Emily sent this to me recently, and I enjoyed it so much that I thought that I would share it with you too. Kaw Thoo Lei is where Ben and now Emily work.

Beforetimes, there were 2 places that my eyes had not seen, my ears had
not heard, nor had entered into my heart a comprehension of their beauty—
one place was heaven and the other was Kaw Thoo Lei. Now, heaven I knew
existed, but Kaw Thoo Lei—the name had never entered my ears. When it did,
what it was like just didn’t sink in, despite descriptions and even pictures. My
imagination took over and turned the input into a vague expectation composedof foggy scenes, some of them dreary and some of them remotely beautiful. None of them good enough to make my jaw drop or my heart burn within me. They said it was beautiful. Yes, I was sure it must be, all right. Then my experience began.

It was the 2nd day, trekking into Kaw Thoo Lei, and I was sitting against a tree. Some unexpected perception was sinking in. The meadow and the mountains were beautiful all right. But it was something else. It was a pervasive peace, and it was pervading me.

The rice fields surprised me next. Up until that time, to me, a rice field was a
rice field. The words had not called forth any lovely sentiments. But then again, I had never walked through any rice field, let alone ones like these. As we walked, their simple beauty thrilled my heart until I was too tired to enjoy anything anymore. Since then, I’ve loved the rice fields. They seem to fill every valley, and they patch the mountains with green. Not just any green, but an absolutely glowing green. And their prevalence tells something of the character of the citizens of the land, because tending a rice field from seed to harvest is no joke.

They live by the sweat of their brows. What they plan to eat, they must toil
to grow. Where they want to go, their feet must carry them. But they walk
and work together. The citizens of Kaw Thoo Lei, ties of common humanity
still binding them together, live peacefully. They artlessly share life, work and pleasure, whether working in the fields or roasting corn in the fireplace. Although not without exception, their unity is universal enough that you can’t miss it.

But the most unmissable realization in Kaw Thoo Lei is that something is missing. Something is missing, but I don’t miss it at all. Evil has not made its imprint on the people or the land. One can still see the signature of God on His handiwork, uneffaced. Evil has intruded, but it is repulsed as an enemy, not welcomed as an invited guest. Evil is still an enemy in Kaw Thoo Lei.

Because I love Kaw Thoo Lei, one of the saddest things I could think of is for
its peaceful beauty to be destroyed by war. In some places this has already
happened. And in all places, the threat hovers. They have paid a price for peace they cling to—over 50 years of civil war, through which many have given their lives. But the threat seems to be lost on the people. They will hang on to either the reality or the hope of peace until they die. And in the New  Earth, they will realize the full realization of their hope. They will build houses and inhabit them, instead of having to flee their homes. They will plant gardens and eat the fruit of them, instead of having to leave what they’ve worked so hard to make. Evil will be a conquered enemy.

I still don’t comprehend how beautiful heaven will be, but I know that its beauty is peace as well as what the eye sees, and I know it must be even better that Kaw Thoo Lei, which is the best place I know.