In the last month, we have been praying for God to open up doors in our neighborhood for us to share the Gospel. Though we had been having one of the neighborhood children come to our house often prior to praying for an open door, since then we’ve been having seven kids come to our house on a regular basis, which is a little stressful some days, but is an amazing opportunity to love. We really believe God is entrusting us with this as we didn’t go seeking these kids out- rather they came to our door and we welcomed them in.

In some ways we are grateful that the school year has started up here again, as it naturally means that the kids cannot be here all day every day as they often tried to be during the kids summer break. (Yes, Thailand just had their summer and schools were closed for the hot months just like they are closed for the hot months in the States.) The kids love coming to our house and playing for hours on end, but one of the tensions we are facing in this is that the kids can be noisy and while we do have a house, it’s a townhouse, which means our neighbors can be easily bothered by the noise. We want to find a way to sow into the kids in a way we can sustain over time – which means boundaries, structure, fun and love and may possibly mean teaching English, helping with homework, and teaching Bible stories.

Many of the children who are coming to our house are allowed to roam the neighborhood until after dark, so we are grateful that they’ve chosen our home as a safe place to be. We want to get to know their families and be a blessing to them as well and have begun seeking out opportunities to connect with the children’s grandparents or parents (whoever it is that is the primary one raising them) but are trusting God for more.

We were able to take three kids (ages 8-9) to church with us this morning for the first time. They loved being a part of the kids’ church and said they want to come back next week. The teacher at church (who is Thai) said that if we do bring them back next week they will be more intentional to share the gospel with them. Please pray that as we bring them to church that they would have open hearts to receive the gospel and that we would have continued open doors with these children and their families to see disciples of Jesus raised up in our neighborhood.