Sad goodbyes to our landlord of the last 3 year, Khun Yai

Greetings from Thailand!

This has been a hard month. (I'll explain in our next post some of the challenges we are facing.)

Audrey has been listening to Brene Brown, and teaching me about the power of being vulnerable.
(Brene is on youtube and Netflix, it is worth your time!)

And sometimes it starts with simply saying:

"I am not sure I can do this."

This past month has been filled with such moments for us.

"Can we do this?"
"Are we the right people for this job?"
"We just don't know what to do in this situation."

We love Tiida!

Tom Sawyer Island?

This little Squishy is on the move!

Leadership is full of just such thoughts and feelings, especially new leadership.

At Faithful Heart we have been facing a host of problems and questions.
Faced with so many things which I do not know the answers to and I have to make a choice.

Do I stuff it all down and pretend I have it all together?  Do I try to assure others that I have the answers, the wisdom, and the resources to fix all these problems?

Or do I chose vulnerability and admit I am still learning and growing too?

Honesty really is the best policy.
(If only we realized all the ways we are subtly dishonest, we might really get somewhere.)

Phillip is learning the importance of college football.

Staff meeting!

Chilling in Sunday School

For myself, there is a lot of fear when it comes to the question of my worth or capability.
So failing can feel more like an attack on my self worth, than a learning opportunity.

Some of you can maybe relate.

But the way out of that is not pretending to have it all together when we don't, but learning to embrace our worth, while admitting our limitations and fears.  

Because if we never admit we need help, we are unlikely to get it.
The myth of self-sufficiency is strong.

None of us is self-sufficient.

Thai Church

Working at the farm is good for everybody

Ezra is making full use of his new yard!

We were created for relationship.
We were created for each other.

No one is fully independent or fully dependent.
But we are all inter-dependent.

Imagine if we not only admitted this, but embraced it?

I am not enough.
Not strong enough.
Not smart enough.
Not gifted enough.

None of us is.

But maybe together, we are.

Strong enough.
Smart enough.
Gifted enough.

10 years with this sweet lady!

Cooling off after some hard work

Ezra picked out a unicorn for a gift for Sienna

This past few weeks has been hard.  But if it wasn't for a good friend, it would have been much harder.

Joel came from the US to help us deal with some of the issues we have run into at Faithful Heart.

He was a good listener.  Patient, gentle, and wise.

Without his timely help, I am not sure what we would do.
At first, that frightened me.

It was clear, at least to me, and probably to him and to others, that I was not enough for the challenges in front of me.

But God never said I would be enough.  
He said that He would be with us, and we would be enough.

By recognizing my need, I could rejoice in God's supply.  

Tadpoles are awesome

New haricuts and handsome dudes.

Paula is such a sweet helper, we love her!

When we pray for help, our first response should be to look around, not up. 

God's preferred method of helping us is through other people, not supernatural displays.
To a starving man, a sandwich from a kind stranger is just as much a miracle as manna from heaven. 
I am not enough.

And that is ok.

That crushing burden of having to always have it all together, to always be successful can be set down.

And that ego of thinking we are so much better than others can be set down.

We are pieces in God's puzzle.

And as He draws all those pieces together, and fits them in place, we see the amazing design and beauty in the individual pieces, and in the whole, that we missed before.

Laying sod

We find the coolest places to play

You and I are not enough on our own.

We are never called on our own.

We are created and called and invited and challenged and celebrated--together.

May we recognize our needs and rejoice in God's supply--together!

Thank you to all of you who are with us.  We couldn't do it without you.

In hope,

Matt, Audrey, Ezra, and Little Squishy (Sienna)

Boys working hard at Home of Comfort, Rainy Rice season is beautiful

4th of July in America

How we roll with our cousins.

Cousin Annie was so much fun, we love her.

Greetings again, from Thailand!

We have just returned from a month long stay with family and friends in the U.S. and it was so refreshing for all of us.

I have said before that I feel like I am growing happier every year.
I don't mean life doesn't at times frustrate me or that everything goes the way I want it to (far from it).

But usually what I mean is that I seem to be changing to where whatever comes my way feels more and more like a gift--whether it was what I expected and hoped for, or not.

Half the time the greater struggle is adjusting my expectations so I can enjoy the new and unexpected thing which has come to me.

But when I can, I find I am happier, more content.

During our time in the US, I got to spend a lot of time with some pretty wonderful people.
And I found myself liking them more than ever.

What happened, I thought, that all these people seem even more lovable than they were before?

Undoubtedly, I can see how many of them have grown, but the biggest change seemed to be in me.
What was lovable in my family and friends was there all along. 
But now I see it better.

Despite Ezra's face, we all love Uncle Bunky and Aunt Pam

Rohan and Ambrose have some mad soccer skills

Love this family.

In the past, my faults caused me to emphasis the faults of others and diminish their virtues.

But now I find the progress I have made in some of my own faults, has helped me better see their virtues, and mind less their faults.

Which caused me to notice something profound.

The better we become, the more we enjoy the people around us.

Just think about that for a minute.

Usually, when I can't enjoy someone, I blame it on some fault in them.
And to be sure, some people have some serious faults that make it hard to be near them.

But unless someone has no virtue at all (and I have yet to meet such a person) then there is always something about them we could enjoy if we were able.

Imagine being able to enjoy every person in your life right now.
Imagine delighting in each unique person God thought worth making.
Imagine the jokes and the laughter and the dinners and the games and the the songs and the sports and the conversations.

Think about what it would mean for you if you measured maturity by your ability to enjoy people who were different from you?

What if the most mature, most spiritual, most advanced (most whatever) person was really the one who just enjoyed everybody the most?

Taking Aunt Pam for a drive.

Ticket to Ride and Matt's first ever victory.

I used to think simply enjoying someone might cause them to belittle or ignore their faults.

But in my own life, it was rarely the people who emphasized my faults who helped me work through them.

It was the friends who could see my virtues and gifts and urge me to pursue and develop them.

You can't follow both your faults and your virtues at the same time.
Eventually your path will lead one way or the other.

Most people didn't need us to emphasize their faults.  There are plenty of people willing to do that.

What they needed was someone to remind them of who they could be
(who they were at their best moments).

And those moments often come not when we are trying to "fix" each other, but when we begin to truly enjoy each other.

God's best gifts are people.

It would be a shame to not be able to enjoy them.

Grandmas will do anything for their grandkids!

A lot of just hanging out.

Rohan has a sweet heart for little kids, especially Sienna.

My brother-in-law is building a reservoir---how cool is that?

Honey!

Funny faces

Sharing

Sort of buddies

Molly!  (and Mike in the background)

A Quick Update:

We have jumped back into life in Thailand and are excited (and a little sad) to be moving to a new house.  Our kids need a yard to play in.  But we have lived over 3 years in our current home and we love our neighbors.

Our fellow volunteers, the Parker family, also move into their new home at Faithful Heart next month.

We have partnered with Echo Asia to help us prepare the new land for farming.  We continue to wait on paperwork, but it is fun to see some progress.

Please pray for our finances at Faithful Heart.  We could really use some new sponsors for our children.  I will give more details soon, but for now, we need wisdom and patience.

We participated in an English camp at a Thai school this week.  It is always fun to spend time with kids and get to know new friends.

Thank you to YOU!  So many of you are family to us.  We enjoy you!

In hope,

Matt, Audrey, Ezra, and Sienna Pound

Lot of time in airplanes...

And back to Thailand again!

Teaching English

Let's play Where is Waldo...err, Matt... (: