"I'm praying for you..."

I sat next to the road for a few moments this morning while waiting for local transportation to pick up one of my dear first standard girls. Before I had finished sitting down, she had buried her face into my neck. Tears poured down her face. Memories that we've made since I've been here flashed through my mind. Her family wants her to go to the great snare of Bangkok...and now she is gone.

Someone very special will being missing....will always be missed.

To know that I'll walk into my English class on Monday and the days to follow without her and her big smile...

To not have her around...

To not be able to talk to her...to not be enthusiastically greeted by her with a big smile throughout the day...

But, more than anything, to know that she'll soon be faced by a world far different from the peaceful atmosphere of school and the love, care, and the spiritual guidance that she receives, and to know that the place to which she is bound could have the power to quench her desire to commit her life to the Lord and a place where sin in all its forms dwells--it breaks my heart.

She wanted to get baptized. Dad asked her if she could wait one more week for the baptism next Sabbath, but she didn't. Maybe, she didn't have a choice to wait to leave any longer...

It was very hard to wave and say, "goodbye" to her! 

This is just one story out of many...

I could name off several names of precious students that I love very much who left for that city.

Unless I see them again, they always will be missed.

They each received an opportunity to commit their lives to the Lord and to work for Him. I don't know their hearts. Only God does.

The only thing that I can do--they only thing that you can do--right now and every day is to intercede before the throne of God for each dear boy and girl's eternal destiny.

Oh, I hope and pray that my influence and example only led them closer to their Redeemer and I pray that they won't lose the spiritual growth that they gained here. I pray that the hardships that they face in Bangkok will only drive them to their knees and to the Bible.

Please, join my and the other staff, here, at this mission school for the Karen young people, in praying for these students--boys and girls bought by the blood of their Redeemer.