Progress

Our Progress (notice our neighbor in the background and keep praying for Thailand)

The Students are the Ones

December 9, 2010

Lately I have been amazed about the individuals and families that are connected to our school in Chiang Rai.

A week ago we spent two days in a Habitudes leadership curriculum training session with a trainer from Singapore.  Leaders from our school sat alongside the visionaries from the Akha Hilltribe Outreach Foundation.  This is a family from our school who, being Akha themselves, are able to train leaders and take the church to their people throughout Southeast Asia.  Recently the Akha have seen new inroads for churches into their people group located in Vietnam.  While this family pursues the Akha people with passion, they also care deeply about their children and other children in our school receiving this education focused on developing a Biblical World View.

Also, we get the joy of sitting in meetings with a parent who helps in developing our future campus.  This parent recognizes the community impact of the school and directs his efforts to building the future.  However, this effort receives only a portion of his time.  The remainder of his time is dedicated to supporting efforts of peace that will put a broken nation on its feet.  Countries near us are boiling with change and our friends get to see this first hand.  These people we walk with hold up the hands of leaders you and I only hear about on the news.  

This work can definitely humble us at times.  We enjoy fellowship with leaders who send trained nationals into surrounding countries where religion is banned.  These leaders are not seeing a church plant, but churches and movements.  Also our national parents are pretty amazing.  Recently I have talked with parents and learned that they were the ones who brought the Internet to Chiang Rai. 

These connects are fun and inspiring, but lately we have been even more inspired about the incredible opportunity God puts before us in the life of our students.  The following story will help you understand how education in Thailand has a transformational community impact. 

One of our parents has lived in Thailand for many years, and in that time her children have attended school with children from many levels of the Chaing Rai community.  Recently, a Thai lady from the community, momentarily forgetting this parent was a Christian herself, asked our friend if she had heard that two of the CRICS students were now Christian.  This Buddhist parent showed a deep concern that Thai students might be attending our school and turning to the Christian faith.  Truly she has a lot to be concerned about because most, if not all of our students commit their lives to Christ and lead in their social relationships. 

Inspiring? Yes.  But there is much more here, think about it.  These students go home with their faith and enter a place quite foreign to their commitment to Christ.  This lady’s comments testify to the truth that these students enter a community hostile to their belief in Jesus.  Her words remind me of the often unspoken but always present reality that to be a Thai is to be a Buddhist.   

I am left wordless by students who must find the words to explain to parents and friends about Christ’s lordship in their lives.  We also know that more students in Christ’s fellowship will mean more persecution against these students and at times our school.  Please pray that our students will embrace the challenges to their faith, as the young church did.  May they see the beauty in the opportunity of suffering for being a light on a stand.  We know nothing of what it costs them, yet we can pray to the one who does.       

When the Mighty Waters Rise

“Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him.”  Psalm 32

The rainy season has always caused us to stop and be grateful that Jesus has placed us on high ground.  Recently we have been reminded once again the power of the waters.  Our principal at the school called Monday early with news that all walkways at the school were under water.   In America kids pray for snow days; our kids get rain days.  School was cancelled that day.  The sun drank up the water, allowing the doors to open again for one day.  The swollen rivers and sloppy rice fields laid in wait reminding me of after Thanksgiving dinner bloating.  Monday was kind of a set-up punch really.  The soaked land couldn’t handle the Tuesday/Wednesday deluge.   By mid-day Wednesday we all left school early.  Roads were closed and that evening we were thankful to be home and dry after driving by and through neighbors’ submerged homes. 

The irony is that floods build community much more than they wash the community away.  Our neighbors were out in mass.  Sandbagging, helping redirect water, but mainly fishing and lots of laughing.  Years of rainy seasons dictate that floods are less an emergency and more a good opportunity to fish.   So we talk, we watch them fish and we continue to pray that God will show them the place that the mighty waters can never touch.


I made a short video of the floods and attached it below. Hope ya like it.

Summer's Long Gone

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Allen and His Minions

Graduating Pei Chen

After dear friend Joe Hatcher and our nephew Allen Martin visited during the month of May, we were elated to participate in the Family Learning Center graduation ceremony.  Please pray for our graduate Pei Chen (Lily), of our Taiwan contingency, as she continues her studies at Taylor University in Indiana, YEAH Lily.  The next day we were off to the states for two and a half months to visit friends, family, our sending church, and attend a missionary conference.  We feel so humbled by the many ways our stateside partners in this

Chiang Rai work showered love on us.  BIG THANKS!  We appreciate you all.  Thus, we returned to Chiang Rai on August 20 with our emotional, spiritual, and mental tanks full.  We are still asking the Lord for His energy for each day’s physical work.  Orientation at school started a few days later and we are off to the start of another school year.  Oh, and Jak is doin’ great in kindergarten. 

First Video...Wow!

The Spirit of Adoption

Luke 2: 51b says, “And his mother kept and closely and persistently guarded all these things in her heart.” This scripture is describing Mary as she considers, studies, mothers and knows her son, Jesus. I love this passage because it describes, I believe, how much we as mothers spend our time and mental energy. There is a holy place that stores the daily interactions, holy moments, and simple snapshots of life that are far too priceless to try and catch with a video camera and then replay, too splendid to describe with mere words in a journal, too indescribable to try and share with another, and too other -worldly holy to try and capture anywhere but in a celebrated heart of a mother sharing intimate thoughts of her child with Father God.

So I have been asking God about how to deeply implant in my children that they are loved, secure, accepted, adored, beloved, chosen by God. And Jak has been teaching me much. He recently asked Brent, “Where did you get me from?” and then has been telling us at random times that he is not Thai, he’s English. Or on another day stating emphatically that he’s not Thai, he’s Spanish! I try to imagine what it is like to be in his four-year-old mind processing living in a Caucasian family in the country of Thailand, worshiping the God that all those around you deny. Wondering what it is like to overhear all the conversations that go on around you as you pass through the marketplace and people openly question your identity. I try to tell him the “right” answers of his ethnicity, etc. but my simple answers have not satisfied his inborn curiosity.

Last week as he was looking questioningly into my eyes with that desire to know “who am I?” I began to feel God urging me to speak over him truly who he is. Now, we have been doing this since the day he became our son, but there was something different about this question on this particular day as he stood under the doorway of Kate’s room with his chocolate brown eyes searching for the Truth. I looked him directly in the eyes and informed him of his true identity. “You are a mighty man of God.” His mind and body seemed to soak the reality of this truth in differently than in times past. He cocked his little head back and his body seemed to relax while at the same time grow more confident. He told me yesterday, “Mom, ‘I am chosen,’” as Brent has been describing to him.

So another of those forever-branded-in-my-heart moments that I will guard until eternity knowing that God is doing more than I can ask or imagine in the lives of my children. Father God hears our groans as mothers and comes to us, each of us, as we live in the families he designs with such creativity. I am learning about my adoption as his daughter into the family of the living God and my only response is to cry out to him with arms outstretched, “Abba, Father!” “For the Spirit which you have now received is not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption (the spirit producing sonship) in the bliss of which we cry, ‘Abba, Father! Father!” Romans 8:15

The more I learn about my costly adoption as a daughter of Father God, my ongoing transformation into the likeness of His Son, my Kingdom inheritance, that adoption was not and is not “plan B” for Father God but His divine plan from creation, I am touched again by His unfathomable love. When I think about the fact that adoption is usually from pretty bad situations and how God crossed a HUGE cultural chasm to adopt me, I am humbled and eternally grateful. I am chosen!

Why Do They Fight?

Many of you have seen the news about the Red Shirts (generally the poor and those from the provinces outside of Bangkok) fighting the yellow shirt soldiers (government ruling party) in Bangkok last week. We were there in Thailand's capital when the fighting was at its worst. Sounds scary, but Western tourist (that is the group we get put in of course, we don't have a shirt color...) are the least concern of these "freedom fighters." In fact, it seems that greater effort and concern was placed on welcoming us and serving us by the staff at our hotel during this last week when we were having a small conference in Bangkok with our sister team (Antioch Mission International) from Krabi, Southern Thailand.

Thais are well aware that the world is watching and thinking twice about visiting beautiful Thailand right now. Confounding to think about when you recognize that Thailand's chief source of income is tourism. So why fight when everyone knows that Red Shirts being shot by government backed soldiers in the capital will cause Americans and Europeans to go elsewhere?

The taxi drivers we spoke to, at least the calm ones without three red shirts on, noted that Thailand used to be know for its "brotherhood." The soldiers on TV were genuinely embarrassed to talk about the fact that Thais were fighting, and killing, Thais. Lots of head shaking and hands in the air in frustration.

Last night we were having dinner with a Thai family that we have been blessed with as friends. Leng, the father, made the problem very clear. He reminded me that there are many more people who do not side with the Yellows or the Reds. Yet these people feel helpless as they watch pride and desire for control tear apart Thai society. Unfortunately when the Yellows shut down the airport last year and forced the direction of government their way, the Red leaders responded by garnering support and shutting down busy business centers with demonstrations. These groups are large enough to create chaos, but never noble enough to guarantee peace. A prime opportunity to speak the reality that the peace He gives is not anything like the peace of this world. Thailand will find temporary peaceful solutions, but this prideful, ugly head will keep popping up (just as it did in the 70s, 80s, and so on). We are longing for the peace of Christ to come. A peace that will give hope a voice.

Happy Easter

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Entreprenueral Work

Hi All,

An update on the Penningtons is in order! My father-in-law often tells me that an entrepreneur works to develop value without regard to present resources (Did I get that right Jack?) So, I am going to tell you about some of our entrepreneurial efforts. Working in Northern Thailand as missionaries/teachers pioneering (you might say entrepreneuring) a local missionary/international school, our ultimate desire is to see evangelism happen, churches planted, and people served. Long ago God challenged Julie and me to use our training and experience in the field of education to consider how we evangelize through learning institutions. We have spent our years in Thailand at various Thai universities and schools in order to share Christ with Asian students. Presently the Lord has challenged us to partner with Chiang Rai International Christian School (CRICS) to develop what was a small missionary family home school co-op known as the Family Learning Center (FLC) into a fully registered international school in compliance with Thai government regulations. Julie supervises the elementary program and teaches in the school half days. Our two older children attend the school while our youngest son, Jak, attends a local Thai preschool in the mornings to strengthen his Thai language. We are asking God to give us another child, and are currently waiting on adopting another child through the Thai government system. Recently I spoke to our social worker and she encouraged me that the Thai government is beginning a new program developing connections with private agencies that will assist them in, among other efforts, finding the right little girl for us. She asked me to wait for another month for more information, and she sounded quite positive. Please pray for the connections between these agencies and for our social worker to find our little girl. But enough about us, I really want to tell you about the school…

The potential for community impact through FLC/CRICS motivates all of us who work here. Uniquely exciting about this opportunity is the promise that a teacher can come here with no knowledge of the Thai language, commit to only one or two years of teaching, and still make a life-changing and eternally significant impact. Wow! Many missionaries take years in missions training courses along with language and culture learning before they get the go ahead to enter a community at this level. Yet, our teachers impact the lives of the Northern Thailand community every day in the classroom. How? The impact points are many. We educate students from various cultures who will be future church and community leaders both in Thailand and beyond. We educate children from missionary families and thus facilitate service to the community through the love of Christ in our families’ various missions. We introduce Christ to our Thai students; many have accepted Jesus as their Lord and are influencing their families. And of course Jesus is always working and impacting this community in new ways that surprise all of us. 



All of this is wonderful. However, we cannot continue our efforts to serve the servants and leaders of this community unless we have great teachers. This is our primary challenge, and this is where your church community may have a role in Northern Thailand. What possibilities exist in your church to help our community impact Northern Thailand, Burma and Laos?

Consider with me some options that would allow church members to be introduced to our community for short-term commitments of a month or two up to long-term commitments of one and two years. Short-term assignments could range from substitute teaching or short courses, athletic camps, library projects, science fairs and outreach trips with the students.

For long-term commitments, we are specifically looking for two types of teachers (Really, any skilled teacher is desired, but these are two areas that work really well.) First, might your church community encourage young singles or recent college graduates to take a few years and spend it in a place like Thailand? Kind of a "Peace Corp" program out of your local church community. What if young people caught the vision of serving abroad for a stint before they got into their long-term career path? What if your community was dedicated to financially supporting part of an effort like this? (partial funding might be best, challenging new graduates to grow through fund raising efforts). This could have profound implications for your church's mission program and the overall worldview of the church.

As for the second possible type teacher, right now we have some teachers from the Baptist Denomination, International Ministries who have previously taught many years in American public schools and now are spending some of their retired years teaching in Thailand. Could your church be a part of challenging retirees (especially from education fields) to spend some of their retired years making a difference in Thailand? Our retired teacher volunteers routinely comment on how FLC/CRICS is a refreshing place for veteran teachers to use their years of skill and experience in small classrooms with well-behaved students who are highly motivated to learn.
Our school is made up of Nazarenes, Baptist, the Brethren, and Presbyterian churches, as well as many other international Christian missions and groups such as OMF and MUPS. Your Church or denomination could also be a part of this opportunity to make a difference, and I have yet to mention the gospel impact our teachers have on Thailand when the classroom teaching is over for the day.

Of course funds for our project are also necessary. Many churches give generously to help this school serve missionaries, yet financial backing is only a part of how a church could connect with this project. Quite frankly, we want your lives. We want other lovers of Jesus joining in on the blessings and challenges of this work.
Now that I have given you the fire hose of information about this vision and our dreams, what is God saying to you in this? Could we continue this conversation by email or phone?

My email: brent@flcschool.com our school principal’s email: ruth@flcschool.com

Here are some relevant web sites for our school…

FLC/CRICS school web site: http://www.flcschool.com/

FLC/CRICS fund raising web site: http://sites.google.com/site/flcfundraising/

Thanks for reading and considering all this. I appreciate you and your community.
We will be in the states this summer and would love to connect with possible volunteers.

Peace of Christ,

Brent, Julie, Ben, Kate and Jak