Welcome Sienna Faye Pound!

"So then I said, I love shrimp puffs"

Our college student Ploy's first golf club ever held, first shot---about 10 feet

Greetings from Thailand!

Someone once said that life is like a railway track. We have joys and sorrows running side by side through our life.

There are times when it can feel like it is all one or the other but the majority of the time it is some mix of both.

On our greatest days, some sadness still lurks in our hearts.

And on our worst days, there is still some small spark of hope within us.

This season of life has been marked by many joys for us in Thailand.

The greatest being the birth of our daughter, Sienna Faye Pound born on October 27th.

It is rare I meet a miracle face to face or at least rare that I recognize it. And it is rare that a miracle fits in your hands.

But seeing my daughter for the first time reminds me of how little I understand of life and our world.

It's summer camp time in Chiang Mai!

All the ladies in our neighborhood came to see the new baby.

She's already got grandpa figured out.

I am only a few inches, pounds and abilities beyond that tiny, helpless child.

But we share a dependency that we do not fully grasp and the great gift of life together.

And just when I am ready to throw my hands up for joy and sing of how good life is, I am brought face to face with the darker side of life.

Good friends and people I love are struck with cancer.

A family close to mine loses a daughter to suicide.

These are young people, dad's with young children, suddenly struggling to survive a brutal disease.

Many of you know my younger brother Jon died of cancer. For me cancer holds an especially bitter place in my heart.

The joy of my daughter is interrupted by the suffering of my friends.

There is a cowardly part of me that wants to turn a blind eye to their suffering.

This is usually how most of us respond to the poor. It is just so hard to see and so easy to look away--like a homeless man in the midst of a Christmas shopping trip.

It is an unwelcome reminder that even in our joys, something is still wrong.

The shark and the unicorn on Halloween!

Baby yawns are the best.

Elephant statues!

I want to enjoy my joy for a little while, free of the blemish of another's sorrow.

But the better part of me knows this is an ugly selfishness that will never lead me to joy.

If I believe the path to happiness is love (and I do) then I must learn to love more, not less.  Even if that causes me more sorrow in the short run, it is still the way to happiness in the long run.

When my turn comes for sorrow (which it will), when the joys seem to have vanished and life no longer seems a good thing, it is precisely then that I most want a friend to come be with me in my sorrow.

Of all the miseries in life, misery alone may be the worst of all.

That is why the step towards joy might well start by stepping into someone else's sorrow.

We have to learn to care for each other and that starts by learning to care about each other.

We work with orphan children.  Whom, as it turns out, are every bit as cute as any other children.
And when people can see them, it doesn't take long to love them.

But it can be very hard to help people see them.

We have a natural aversion to suffering, even seeing other's suffering.  And the temptation is to think that our happiness depends on how well we manage to avoid suffering, our own and others.

But that is not true.

Joy is not merely the absence of sorrow, but the presence of love.

When we know we are loved, when others come along side us, celebrating our joys, and sharing our sorrows, there is joy.

It is right that we should rejoice, and it is right that we should weep.

We must learn to do both together.

Sweet prayers of our staff for the Pound family!

Our incredible, illegally-parking, German midwife!

So every day I celebrate my beautiful little girl, my son, my wife, and every good thing in my life right now and rejoice over them.

And I talk to my friends, I pray for them, I find ways to help them---and I weep with them.

This becomes a rhythm in my life, the movement of joy and sorrow together.  It is not something I do alone, but alongside people I love, and who love me.

I look back on my own words in my previous post and I wrestle with them.

Is everything going to be alright?

It certainly won't all be easy. It may involve a lot of sorrow and weeping.

So we must learn to rejoice and weep together.

We are not alone if we have each other, if we choose to share each other's joys and sorrows.

This is the unique contribution of Christianity: none of us ever suffers alone.  Our God is not high above our human pain, but He comes down and shares them with us.

Divine tears are still a hard thing for me to grasp, but somehow I am comforted that they mix with our own.

Just now, on one "train track" of our lives:

We are so glad to welcome the Parker family to join us at Faithful Heart Foundation. Already we are excited to work with these open, caring, people.

We are so grateful for a healthy labor and birth for Audrey and Sienna. This little girl has been a lot easier than Ezra was in the new born phase and we have really enjoyed the time together as a family.

We are excited to feel like we're finally making head-way on purchasing the land for Faithful Heart.

...At the same time...

Audrey was amazing...

This little big brother is pretty excited!

Joy and Ploy came for the snuggles!

...Two good friends battling cancer, with families struggling to care for them and balance work and children.

Another family shocked by a sudden suicide.

Add a dose of uncertainty about the future and frustration at things not going the way we would like, and you have the other track.

We need people to share our joys and our sorrows.

We need friends who have learned to rejoice and weep with us.

And to do that we must learn to open up our lives.

The great loss of pretending everything is fine, is that we never experience the comfort of a friend who enters into our sorrow with us.

That lingering doubt, that people like us for the image we present, rather than the people we are, will remain.

Living in another culture, working for a foundation caring for orphan children can be very different from life in America.

But what surprises me is how similar it is.

There are still frustrations, still feelings of failure or inadequacy, still conflicts with people, still lots of joys and sorrows.

Take time to celebrate the joys, and be grateful for them.

And take time to weep for the sorrows.

And we will rejoice and weep with you.
Thank you for doing the same for us.

In love and hope and gratitude,

The Pounds

The cuteness!

Bringing aid to some needy families in the mountains.

Greetings from Thailand!

The title for my blog today comes from some modern day poets and prophets, Story of the Year (a punk-rock band I've liked since high school).  During a workout at the gym, I caught some of the lyrics of one of their songs:

"So tell me that I am not all alone and everything is alright."
It seems like they speak for many of us.

It hits two of our fundamental fears in life:

1.  We are alone, unloved, never really understood, never really accepted, and never really belong.

2.  The world often seems to be going to crap (fill in your own synonym here).

The world, the climate, our country, values, relationships, health, etc.

It seems even amidst prosperity, many people are feeling increasingly pessimistic about the future.

We have lost faith in so many of our leaders, spiritual and political.

We have access to more information than ever and what we have seen has made our hearts sink, more than rise.

Our good friends provide computer training to our house parents every month.

The woman on the right escaped an abusive marriage, but now she and her baby live in a tent on the side of a hill.

This hard working family needed a few bed mats.

This kind lady on the left is the head of Social Work in Chiang Mai. We are excited to work with her more in bringing relief to our neighbors in need.

And in this climate, many are appealing to massive crowds by joining the chorus of doom and gloom.

Cynical is the mood of the hour and cynical people feed it.

This cynicism has affected more of us than we realize.

In the midst of all this pessimism, a remarkable woman who died over 600 years ago has a powerful message for us:

"All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

Julian of Norwich is credited as the first woman to write a book in the English language.

In a time of incredible turmoil, constant conflict, and no pain medication, Julian was confident that everything was alright.

How?

Perhaps it sounds a bit naive.

If only she knew about nuclear weapons, climate change, etc, etc.

If only she knew how lonely it could feel with endless social media, but no real friends, perhaps she wouldn't have said it.

Physical Training Day with Home of Grace.

Phillip went beast mode on the leg press and tied for 1st with John for the contest.

Krit wasn't quite sure how this worked...

Mark was all focus on the shoulder machine.

Julian got a glimpse of something and that vision allowed her to look at all the insanity around her, all the violence, all the injustice, and even her own personal pain, and hope.

Hope.

She felt lonely, she knew things were not aright, right now.

She didn't try to deny or ignore the evil around her or the suffering, but she acknowledged them as very real, just not final, realities.

But hope is the ability to look ahead, into the unknown, uncertain future and know that things will be alright.

It is an ability many of us, religious and nonreligious alike, have lost.

Contrary to much of what you hear and read today, this is the message of Jesus for the world:

"You are not alone, you are loved, you are welcomed, you belong.  There is hope.  
Things are wrong, but they can and will all be made right."

Contrary to so much anger and protesting from Christians, this is the hope they are supposed to be sharing:

Not the doom of the world, but the redemption of the world.

One of the first things Jesus taught people was that you don't need to worry about anything, especially not the future.

Because you are not alone (none of us), and everything will be alright.

Not pie-in-the-sky idealism, but practical, literally down-to-earth, presence.

That's why the last thing He said was: "I will be with you always."

The girls love the trampoline!  Thanks Jay and Heidi, Liesl, and Evelyn Pound!

Mark's guitar skills are really impressive; he led a special music number at his church.

Birthday lunch for Matt--Japanese food! (Can you see the baby is almost ready to make her appearance?! Oct 28...)

Lateral lifts, these boys have it down!

So Jesus' advice for your life starts with learning to not give in to worry and fear, and ends with the reminder you are never alone because He will be with you wherever you go.

Fear is causing us all sorts of misery.

The closest emotion to fear is anger, which is why so many of our fears end up making us angry.

This is clear to see in politics and religion (of all varieties). 

We are told to fear 'them' (those who don't think like we do) and that if we don't fight for our rights, 'they' will take them, and ruin our country, our church, our traditions, etc.

We are told to fear an angry God who frowns in disapproval over us, and that if we don't think and  do the things they say we should, we will be terribly punished.

You can see the anger in people who preach these kinds of messages, politicians and pastors alike.

That bothers me tremendously.

Everyone is so angry, so sure they are right, and...so miserable.

This desperate longing to belong, to be part of the group, leads us to further and further divisions.

Because we are afraid of the "others" and afraid to be alone.

All this fear of others who are not like us, which turns so quickly to anger, leaves us exhausted and frustrated and cynical.

Our sweet friend Cindy is a great example of extravagant love. We love her!

So many sweet friends.

For those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus, can we really claim this is a good way to live?

For those of us who are not religious, are you tired of the cycle of pessimism, cynicism, and hopelessness?

When God gets hold of someone's life (when they decide they want to join His project of making the world right), then one of the first things that changes is joy comes.

Some people call this the "fruit" or result, of God living in us.

There is a whole list of things that begin to change when God comes near to us:

There is more love (and less hate).

There is more joy (and less cynicism).

There is more peace (and less anxiety and stress).

There is more patience (with yourself and with others).

There is more kindness (less screaming arguments).

This raises interesting, troubling questions for us who claim to be religious
(how is it we are supposed to have God in us, and yet we are still so angry and fearful?).

But I am more interested in what it says about God.

What must God be like if wherever He goes, there is more love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness?

Who wouldn't want someone like that to be around more often?

Even the house mothers are getting into it!

Our house mother Piikune. She worked harder than anyone on fitness day!

The girls wanted to learn to bake cake!

Mug cakes turned out amazing!

Religion has often (rightly) been accused of being an opiate of the people who cannot handle the bitter reality of life.

But Jesus is not offering an opiate to dull your pain.

He is offering you a cup of coffee and a shovel, to wake you up and prepare you to meet each day, ready to work.

We are not watching a movie where we know the ending and we just have to wait and see that everything will be alright.

Nor are we hiding in a bunker, avoiding contamination.

We are co-workers and partners in the project.

We don't need any more pessimistic, cynical people to tell us how bad things are.

And we don't need any pie-in-the-sky religious people to tell us just come join the group, and hang on until God comes and wipes everything out and proves us right.

Birthday squid!

Got to eat after all that hard work!

Joshua is one of our college graduates and staff members, and he continues to impress me. He can learn just about anything (flux-core welding most recently) and he has a genuinely kind heart and he loves to help others.

Meet our new co-workers, the Parker Family!  They arrive this week and we are all excited to have them!

What we need is cheerful, hopeful people living their lives to make themselves and their world better.

What we need is determined, patient, kind people to lead us to justice, not by picketing signs and angry social media posts, but by the example of their lives.

You are not alone and everything will be alright.

This is the forgotten message of Jesus.

Too often His message has been 'adjusted' for political or institutional purposes.

Instead of a message of joy to the world, it often becomes a message of preferential treatment for a chosen few.

Instead of being a cause for the trees to clap their hands and for the rivers to sing for joy, it has been turned into a message of angry destruction, and the rescue of the people who think the right things.

Imagine for a moment a life entirely free from fear.

So much of our time and energy is spent worrying.

But what if it doesn't have to be that way?

But knowledge, or even belief, isn't chiefly what we need.

We need experience.

Hmm...takes after his mom I think.

Grandpa and Grandma were a big help to put on a little party for Matt!

Happy Penpals!

Neiko has asked me to be his physical trainer and we have a lot of fun!

I celebrated my 33rd birthday a few weeks ago.

What struck me this year was that I had begun to experience what I (thought) I already believed.

I am not sure it does anyone any good to believe in God, until you experience that life can be a good thing.

In fact, believing in God might set you back, if your picture of God is a poor one.

It might be better to stay an agnostic, until you experience a God worth believing in.

Let me try to explain my experience on my birthday:

I realized that I really did think that at the heart of everything, was goodness and love (God).

I realized that so long as I could hold on to that idea, I was not afraid of the future (or anything else).

But the difference is I am coming to experience it, not just think it is so.

Too much of our spiritual life is taken up with what we think we believe.

The spiritual life is not a life separate from your physical life.

You have one life, and that is the life you and God are both interested in: the one you live every day.

Some good friends and mentors.

This baby is just about ready!

These three make me rich beyond my dreams!

I am 33 years old, and this is the best season of my life.

If your philosophy of life is not leading to a better life, more free from fear and more full of love for your neighbors, then I suggest it may be time to make a change.

There is a pride in cynicism and there is a humility in happiness.

Cynicism says that people and things do not change, and that I will choose fear over love.

Happiness says that we do not see or know everything, but I will choose love over fear. 

It is not a certainty, not a moral or spiritual sense of superiority, not a belonging to the right group, but a gratitude that sees life for the gift it is, and rather than clinging to that gift, or hoarding it, gladly shares it with others. 

You are not alone and everything will be alright. 

Our task is to find the God who is with us, accept our small corner of the world He has given us, and work with Him to make it better.

The more we come to experience this God, the easier it becomes to hope.
And the more we hope, the less we cynical we become.
And the less cynical we become, the more we are able to enter cheerfully into our work and do some real good in our world.

Welcome to Joy!

Love,

Matt, Audrey, Ezra, & Baby #2

We had a special guest at staff meeting to teach us about managing our personal finances.

There were a lot of wipe outs...but we had a lot of fun too :-)

The girls were more cautious, but they picked it up quickly.

Taxi and Micky both did great for their first time skating.

A rare photo of everyone on their feet.