we wanted to honor him. And God began to open our minds to the beautiful thing we were part of. David had been alone, discarded; no future, no health, no love, no family. We took him in and showed him love. We dedicated him to God and sacrificed our peace, our plans, and our time to protect and care for him. He knew that love we had for him, he understood it. And when it was his time he was received by our Lord and all the pain he endured in this world was forgotten as he passed into the presence of God.

We did not see him run or talk or even sit up on his own. We do not know why his life was short but we feel that his mission was to prepare us for things to come. We have looked deep inside ourselves and swept out the corners. We have forgiven all, confessed all, and praised God regardless.  We have tested the mettle of our faith come out the other side strengthened. We have grown in compassion for others and have learned so much about the insufficiency of our own understanding.

David was the ultimate symbol of our vision to help kids who truly have no one. We covered him in Love and prayer and released him to God. We miss him, but we know this world had nothing for him that can compare to the presence of God. 

David,we’ll meet again

Kim

Final Comments by Anchalee

Dear all my wonderful friends in Christ; may the peace of the Lord be with all of you. We are sorry it took so long to get this blog done; it is just hard to do.

I would like to say this: Through David’s life I have learned so much. He brought so much to us; I don’t know where to start.

We thank the Lord for him. We thank the Lord that He has given us the opportunity to love on him; he was so special to us.

In my life I never really knew anything about heart problems. To experience this and to fight alongside David was a journey for all of us.

This is what I have learned:

1.       To understand those who face difficult things.

2.       That there are a lot of opportunities to help others and to be kind.

3.       I have examined myself about the things that I do - the motivation behind the service.

4.       So much about medical tools and procedures.

5.       To trust God even more.

6.       How important each of us is.

7.       Patience.

8.       Never give up.

9.       Don’t judge.

10.   Appreciate what you have.

11.   God is our source, our provider.

12.   Love.

 Also I am thankful that I could do this and realize all the time that Jesus has given me the strength.

I thank the Lord that my husband supported me through all of this, all the time encouraging me and ready to do anything that needed to be done. I don’t think many can do what you have done Kim.

And I am also thankful for our friends and family that support us with prayers and finances. We totally could not have come through this without your help.

In everything the Lord has a good plan. Romans 8: 28-39

We have matured; God is turning bad for good. He has worked within us, cleaned us up. We have been through the furnace and purified to be used by Him for His kingdom.

Things happen we do not expect, we don’t understand, but we have to trust God no matter how we feel, how terrible the situation. He doesn't make mistakes, He sees all, knows all. Many times in the Bible he doesn't do what we think He would do. Because He sees beyond what we see, He knows what is best; and we need His best.

David is gone but he is in the best place, with our wonderful Creator who made him and loves him more than we can. One day we will meet again – no tears, just joy.

Thank you Lord that we are still here and standing in You. We have hope and peace in our heart.

Anchalee

Shakin' all over

A giant Buddha who lost his head in the recent quake.

I knew life in the jungle would be interesting, I did not expect it to be this interesting.

Where to start? Well, we had a 6.3 earthquake this week. The epicenter of which was 35 kilometers from our house. This is our second big quake. The 2011 quake was a 6.9 but further away so it wasn't as dramatic (FYI the same day Japan had their tsunami). This one hit us while everyone was standing in the same room, just a few feet from the front door. Recognizing what is happening takes a second or two. You’re off balance, there are sudden violent sounds coming from everywhere at once, and things that shouldn't move are now moving in front of you.

 “Earthquake” I said. “Get out, everybody out!” “But what about David,” asks Anchalee? “He’s fine - get out!” I had no idea if he was fine or not but I needed as many people out of danger as possible. Then it was just me in the living room, torn between running for David, and getting out. Logic prevailed; there was no way to get David’s oxygen generator out the door with him, and the spare oxygen tank is 55 kg impossible to haul through 2 rooms in the middle of a quake. So I stepped outside the door - leaning on faith that God would protect him when I could not.

Then the quake ended and although there was lots of adrenalin and excited chatter, nothing serious happened on our property. Many aftershocks followed, quite a few over magnitude 5, but thank you God, we are all fine.

David on the bed with mom. Tough little guy with an easy smile.

David is home from the hospital currently, which is a very good thing. The hospital he was in just days earlier was damaged in the quake. We actually drove back to the hospital the night before the quake, because he was struggling, but he improved on the hour and a half drive there. We asked God if we should go back home and we felt peace to return. What a blessing he was not there for the earthquake.The patients were taken outside and set up in temporary wards.  It would have been a frightening ordeal for Anchalee and David.

We have been praying a lot about David’s situation. Truth be told, the doctors have not been very encouraging. His lungs have not improved and in his condition they do not want to give him the heart operation he needs. What we need more than anything is help in the spiritual battle for David’s healing. Please do take time to believe with us in prayer that David’s lungs will improve. They are full of fluid, partially collapsed, and we need them to return to normal.

Left to right: Zai, Margot, and Anchalee's cousin Nit

We were blessed with a lot of visitors lately. Normally we get very few. I finally got to meet Margot, Who is the wife of our friend Rudyard. She is doing important work determining if Thailand’s hill tribes are connected to the Miso tribe in India - a tribe which was declared in Israel, 9 years ago, to be part of the lost tribe of Manasseh. It seems there is a very good chance that my wife Anchalee is actually Jewish. Which explains why God loves her so much. Margot was traveling with Zai from India, who is the author of the book providing the evidence connecting the Mizo with Manasseh.

Kim and Diane Smith

While Margot was here she invited up her friends Kim and Diane, who are busy setting up a ministry in Bangkok. Kim and I have much in common; both of us are boys named after the book Kim, for example. But the similarities went on and on. Kim and Diane filled up our faith with their wonderful testimonies and we really loved their surprise visit. We were fast friends and we will see them again

David Blackmore and Anchalee: Friends from way back..

David and Jill Blackmore also dropped in with family members: Loraine, Renee, Daniel and Tully. It had been too long since they were here last. We had a great time working on projects around the yard and using stone-age technology to move a 1000 kilogram boulder which was blocking a stream. We also finished a dam I have been rebuilding. We christened it Tully Dam; after David and Jill’s grandson; who got his first taste of concrete work that day.  David also did a three part teaching on the Holy Spirit which was enjoyed by all. Thanks so much to all of you; it really changes things here for us, just by having some friends around.

Monocled cobra wasn't included among our approved visitors

There is too much going on to include all of it today. We are all doing fine, and our morale is up real high. We owe it all to our friends and our supporters, who keep us here in the center of God’s will, doing good works and demonstrating the reality of God’s love for all. Be blessed.

Hope for a Homecoming

Hi everyone. It has been a long and complicated time since our last blog. We would like to thank all of our friends for their prayers and faith for our family and the situation with David.

David, looking much better these days.

Last time I wrote in this blog the good news that David was home from the hospital. Unfortunately he did not stay home for long. David went back to the hospital in February and has been in one of three different hospitals ever since. All of that time, until two weeks ago he was in pediatric ICU’s. David has collapsed lungs, a hole in his heart, and he currently must breathe through a tube in his neck. He is still too small for the heart surgery he requires.

This has been especially difficult because the hospital system here requires family members to do some or most of the nursing for the patient. Because the hospital is so far away (one hour, one and a half hours, or three hours; depending on which hospital) has meant that Anchalee has been away from home for most of the last 6 months. It has been quite an undertaking for us to make sure our four other children (all under the age of four) were happy, as well as handling all the details of the farm, village, and church life.

Anchalee and David are both happy that since he has been released from the ICU,
 she is now able to hold David

This week we have some confidence that David will be coming home soon. They are currently training Anchalee to do the suctioning of the lungs and the application of medicines through the feeding tubes and assorted other things. So maybe even this week they will release David to come home.

Please pray for David to get past his recent fevers and for his healing to accelerate so that the doctors will release him to our care. It would be such a blessing to have our family back together again. Also because I will be returning soon to Canada for a month, it would be a great comfort to me personally if my wife was home with my kids. The trip to Canada has been postponed continually and can no longer be avoided.

Once again, thank you for your thoughts and prayers. The rest of us are well and we have made progress in many areas despite the situation. I would say more, but I want to share our news in person when I arrive in Canada.

God bless you all

David is Back Home

It is good to be home

The Glowing Hearts family would like to thank all of our friends for their prayers.  The day after I made the last blog entry, David was cleared to come home. We are very grateful to have our family back together again and Anchalee is especially happy to be sleeping in a bed once more and eating home cooked meals.

David’s lungs are good enough that they let him go home, but he is not out of the woods yet. They sent him home with a cooler full of medicine that has a complicated schedule, and he needs to take this stuff for a month. At that point they will have another look at him and determine when to schedule the heart surgery. If you would like to pray, it would be good if his heart was healed without the need for surgery.

We will now attempt to bring our own lives back to some kind of routine. The holiday season skipped us by because we wanted to be together for that, but through some miscommunication the kids already got their presents, so we will probably just have a festive meal and throw in a few birthdays for good measure (Gideon and I share a birthday). Getting David back was the present we were all hoping for anyhow.

Thank you once again, Happy New Year and may it be the best one you ever had.

Kim, Anchalee, Jessica, Genesis, Gideon, Shiloh, and David