We, at ARK International, pray this update finds you living in the abundance of the Love of the Lord!

It has had an incredible start to the first quarter for the 2011 Year! After the supply room fire at our office on November 7, 2010, losing about 50,000 Thai Baht in merchandise and supplies, we were quickly surprised to find so many of you responding to the tragic news. The LORD prevented any injuries to our team and we actually realized how much we depend on one another through that event. Our ARK director, Sopo Fakaua, put out the fire at approximately 8:30am, that Sunday after our 1st official Nak Suu Fundraiser the night before. The ARK International team spent the entire Sunday cleaning up the damage and repairing what we could.

December gave us and the children in our ministry a huge boost. It was an incredible time sharing the love of Jesus with many children who had never even heard His name spoken before. Both at our NAK SUU Rugby Academy and LIVE Life we were able to share the story of the good news in fresh new ways. The children even had a chance to participate in a small play telling the story of Jesus’ birth!

January snuck up on us! We realized we were in a brand new year, excited for all that is ahead. It, also, was a time to get back with each of our programs and reconnect after a brief break for the holidays. We prepared a new program for NAK SUU, seeing a group of children from a boys’ home in Bangkok come back to our program after months of early morning prayer and much communication with their directors. The boys in the home were as glad to be back at NAK SUU as we were to be with them again. It seemed like family had been reunited! Our Saturday program quickly went from about 40 children weekly to 80!

February, however, has been the busiest and most exciting month so far! Our NAK SUU Tigers Rugby Academy’s first ever-tournament, where they were also the sponsored charity, was quite a challenge both for our 80+ children and for our 8 person staff & the 16+ volunteers that blessed us by their participation and support!

Also, shortly after the tournament ended, in the middle of February, YWAM Thailand’s Dagmar Geiger and Ian Talbot hosted a leadership training meeting for our staff. We followed through by our yearly ARK Thailand vision meeting. While at the same time 14 students and staff from the YWAM Perth Sports DTS team and 8 staff and students from the Foundations in Counseling Ministry School arrived to help expand our programs and the opportunities that we had to share the love of the Lord all over Bangkok!

We have seen three new programs begin in the last month, also. Pod Groups, a small group program, focusing on deeper relationships with the children and their knowledge of how awesome God is has begun in 2 of our Communities and now LIVE Life 2 has begun in another neighborhood on the other side of Bangkok!

Please prayerfully consider joining our ARK Thailand team (see application on this site!) The HARVEST is plentiful, the workers are few…

BE Blessed!

Energy and Excitement are the only two words to truly describe what happened this past Saturday.  It was amazing to see how much excitement these children had because they had a chance to get out of the rather hopeless environment that they live in of poverty and neglect and get into an area where they are truly cared about because of the love of God.  The kids were so excited to play rugby it gives me even more passion and excitement to see what else God has in store for them.

We had 50 plus Children from 4 slums of Bangkok and a boy’s orphanage.  We split the kids into two groups and while one group did discipleship the other was on the field running around playing rugby.  I am sure that the world could be powered by then energy of one excited child.  The place was alive with children laughing and running around with uncontrollable smiles.

In discipleship we spoke about how Christ was the light of the world and even in the darkness that is around them they have light because of God.  Discipleship takes a long time especially with children who don’t know anything about God but the little bit of light that they got this week will change their lives.  Changing lives one Child at a time that is what it is all about.

Please partner with us in praying the God continues to open doors so that more and more children can come out on Saturday.  Pray that the word gets out about the Nak Suu Tigers and that God becomes famous.  Please pray for continued safety as the political unrest continues here in Bangkok.  Something that has truly been on our hearts is that the children’s hearts be extremely soft to God speaking to them.  This week we are talking about how God knows everything pray that they have peace in knowing that God knows them and knows what they need!

Blessings!

We have never been in the slums more than we have the past three weeks.  Not only is it a bit of a journey so visit the children we work with, but it is emotionally exhausting seeing them live in some of the tough situations that they must face.  But nonetheless the rewards are much more invigorating.  To see kids with very little have joy just because they see someone that doesn’t have to care for them but does anyway is priceless.  It is so important for us to visit these kids where they live, in addition to our projects that they come to once a week.

We are all moved by the stories that come out of one of our communities, Samut Prakarn.  Many of our kids that live there are Cambodian and many have stories that are more than memorable.  One of our kids had his cousin just come from Cambodia because her mother and father had died.  No one knows what is going through a ten year olds head but her face showed complete despair.  To see someone who has had their life, as they know it, torn from them and transform right in front of you because of individual attention is amazing.  She started to smile and then she couldn’t stop it.  Her head was shaved in mourning for losing her parents but the joy she now possessed made her love having pictures taken of her, beautiful.

Weeks have passed and more visits have been made and Nak Suu Saturdays have come and things change but that smile remains the same, unwavering, an example of a life Transformed.  We only have this program as a platform to build relationships with children and it is amazing to see how God is working through us and using us.