Pii Moay and the boys having lots of fun on school break.

Lots of fun :-)

Ezra's signature dance move is spreading across Thailand.

 Greetings from Thailand!  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  

Our family loves Christmas and we need Christmas, especially after a year like 2020. 
(2021 is staring with a bang too)  

Take a moment to breathe deep and hope with us.     

Sometimes normal is something to be grateful for.  

Surprisingly, 2020 has been a very good year for Faithful Heart Foundation.
We are directly impacting more lives than any other time since we first began working here.  

    - We have 22 children in our full time care. 

    - We provide education and food assistance to 30 families, assisting 50 children through our Family Strengthening Program. 

    - For our Christmas event alone, we will give out gift bags to over 85 children. 

    - We have 8 full time college students and we expect at least 2 more in March. 

    - We currently employ 12 Thai staff and we have 1 wonderful intern from India. 

    - We also are delighted to announce a new Assistant Director at Faithful Heart Joy        Singsathit.  Joy has been with us for years as our social worker and we have enjoyed watching her grow as a leader at Faithful Heart.  

Thanks to the generosity and kindness of so many of you, we have been able to help more people than ever before.  

What about the Pound family?

Well it was a big year for us too. 

    Audrey and I marked our 11th anniversary 
    Ezra turned 4 
    Sienna hit the big 2 

Ezra started preschool two days a week at an international school and everyday when I get home from work I ask him how his day was and he answers: "Great!".  Sienna has been studying diligently in the school of mayhem and destruction, and is already showing herself to be an advanced pupil.  They both bring us more joy and laughter than we could have thought possible.  

Audrey invested in several friendships this past year that were very life-giving for her.  We both feel like we have found good friends to journey with here in Thailand.  We had some hard goodbyes too.  Several good friends moved back to America after many years living here with us in Chiang Mai.  Life here seems to frequently be a change in seasons.  We move from one to another, with some sadness and some joy.  Now is no different.  We feel sadness for the loss of friends, but also excitement for what is next. 

What about Hope?

Take a deep breath.  Now take another one.  

2020 was unprecedented, but troubles and trials and even pandemics are not.  

"To live is to suffer.  To survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." 
-Frederich Nietzsche

I would add Ida Ford's words to Nietzsche's:

"To have hope is to find some purpose worth living and dying for." 

Because we don't just want to survive, we want to enjoy life in all its fullness. 
I love Christmas.  I love all the nostalgia and music and food and cookies and gifts, and time with family and friends.  

It is easy to forget that the first Christmas came to a poor immigrant family displaced from their home, under the occupation of a foreign power.  

Its easy with the nativity sets and carols to forget that rulers and governments were trying to find and murder a child who threatened the status quo.  With all the smiling kids and gifts, it is easy to forget the genocide of thousands of  toddlers when a king ordered the massacre of all baby boys under two years old because he was afraid to lose his position and power.  

So take a deep breath.  Now take another.  

The hope of Christmas is that God has not given up on the world, but is here with us, committed to us, working to make all things right.  And we can join Him in His work.  

One of my favorite Christmas verses in the Bible is at the very end of the Bible:

"See! God’s home is with people. He will live with them...God will take away all their tears. There will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All the old things have passed away...See! I am making all things new."

When life is going really well for us, it is easy to forget that some things are very wrong in our world.

 But a global pandemic has a way of making us sit up and say, "This is messed up"
(feel free to insert your own expletive)

For rich and privileged people like most of you and me, there are times we feel just fine even without hope.  Life is good enough.  Hope is for people in misery, for the frustrated, the broken, the hurting, the lonely, the poor.  

Suffering is never pleasant or welcome, but it can often lead us to hope, and hope can lead us to search for a life that is worth living and dying for.   

Hope is what emerges from the collision of our helplessness, and the discovery that life is still a good thing.   

What builds hope is finding and working towards a purpose which transcends and fulfills life---that is worth living and dying for.  

Some of our girls got to learn how to surf!

Cooking classes have a built in reward!

Buddies (some times).

So take a deep breath.  Now take another.  

Hope is not certainty, or just naive longing. 
Hope is the willingness to try something different, to question your own assumptions and way of life, and try a new, and different way.  

In order to hope, you don't need to be certain, just humble enough to try something new.  

Good men.

Many of the gingerbread decorations were mysteriously missing.

Our incredible Friend's Giving Feast.

Ezra has skills

Maybe 2020 has shown us it is time to try a different way.  

We make not like the "New Normal" but for many people in our world, the "Old Normal" wasn't so great either. 

Maybe the way to recover from a global pandemic is to begin to work for a world where life can be good for everyone, and where trying to find a good life for ourselves never comes at the expense of others.  

There is good reason to hope.  But don't take our word for it.  Find it for yourself. 

We are hoping and working with you to make all things new.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love, Matt, Audrey, Ezra, & Sienna

Celebrating a newly reunited family!

Judah and Ez are buddies

I like this guy's job

Great work crew!