I can’t possibly express to you what amazing evangelists our children are. They are completely disarming to the roughest of characters. I can approach people I would naturally be afraid of and pull the cover off of our baby’s face as he peacefully sleeps in his front pack and invariably watch hardened faces warm and smile and want to talk. It’s truly amazing how God has spoken and ordained our kids for this work – to them it is just play, and our home. As a family it is true that our work time is less “efficient” than it was before we had little people – it’s hard to get anything administrative (like keeping our inbox from exploding, staying on top of our finances, and for that matter writing newsletters) ever done, and team meetings and prayer time are often quite a bit noisier than is ideal. That said, in our stated most important of ministry goals – loving God and loving neighbor – our children’s presence truly serves to make us so much more effective than we could ever be without them.

As we cross this five-year anniversary of being here in Thailand we think back to nearly three years ago when God first so clearly spoke to us about wanting to give us children. Our initial oh-so-wise response to God was, “No, you don’t understand – You called us here to start a ministry. We can’t do that with kids. It just wouldn’t work.” Now I can look back and see how the presence of our children has solidified our role in the community and though God has redirected our focus some since we initially came, this current vision of loving “the least of these” here in our neighborhood is such a perfect pairing with our strengths and gifts as a family. Our children are just as called to this ministry as we are and any sort of an “inheritance” we may receive in heaven will be theirs as well.