I don’t want to sound as if I am always in the middle of a war, except that actually…I am! I find that it is always best to tell things just as they happened, so here it goes!

Our week was a very calm, peaceful, happy week…here at the school. My students are happy, and Thunduh is enjoying getting to know the other students better. The only thing that marred our happiness here was the fact that our volley ball net was stolen, and more hangers of course. But outside of our school, many rumors were going around. We heard that our rules were too strict, and nobody wants to come here because of that. We heard that our Pastor was going to start his own school, since ours was not good enough, and so on until we were just sick about it. (we have also heard that many students want to come here and are just waiting for us to build a dorm)

On Thursday, I was worn out and feeling a bit discouraged about everything. We had not yet found time to go and talk to our pastor about the rumors, so we did not know what was true and what wasn’t. I decided that I needed to go for a long walk by myself. As I was walking, and talking to God about the situation, I looked over to the left side of the road, and noticed how incredibly beautiful the scenery was. There are a lot of beautiful tropical flowers in bloom right now, and with the coconut trees, and fruit trees everywhere it was spectacular. Then, a thought popped into my mind. I wished that we had a piece of property on that side of the road. One that would have a creek with CLEAN water in it, and fruit trees that were big enough to produce fruit, and space for gardens, and one that would not flood in the rainy season, and that was not right in the middle of the village like this place is. (Hannah cries…the whole village hears her!) I came home so excited about these ideas that I just had to tell my family about it. Travis reminded me that there was a place right up the road that fits that description that is for sale. I have never seen this other place, but he told me that it has about 15 mature coconut trees, and lots of mango trees, and pomelo trees, and rice fields, and a big clean creek that goes right through the middle of it. It is in a valley all its own, and he guessed that it is about 40 acres. It sounds nice, huh? Well, that was the end of that discussion, and we went back to reality.

On Friday, we got word that Pastor Phamor was coming to see us that day! We were so happy and excited. He had been in America for several months, trying to help the Karen people there, and we had not been able to talk to him all that time. I was very anxious to talk to him about everything that has happened here, because unlike most Karen, he will tell us the truth even if it hurts. So, he came, along with Pastor Windsley and a pastor who is going to be taking Pastor Windsley’s place when he retires shortly. We had a really nice visit, and we found out a lot of things that we did not know. Pastor told us that the rumors about our pastor wanting to start another school because ours was too strict were not true. He looked at our rules and said that they are just fine and we have no need to change anything we are doing. He acted very pleased with all that is happening here.

But, then it happened. He told us that this property that we are living on does not really belong to who we thought it belonged to! You see, over here foreigners are not allowed to own things, so in order to buy anything, a local person has to “own” it. We did this with our motor bike. It is ours, we bought it, but it is in Ehdohsay’s name. That is what happened with this property. We had been told that it belonged to two pastors, which it does, but it is just in their names, someone else actually owns it and paid for it! We were shocked! Why didn’t they tell us before we came here? Why didn’t they tell us before we started building the kitchen? As the reality of the situation started to sink in, suddenly I remembered my walk of the day before. Could it be that God was telling us that he wants us to have our own place? It would certainly solve a lot of problems, but where would the money come from?

I don’t have the answers yet, but I am assured that God knows all about it, and that He has a plan for us and this school. Roy and Travis walked over and looked at the other property yesterday, and yes, it does look good. That is all we know at this point. We are praying that the Lord would make it really clear to us as to what His plans are. We want to follow him in everything. For now, we will stop building, and just wait for an answer.