It is Saturday evening and a group of us are making our way down the dusty dirt roads towards the Burmese slums of Mae Sot. It is another weekend when we visit our students and the Avoda teens we brought along to train in missions  are carrying a  guitar, a ball and Bible story. On our way, we meet the father of one of the students. He smiles and offers  a  genuine  greeting. A month ago we were not as welcomed in his home, but a week before we had been invited to a children’s  celebration   and our friends from California who had come along, helped build relationships by helping this man set up his place for the party. The other parents had also been responsive to our visit and brought out food for us.

Our greatest desire is seeing the church the Lord had started there, grow, children’s lives changed and parents coming, and communities changed from darkness to hope and life.

We continueon and see a few of our students in the market streets. We take them with us and head towards the next cluster of homes. There are not many adults around but the few youngest children run out to greet us with joy. We take more children and walk towards the last settlement. The children are happy and sing songs as we go. They rip weeds and flowers for us and present them like treasures.

The atmosphere among the Burmese shacks is heavy. A group of men sit together and laugh as they ask for alcohol. The children of these men are not smiling. The skills of financial management are not known here and the hard earned money is often misused. It is the children who suffer most.

We play games and share of the One who gives peace among trials. Our teens translate into Thai and Galian and the older children translate into Burmese. The children sing with open hearts and come up one by one earnestly pleading to the Highest One,  for their families.  One of our students, drives by on his bike, looking our way with longing. He cannot come on Sundays and even now has no time to play. He had turned 12 and is now required to work. A few other children who aren’t permitted to join us for church, get to hear the message of hope and in that we rejoice.

Please pray for us to have wisdom in developing relationships with the parents and find a way to build connections.

2 of the girls who travel with us on the weekends do not have passports and their ID cards will soon no longer be accepted. Because they don’t have birth certificates it is almost impossible to get a passport . We know however the secret of asking and receiving.

Please keep the children who can no longer attend church because they have to work, in prayer. It is mostly boys who have started working.