These sweet, new friends helped us distribute food to families in San Sai, near our new land

So good to reconnect with Ajan Wep, one of our former house fathers, to help distribute food

And so good to reconnect with Ajan Yay, a former house father, to hand out food

Greetings from Thailand! 

If you are like me, most of my life I have been pretty sure I was right, right up until the point when I changed my mind.  

Often, we don't even realize we have changed or how much we have changed until much later. 

(And that's ok).  

The reason this is the case is because experience changes interpretation.  

And it should.  

Sometimes the facts change, or new information comes to us we didn't have before, but often the only thing that has changed is us (and how we process and interpret the information we have).  

That is why wisdom often comes with age (though not always).  

The more of life we experience, and the more different kinds of experiences we have in our life, the more it changes how we think about life. 

Those experiences (or their lack) are like lenses through which we interpret the world around us. 

Frog hunting was successful

12 years of marriage merits sweater shopping in the tropics

Ezra turned 5!

Take snow for an example. 

Show a picture of snow to a person from Ohio and they might groan. 
Show the picture to a person in Colorado and they might smile. 
Show it to a person in Florida and they might laugh. 
Show it to a person in Thailand, and they may not even know what it is. 

The snow stays the same, but the individual experiences we each have with snow, depending on our geography, can change how we think about snow. 

We view everything in life through our own personal lens of our experiences, family, upbringing, culture, and geography (and many more).  

There is no such thing as a truly objective person.  

Most of us do not really make an effort to be objective anyway. 
It takes hard, very difficult, uncomfortable work to even try to be objective, and rarely is there much incentive to do so. 

If we belong to a tight knit community like a family, or a church, or a political party, it can actually be viewed as a negative trait. 

To question or critique a group's beliefs or practices, is often seen as a threat to the group itself (and often, your place in the group).    

There is tremendous social pressure in groups to conform to what the rest of the group does or thinks (usually what a few of the leaders of the group does or thinks).
Many people think this is what unity is. 

But unity is not uniformity. 

Dtoshi is our newest college scholarship recipient, studying music

We partnered with CEF to help get food to families in poor communities in Chiang Mai

Some of the most resilient, welcoming people you will ever meet

Uniformity is trying to make everyone the same. 

Unity is the coming together of very different people, to accomplish common goals and purposes. 

Unity doesn’t seek to eliminate the diversity, but to work together within it.    
Uniformity sees diversity as a threat, or a hindrance to be eliminated.
Unity sees diversity as a strength, a protection to be cherished.

But unity is not an easy or natural process. 

Psychologically, we are much more comfortable with similarity.  We like what is familiar. We like being with people who think and look like we do.

Plus it is much more pleasant to be proved right, than to discover we are wrong. 

Just ask yourself what feels better after an argument with your wife or husband; being proved right, or having to admit you were wrong?

And the more invested we are in our answer; the more difficult it is to be wrong.    

We love making new friends :-)

Grandmas are the same everywhere you go

Grandpas too

Far too often, we go looking to prove we are right (to support the opinions we already hold) not to discover all the facts or information.    

But, in order to learn anything, we must start by acknowledging that there are facts or information we don't know.
 
Even if we are "sure" we know some true things, that does not mean we know all things (everything that is true).

Hopefully, we all know how dangerous it can be to jump to conclusions before having all the information.  

And while there are objective truths, there are not objective people. 

The result is while we are able to know true things; we must hold our understanding of them humbly because of all the other things we don’t know

Half of wisdom is knowing and appreciating how much you don’t know.   

Ignorance and zeal often go together. 

A little knowledge makes us arrogant.  A lot of knowledge makes us humble, because the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know. 

There is a vast gap between facts of existence and how you or I understand and interpret them.  

Or to put it another way, the facts of existence are objective, but you and I are not.  (we cannot know them objectively).  

We have no way of "downloading" information directly into our minds. 

We have to pass it through our lenses; our own unique blend of biases, experiences, culture, and geography, etc.

In other words, we are always interpreting the world around us.  And our interpretations are not objective, but affected by our unique experiences.  

The least important person in the room, but glad to be along for the fun

Our house father Mong, handing out food with the Mien Church

Really grateful were we able to put together a birthday party for Ezra

We all do it every day. 

We are constantly interpreting the world around us and trying to make sense of it, deciding how to live in it. 

Regardless of whether you are a raging zealot, or a quiet agnostic, your life is your answer to the questions of existence.    

And some of those answers are better than others, just like some people and some lives are better than others. 

Truth and reality are not subjective. 
Your life choices will have consequences.

For example, whether you believe in gravity or not, gravity is an objective truth.  How you choose to interact with gravity with have definite consequences in your life.  

So if you are sure you have better answers to life’s questions, how do you prove it?

Show us. 

Your life is your argument.  It is the prototype of your ideas. 

If you have figured out something objectively true about life, or the world or the universe, your life is the proof (or the lack thereof). 

What you do is what you believe. (Dallas Willard)

Ezra gluing down the all weather carpet for the pontoon boat

Two more boat building helpers!

Almost ready for the water!

I am as guilty of this mistake as anyone I know.  I thought truth was only, or at least mainly in the realm of theories and ideas.  So even when my own life had very little to commend itself to anyone else, I still felt confident telling everyone else how right I was (and how wrong they were). 

When our life is a joyful, useful, fruitful, peaceful thing, then indeed we may have something to share.

But if our lives aren’t very good; if they don’t make us happy and the world better; should we be telling other people how to live their lives? 

You can't share what you don't have.  

Surely part of our problem in the world today is we have so many unhappy, unhealthy people trying to tell us how to be healthy and happy, whether they are pundits on tv, politicians in Washington, or pastors in pulpits.  

We are all starting with the assumption we are already right, even when our lives aren’t right. 

But the proof is not in your arguments, not your words, or opinions, but your life. 

Another partnership in Bo Sang to help get food to people

Good friends at Kingdom of God Church

Ezra was a great help packing 350 bags of food

Your life, the one you live every day, is the fruit of your beliefs. 
What you do is what you believe (regardless of what you think you think).

We only need statements of faith or codes of ethics when there is a clear lack in our faith or ethics in our actual lives.  

We need fewer commentators, and more people out on the field; fewer critics and more artistic examples; fewer talking heads with clever theories, and more lives worth imitating. 

So if you are one of those frustrated people who are so sure you are right (and your group is right), how can you prove to the world that you are indeed right?

Easy.  Show us. 

We must first become the kind of people, living the kind of lives we want to see in the world, before we can help anyone else do the same.  

12 years with this lady I love

One excited birthday boy

Our dainty skater girl

So whether you are the religious police, ready to show everyone else where they are wrong; ready to condemn anyone and everyone who doesn’t think about or explain God the way you do; turn your attention inward before you turn it outward.  

Or if you are the self-appointed cultural police, ready to tell us all how to speak, when we should be offended, and how we are to behave; turn your attention inward before you turn it outward.  

Is your own life an example of the change you want to see in the world?  

People will listen to your words, when they see a life worth imitating. 

And a life worth imitating is a life that is good and does good, for everyone’s benefit and no one’s loss. 

Humility is the path to that kind of life. 

Humility is the knowledge and appreciation of all we don’t know. 

Humility leads to wisdom, and wisdom leads to living well, and living well proves what is right.        

The great thing about humility is it lifts our burdens and releases our anger.  

Arrogance is a terrible burden to carry around. 

Feeding the horses

Little friends

It isn't easy reconnecting families, but it is worth it!

Arrogance says it’s up to me to change everyone else, to fix them.

Humility says it’s up to me to change myself.

Arrogance says we need to save the world, the country, the church, etc.
Humility says we need to serve the world, the country, the church.

Ultimately, having faith is being able to say I can trust these things that are too big for me with someone greater than me. 

There is someone who can make all these things right (that is important); it just isn’t me. 

I have a part to play. 
But my part is to learn to live well, and let that example be light for others. 

Daily life

When your name fits you just right----Joy

Jesus never asked us to change other people’s minds, but to let our light shine. 

He came that we might have life in abundance, and He taught us how to have it. 
When we truly possess it, and it possesses us, then we would have something to share. 

Not just a words or arguments, but life itself. 

That’s what He meant when he said we are the light of the world. 

So let your light shine. 

Don’t just protest what’s wrong, pro-testify what is right with your own life
(Shane Claiborne).

The proof is in the pudding.  Let your life be the sweetest and the best, and others can taste and see for themselves what is good.

Love,

Matt, Audrey, Ezra, & Sienna

Please pray for Thailand