Cookout with good friends!

We have goats!  Thank you to everyone who helped!

And Chickens!

Greetings from Thailand, wherever you are!  

It is hard to remember how much has changed in the past year.   If you made it through last year, that feels like an achievement all by itself.  

That constant uncertainty takes a mental toll on us.  It isn't just change itself, but the feeling of living in perpetual motion not of our own making.  

Even if we try to calm down and slow down, the world around us doesn't.  And you will have to face it when you return, and all the changes that happened while you were away.  

The past month has brought a lot of changes to us personally and in our work.  We are faced with a lot of questions we don't have confident answers for.  

Is this the right way to go?  Will that work?  When can we do that?  Is this best?  

One of my (Matt) big fears is messing everything up.  

So having a lot of big decisions to think through, and lots of feelings of uncertainty makes me stressed and grumpy.  

Ajan Theeracahai's new church!

Home of Faith girls had school off so we hit the buffet

Ticket to Ride in Thai

My fear of failing says these changes are potentially harmful, and therefore undesirable.  But if I lean into it more, and try to be brave, I remember that change is just another name for opportunity.  

Because I believe in a God who only and always is trying to do good for His creatures, it helps me see change as a positive, not a negative thing.  

If there is nothing changing in my life, I am not growing. 
And if there is nothing changing in my life, there are no new opportunities in my life.  

But opportunity always has a cost.  

To try something new is to leave something else behind.  Where there is no risk, there rarely is any reward.  

The door which opens new opportunities to us is a change in our status quo.  And that is always uncomfortable at first.  

Love seeing the Faithful Heart Wood shop get used

Did you know you can print all your highlights from your Amazon Kindle for the past year?

Boys camping trip

One of my big goals for 2021 is to have a posture of receiving.  I want to try to hold less tightly to my own expectations and preferences.  I want to receive each day and all it brings with greater peace and flexibility.  

Thai culture is a good teacher of this idea, and it is one of the secrets to a happy life.  

We need to feel empowered to change out own lives, and at the same time, serene enough to accept our selves and our daily life as they are.  

I get far too much credit for my own life.  

Lately, several people have intentionally taken time to encourage me.  Words of encouragement are one of my "love languages" (ways I receive and show love).  So it has been a big encouragement to me personally.  

But honesty also compels me to add a footnote: it wasn't just me.

It has been a tremendous relief to me to discover that you can do some real good in the world even if you aren't unusually bright, gifted, educated, or special.  

If only heroes can do good in the world, there isn't much use of us normal folks trying is there?

But we can!  (you are all enlisted)

And here is a secret we are learning:

sometimes the best work is the most unexpected, the unplanned for, sometimes even the unwelcome.  

Change was our opportunity, cleverly disguised.  

Raina studying hard online

My short story got published in a book

 That is why I am trying to open myself to receive change more readily, more graciously.  

I have seen people make heroic efforts that didn't seem to do anyone any real good.  
And I have seen people who seem to hardly put much effort in at all, and it helps many people.  

My brother Jay gave me a great analogy for this years ago, and I have shared with several of my staff this year at Faithful Heart.  

We are sailors on a sailboat, not engines driving the boat.  

Our job is not to make things happen by our power and energy.
Our job is to sense where the wind is blowing and adjust our sail to catch it and run with it. 

If you are the engine, you have more control of where you are going, but engines run out of gas (as do people) and they get worn out, and they break (people do too!).  

But the wind is strong, and while sailing is work, it is a lot less work than pushing the boat yourself. 

Cooking!

Reading

Snuggling with our friend Nessa

In the Bible, the word translated as Spirit also means wind, or breath.  

So in a very literal sense, the way to get in harmony with God, with nature, with the flow of the universe is to relax more and  allow the wind (Spirit) to guide you.  

Most of the stuff I get credit for, was hardly my doing.  I maybe had an idea, and talked with some people.  Then I probably ate lunch.  Later, I prayed about the idea and spent some time thinking quietly about it.  Then I got some advice from people I trusted.  Then I asked for help from people more knowledgeable or skillful than me.  Then I played hide and seek with my kids, ate dinner, and went to bed. 

It was less like running a marathon and more like starting a relay race.  I didn't do it all.  (not even close!)  I had a part, but so did a lot of other people, and mine may not have even been the most important part.  

Far too much of our energy is spent on trying to resist change, which is another way of saying we waste a ton of energy resisting new opportunities.  

Maybe 90% of the stress in my life is the result of trying to conform the world to meet my preferences.  
What if I just received it as it came, and went with it where it was going? 

We love our college students, we are so proud of them!

Almost ready for family bike rides...not quite :-)

This brave little guy likes school!

I am not talking about right and wrong.  I will never stop trying to work to make the world a more just, a more peaceful, a more loving place.  

But I am talking about all those little things that clutter our minds and our days.  The red light.  The canceled dinner.  The unexpected guest.  The surprise health issue.  The lost job.  The irritating coworker.  The failed project.  The unexpected success.  

Most of the best things that have happened in the past year were not my plans.  

The sooner I was able to adjust myself to these opportunities disguised as change, the more enjoyable it was for me and everyone else.  

So take stock of your life.  This past year no one saw coming.  But where are the opportunities hidden in all these changes?  

Where can you start something new?
Where can you open your sails, and catch the wind?

Love this little guy

All my children love sugar...its strange :-)

I like the traffic laws in Thailand

Don't eat the bread of anxious toil.  That is not the life God wants to give you.  

Wouldn't we all rather have a life like this?

"You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;

  you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house;

your children will be like olive shoots around your table"  

(Psalm 128:2-3)

Be ready to adjust your sail; see the opportunity disguised as change and welcome it, and enjoy seeing what God will do!

Lots of love from Thailand,

Matt, Audrey, Ezra, & Sienna 

This little nugget

Buckeyes lost, but a great way to watch the game

Good friends are so precious