Sienna capturing the moment

We are constantly meeting brave, struggling families doing their best

It was a loooong trip

Greetings from Thailand!

It is good to be home.  It took a lot to get here, but now that we are, it is so, so good.  It was also really good getting to see friends and family back in the US.  This is more and more of this back-and-forth in our lives now.  

We have a home in two places.  

When we are in Thailand, we miss America.  When we are in America, we miss Thailand.  It is not a bad thing.  It means we are blessed to have many incredible people in our lives who we love, and who love us, in different places.  

Audrey wrote a Facebook post describing our long journey back to Thailand.  As I reflected on her words, and our experience, I thought it made a good analogy for all of life.  

One cute baby

Boys

Riding...

Life is a journey, and more to the point, it is a journey home.  

We are looking for something we haven't yet found, hungering for something we haven't yet tasted, longing for something we haven't yet felt.  

Until then, we experience lots of these back-and-forth moments.  The past few months, as I was struggling with anxiety and stress, life seemed hard and joy was hard to find.  But these few weeks back in Thailand have been full of joy.  Riding my motorbike full throttle down the road, the sun shining and warming me, the mountains green and lush,  the wind whipping past my skin.  The taste of curry, the reuniting with friends and coworkers, at least for now, it all seems so good.  Joy is easy to find.  

I have had the same experience in opposite places too, joy in America, stress in Thailand.  

Ploy having fun with our boys

Feeding the animals

Our social work team is the best

In my moments of deepest joy, or heaviest sorrow, I have still felt a longing for more---a nagging sense of incompleteness.  

In a sense, we need to learn to be content with discontent, or life will be exhausting.  But there is also such a thing as a holy discontent.  It is not always wrong to hunger for more.  

There are two mistakes I have made in this regard.  I have been too content with life.  So long as things were going well for me, I was cheerfully indifferent to the circumstances of others.  On the opposite side, I have been so discontent with life, I couldn't enjoy anything.  The knowledge of suffering anywhere, destroyed my hope of happiness everywhere.  

The past few years, living much closer to poverty, pain, and need, than I had previously have forced me to find a way to "weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice."  

I am afraid of sorrow and indifference.  

Its the season for bike riding

So nice to be outside

College Crew!

What I am coming to realize is that both sorrow and joy are on the road home. 

The sorrow reminds that things are not yet right, not as they ought to be. 
The joy reminds us that good exists, and helps us hope. 

The sorrow drives us on.  The joy allows us to rest. 

The sorrow pushes us to change.  The joy enables us to be where we are and appreciate how far we have come. 

The sorrow cries out for help.  The joy cries out in thanks.  

They are both our helpers and guides.  I would be concerned for any one who lacked one or the other.  To live well now, where we are, when we are; we need both.  

Show me a man or woman with all joy and no sorrow, and there will be something wrong.  Even if we have no sorrow of our own, how can we care nothing for the sorrows of others?  

But show me a man or woman who is all sorrow, and no joy, and there also will be something amiss.  Often those I encounter who have suffered the most, also posses an almost impossible gratitude.  No man has more joy in food than the man who formerly was starving.  No woman rejoices more in health, than she who has suffered from disease.  

This is life, this is the journey home.  The strange dance of joy and sorrow, as we rejoice in the good that is, and hope for the good that is still yet to come.  

Friends of mine call this the "Already-but-not-yet Kingdom."

One cute little guy

Our Swedish friends came back for a visit

Friends!

As followers of Jesus, we celebrate every good thing, and we work for the undoing of every evil thing.  We rejoice in the good world God made, and we work to fix all that we have helped break.  

It is a journey home---not to another place, but to the place this place was meant to be.  

So as we return to life in Thailand and to our work with vulnerable children; we know there will be both joy and sorrow, days of laughter, and days of  loss.  

We are not home yet, but our journeys are linked together.  We walk this road together.  We are thankful that we have the privilege to walk it with all of you.  

Good friends make life better!

Much better!

We finally have the proper title to our dorm!

A Prayer for the Journey Home:

Father, may we discover how wonderful you really are for ourselves.
May your kingdom come here, so that all shall be well for all, as you wish it to be.
Today, give to all enough and let it be enough for all of us.
Forgive us for all the harm we have caused. 
Forgive others all the harm they have caused us, so that we may all be healed and whole.
Lead us home, not to false fulfillment that fades so fast.
Deliver us from the evil inside of us, and outside of us.  

Thank you for your love and support, and friendship.  

Love Matt, Audrey, Ezra, & Sienna

Family time

This girl has no limits

My girls :-)

Jet lag is real