Stories

A long obedience in the same direction.

None of these stories finished in a year. Most took ten or twenty. This is what faithfulness looks like when you stay long enough to see it.

Nam

Three rehabs. Then the Holy Spirit.

Nam was raised in the home. As a young man he got caught in drugs, and it went the way it so often goes: rehab, relapse, rehab again. Three times it didn't hold.

About three years ago, something did. Kathleen tells it simply: the Holy Spirit entered him. She still cries when she says it.

He loves the Lord, and he and his wife Pantene are preparing to lead the ministry Randy and Kathleen started.

Nam is 28 now. He speaks English, and their first baby is due next month. Some people have said he should wait until he's older. Kathleen, who is around him every day, says he's ready.

Sony

He ran for three years. Then he called home.

Every child raised in the home has gone their own way, and Sony's way was hard. He robbed someone and ran from the Thai police for three years.

Then one day he called Randy. “I want to turn myself in. Will you help me? Will you take me to the police?” Randy did. Sony served a year in prison.

About six months ago he came back to God. He has a three-year-old son. He talks to Kathleen every week, and once told her he didn't think God loved him anymore after everything he'd done.

“God is going to keep chasing you until you come back to him, son.”

Sony didn't finish high school, but he got a job at Nike because he speaks English. Who taught him? “Dad did.” He runs competitively now and came seventh in his last race. Kathleen has told him he'll come first when he quits smoking.

Moat

“Mom, I miss my family.”

Moat grew up in the home until 11th grade, when she went back to live with her grandmother, who offered more freedom and fewer rules.

This October, out of the blue, she wrote to Kathleen. God had been giving her dreams, she said, telling her to reconnect with her family.

“Mom, I miss my family. Where can I see them?”

So this Christmas, everyone is coming home.

The house

A house built one empty bank account at a time.

The foundation had $38 in it when Charlie Raider handed it over. The contractor built in stages of about 400,000 baht. Before almost every payment the account was empty. By the time each one came due, the money was there.

Three stories, fifteen bedrooms, eight bathrooms. The contractor said afterward he would never have started if he had known. “That's faith,” Kathleen told him. “Like a mustard seed.”

Read the whole story

Ban Dek Yin Dee, the house — Ban Dek Yin Dee today.

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