I want to take this time to update many of you that have been asking & some of you that may be curious about our community centre. For the past couple of weeks I have been walking in the village looking for potential buildings, talking with many people in the village & meeting with people. I have been meeting with our foundation staff looking & figuring out what our options are & how to move forward.
It has actually been exciting because each time I have gone into the village people have come up to me asking what I am going to do & (some in frustration) have said that we "need" to be in their village. Two days ago a lady I have never seen before outside the village stopped me to ask for details as to what I will do. I told her what we are thinking & she said that if my plans do not workout to talk to her again because she has a backup space outside the village we could rent. She said that we must stay open.
I ask all of you to please pray for the "blue building." It has been a building I asked God for as I was dreaming of possibilities with my previous director years ago. It's in the centre of the village, at the only intersection where everyone has to walk or drive by to get in or out of the village. It's the place were everyone goes to sit, meet with friends, watch Thai soap operas on the corner store's TV & where all the kids come to play.
It has 6 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a covered small outdoor area, a side covered area & the villages reverse osmosis water station (reminds me of...John 4:11).
Please pray that we will be able to rent this building. The rent could be close to 3 times what we paid for our last location & we will need to raise for that cost. The foundation's Thai staff will try to negotiate a reasonable monthly rental amount. Also please pray that we will be able to have some kind of written contract so that our rent will remain the same, that we can rent the building for years to come & for whatever reason it we do need to leave the building that we will have 90 days notice. Not the 8 days notice like in our previous location.
Sometimes, we forget the dreams we had & the prayers we prayed. Life with difficulty & challenges come that cause us to ask "why?" But as we stay the course, we start to see that God did not forget those dreams or prayers from years gone by. (Matthew 7:7-12)
