An Open Letter to Two Remarkable Heroes

To my dear and honourable friends, Pastor Suradet and Yupa,

This day, for reasons not clear to me, has been particularly painful in the missing of you both. My thoughts have been of you, and of the children at Hot Springs. My heart is heavy with longing to be with you. I am homesick for Thailand.

Often I write about and express freely my affections for the children. They are without question 15 treasures, and I do miss them terribly on days like this, and most other days too, if I'm honest. I miss hearing their voices, having them come for a hug, being gifted with a beauteous smile. They have captured my imagination in ways that still surprise me. I am fiercely intent on their well being. I pray for them with intensity.

But today my thoughts are more with you. Today I am missing you, my friends.

It still astonishes me that I could feel so close to and hold in such high esteem people with whom I can barely communicate. Not with language at least. Your English is very good. Geng mahk. Much better than my feeble attempts to wrap my poor brain around Thai, as amusing as that challenge has been. But really, if we were both honest, we can hardly talk to each other.

Yet I love you so much. I feel so warm and welcome and respected in your presence. I am so eagerly embraced into your family, and into your hearts. Your lives inspire me and lift me and make me want to live better, and know you better, and ask if somehow I can be more and more part of who you are and what you do.

That's the thing. This deepening desire to be part of what God is so clearly doing through you. I am compelled by an interest and affection I don't understand. There is a chemistry happening, something I've only experienced once or twice before in my entire ministry and personal life. There's a pull, a fascination, something I can't shake, not that I want to, that makes my heart beat harder when I think about how God is letting me do this with you.

I speak in the personal, but I fully know that there's a whole beautiful church of people called Highview, especially the sponsors, that share in all of this. Hot Springs is hardly the pet project of one person. It can't be. It's certainly way bigger than me, and we need to pull on the resources of one another in order to make the difference we hope to make. In that, I have been overwhelmed with the generosity of our people to engage with the children. You are well loved by not just the sponsors, but by our people as a whole. Know that. Feel that. Receive that.

That's why, right now, as we consider the changes that are being presented to us, I am more and more convinced that God is about to show us something new. I am asking Him to give the ideas and compassion and the creativity to partner with you in the fullest sense of the word. To think this out and through and up and over and above all that you both require to raise your children and unleash them to their futures. We want to do this ministry with you.

You have done a remarkable thing. You've opened up your entire lives, turned them upside down, for the sake of bringing love and life to children who would otherwise have been helpless. You spread out the mats and put on the rice and opened your arms so that thirteen kids could sleep and eat and be loved. Selflessly, tirelessly.

I love watching you do it. It's so joyful. You are so delightful as you love them. Being with you and engaging with this sweet energy, pours light and strength into my soul. Moving easily through a regular day with you is like plugging into to something supercharged and gentle and white hot and pure. From morning devotions at 5 a.m. to evening devotions after supper and all the moments of life in between. The children. The mountains. The rain. The rice. The mangos. The singing....that sound of musical hope echoing in the upper assembly room, and out into the jungle air.

You are doing an amazing job. You are doing this so well. I am so inspired and challenged by who you are and what you do. What an unspeakable gift you have brought to these children.

To Bee and Bao, of course, the children born from your bodies. But also for Teh and Saiy and Entorn and Thim and Somchai and Bee and Miki and Sai and Boy and Bee-yung and Fruk and Nam and Nut, the children born from your obedient compassion Fifteen altogether.

Suradet, you told me, when we were there, that you have a dream to build a dorm that would house 30. Thirty children, you said. Dek dek sam-sip, I said. And you smiled that completely bilingual and winning smile of yours, and said, Yeeesss.

You have one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know.

I want to learn from you, Suradet. I want to understand better from you Yupa. You have so much to teach me about love.

And love is the most important thing. In fact, the two you embody the words of Paul in Galatians 5:6.

"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

You ARE those words Suradet.
You LIVE those words Yupa.
Far more than I.

And that is why you are my heroes. Remarkable heroes. Stunning.

So my prayer on this day of particularly missing you is this. That I may be granted the enormous honour of sharing in your ministry as much as I possibly am allowed. To the fullest extent that God sees fit. With whatever I can bring to this, I am asking, begging, to be granted the priviledge to share in this. Not in the doing of it, because you already do it so well. Just....Lord, please let me be as much a part of this as I can be.

And please, can it be that soon I will wake up and not be missing you....because I will be there with you for a little while again.

With deepest affection and immense respect,
Your humble friend,

Ruth Anne