Update

For those of you who are wondering …

Mark is off to Germany to visit our DIL, Dany, and our son, Steven, with of course, Grandson Kevin thrown in as a bonus.

Mark has had some pretty intense health struggles recently and was in need of some R and R.  Going back to the States is a pretty expensive plane ticket and the pull of ministry continues there when we meet with friends and family who are part of our home team.  But in Germany, he can just be Grandpa…and tourist.  We are blessed that he can stay with Dany and Steven in their home off base and so that keeps the expense down as well.

He is going to be there until about mid October and we hope in that month, he is able to rest and rejuvenate and allow his new meds to try to get his blood pressure under control.

Things are fine here “back at the ranch” so far.  It is Pchum Ben holiday so School of the Nations is not in session and the city is quiet except for near the Wats where all the chanting is going on.  We know that many prayers are going up for our protection and safety and we are very thankful.

Miss Heather has arrived in Cambodia to take on the position of school administrator with SOTNs.  That will be another burden lifted from Mark’s shoulders.  We have been in desperate situation for the last year as we have been so busy working IN the ministry that we haven’t been able to work ON the ministry…quarterly reports await and financial date entry…many such things have fallen by the wayside as we have been short handed.  But the arrival of Miss Heather to work in the school and in a couple of weeks another arrival of help from the States for one month will help us too.

At present everyone is doing okay but we have had a rash of illnesses and doctor’s visits that have left our heads spinning this last quarter.  Medical expenses are always an issue with us because 35% of the BH children are medical special needs…but we have had additional issues as well as Seth’s broken arm and Mark’s health concerns.  On top of it all, Mark broke a tooth that had to be extracted!!!  Golly!

Prayer points:

We ask for prayer over Mark’s trip that he will find rest in body and soul and for us back at home as well.

Also we ask for agreement for provision to be made in light of all the health concerns and also a $500 plumbing repair bill that sideswiped us!

But to end this update on a good note…during last evening, the Lord blessed us in a small way that ministered to us greatly.  It was our monthly pizza night and finances being what they are…I couldn’t order out for pizza.  So instead we tackled it in the kitchen with the supplies we had.

Danielle and I stirred up some homemade pizza sauce from a recipe that I have found on a website called Hillbilly Housewife!  (check it out!!!) and then we stirred up the pizza crust with whole wheat flour that I was blessed to find at a local mill.  Sifting the bugs out of the flour took some time…but that is life in Cambodia and life without room for the flour to be kept in the freezer!

We grated up some of the very precious and expensive cheese and then topped it with Peppered Ham (product) bought at Lucky supermarket and diced half of a  perfectly ripe pineapple!  As a finally touch we sprinkled a tiny bit of cane sugar, our substitute for brown sugar, and then Danielle began the process of rotation in our little propane stove while I tackled the dishes.  Rotate this one up…this one down…a continual process while we try to not burn anything.

The Lord blessed us with yummy, yummy pizza that was the best that we have had in a couple of years!!!  The children celebrated Danielle and I as miracle workers…and we were also blessed to be joined by Miss Heather and another young missionary who is living here alone in Phnom Penh, Katherine.  She has been desperately lonely and we are blessed to add her to our life here in Cambodia to help her feel more connected.

Breathing in, Breathing out,

Rhonda

 

Pchum Ben, A Cambodian Holiday

just a little look into what we are living with here in Cambodia….

 

Cambodian Buddhists believe that although most living creatures are reincarnated at death, due to bad karma, some souls are not reincarnated but rather remain trapped in the spirit world. Each year, for fifteen days, these souls are released from the spirit world to search for their living relatives, meditate and repent. The fifteen-day observance of Prachum Benda, or Ancestors’ Day, is a time for living relatives to remember their ancestors and offer food to those unfortunate enough to have become trapped in the spirit world. Furthermore, it is an important opportunity for living relatives to meditate and pray to help reduce the bad karma of their ancestors, thus enabling the ancestors to become reincarnated and leave the torment and misery of the spirit world. Prachum Benda, better known colloquially as Pchum Ben, may be translated as “gathering together to make offerings” (prachum meaning “gathering together” and benda meaning “offering”). The observance usually begins in mid-September and lasts an entire lunar cycle, constituting the fifteen days that ancestral spirits are given to visit their living relatives. In the year 2003, the specific dates for its commencement and conclusion are September 11th and September 25th, respectively. Pchum Ben is the fifteenth and final day of the observance and consists of a large gathering of laity for festivities at the local Buddhist temple. Each day leading up to the fifteenth, however, is also important and special. Different families host services at the temple on each of the fourteen days prior to the final celebration. The days leading up to Pchum Ben are known as Kann Ben (kann meaning “hosting or holding”) and are numbered one through fourteen accordingly. Prior to the day a family or families are scheduled to host a Kann Ben, relatives and close family friends will go to the temple to make preparations. During the preparations, urns of ancestors, traditionally kept on temple grounds, are polished and brought to the viheara (the main chanting room). Also, the names of ancestors are recorded onto an invitation list. This is important because spirits cannot receive offerings unless they are first invited to do so by living relatives. In the evening, the host family and other participants will join the monks in the viheara for meditation and chanting. The monks will then pass on the Buddha’s teachings, as well as offer blessings and guidance to those present. Before sunrise on the morning of the Kann Ben, special food is prepared for the ancestral spirits to enjoy. Favorite dishes of various flavors and colors are offered. They range from the simple and traditional nom ansom (sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves with assorted fillings) to the more elaborate and rich amok (steamed fish fillet marinated in a complex mix of spices and herbs). As a gesture of kindness, the hosts also prepare bai ben (steamed sticky rice mixed with sesame seeds and then formed into balls) to be thrown into shaded areas about the temple grounds. This mixture is an offering to the hungry souls who have been forgotten or no longer have living relatives to make them offerings. Before noon on Kann Ben, candles and incense are lit and the various dishes are offered to the monks. The prepared list of names is then recited and burned. The reading and burning of the list is a ritual performed to alert and direct the wandering souls to the location of their families. It is an invitation for the ancestral spirits to join their living relatives as they commemorate life. After consuming the proffered meal, the monks continue to chant blessings, sprinkling (or showering) holy water onto the families and their visiting ancestral spirits. The Kann Ben is a time of remembrance and an opportunity to accumulate good karma on behalf of one’s ancestors. The rituals of Kann Ben continue for fourteen days. On the fifteenth day, the traditionally observed Pchum Ben, families in the local area gather to perform the same ritual of ancestral remembrance and offer an immense communal feast. This day is especially important because if any ancestors are unfortunate enough to have become Priad spirits, it is the only day that they may receive offerings of food and benefit from the good karma earned by their relatives. Priads are the most miserable of all souls due to their exceptional bad karma. Unlike other spirits, Priads fear light and can only receive prayers, food and be reunited with their living relatives during the darkest day of this lunar cycle, the day of Pchum Ben. Participating in the Pchum Ben, whether as a host or participant, is a very important aspect of Cambodian Buddhistic culture. It is a time of reunion and commemoration. It is a time to express love and appreciation for one’s ancestors. By offering food and good karma to those possibly trapped in the spirit world, living relatives help assuage their misery and guide them back into the cycle of reincarnation. After the ancestors are reincarnated, they have the opportunity to accumulate good karma on their own and look forward to attaining a peaceful inner spirit, which is the best blessing a living relative can wish for their ancestors.

 

Middle of the night screams…

Okay, while this is fresh in my mind I am going to write it down…and then maybe my heart will slow down.

 Last night (Saturday here) we were all slumbering peacefully in our beds when we were awoke by the most blood curdling screams. I had not understood the true meaning of “curdling” until last night…but when my blood was freezing in my veins, I had a revelation moment. Dad and I both jump out of bed and head to the living room where we find Danielle on the floor in the living room kinda near the base of the stairs but not quite in the middle of the room. A basket of laundry that wasn’t carried up last night laid strewn around the base of the stairs and the plastic basket was shattered. Lexi, the doberman, is dancing around Danielle and at that moment it was hard to tell if Lexi was attacking her, trying to console her, or defending her against something. At the moment we walked up though, Lexi was agitated enough to bark AT us!! (in hindsight I think we are blessed that we didn’t get bit!)

 Danielle is in complete hysterics. From the floor where she has fallen, she manages to tell us that she woke up and saw someone’s lower legs and shoes preparing to lower themselves into her bedroom from her attic. This doesn’t sound crazy to us because we have heard of many times of robberies where the thieves have broken through the roof or through an empty dwelling next door to gain access to a home. So we tell Danielle to get the Little Girls, Mary and Chantal from their beds and gather them in one room with Madeline. Up the stairs both Mark and I go with Lexi, the doberman, in tow. I can’t remember what Mark had in his hand…but at the top of the stairs, I grabbed a hat rack and was holding it like a spear. In retrospect, I can’t stop laughing because Mark had a crazed redhead holding a hat rack “backing him up” and a doberman that was so scared she didn’t want to go into the bedroom again.

Mark thrust Lexi through the doorway and put his hand around the doorframe to hit the light switch… no one in the room. The attic door doesn’t appear to have been dislodged a bit. It is a small room so there isn’t any room for someone to hide. No one in the bathroom in the hall. The attic access door is padlocked from the outside….the boy’s room!!! Mark and I leap over to the boy’s room and find the door locked from the inside! So we begin pounding on the door and calling for Seth. Both boys sleep like the dead so it was probably a full 60 seconds of pounding before skinny Seth in his pjs and now utterly terrified, comes to the door and dares to open it. No one in their room. So Mark thrusts both boys at me and tells me to go downstairs with the girls. So we go downstairs and go into my bedroom with everyone and we lock the door.

The baby is sitting big eyed on the bed…”Where my daddy eeees?”

“Daddy is upstairs, babe,” I tell her. I sit down on the bed and little Chantal attacks me. She propels her body onto mine with such force that I almost go off the bed. She is shaking from one end of her body to another! Rat ta tat tat…vibrating so hard that it is like she is being electrocuted. She says, “I don’t feel cold on the inside…but I can’t stop shaking,” she says through gritted teeth. I remained silent but could only think “Join the club, honey!”

 Now the fear is worse in the bedroom than it was going up the stairs and rounding the corner with a hat rack in my hands. We can hear nothing…obviously, we can’t see anything. Danielle, who hasn’t told the children anything yet, then tells the children why they are all in there. This tale brings Mary to tears…she says that she heard someone walking around her bed before and it was scary. (This mysterious walker has been visiting ever since we moved bedrooms around. In the girl’s room, you can hear Danielle as she brushes her teeth and such because her room is right overhead. Thus…”walking sounds.”)

 So on the bed, we have a baby sucking her thumb in a very violent fashion and watching the door for her daddy like a hawk, one girl crying, one girl trembling like a leaf, two boys who are just in a sleepy daze, Danielle who is starting to breathe normally and myself. We hear Dad talking to the guards in the courtyard. That must mean he is going after the ladder and hasn’t found anything on the third floor or we would have least heard Lexi barking. Then we hear the ladder coming upstairs and it gets very, very quiet again.

It seemed like a long, long time passed…but it was probably just 10 minutes. Dad comes back into the room and tells us that he has gone up in the attic and looked to all the far corners of the attic. No one is there and no evidence of anyone EVER being there. The roof is intact and it is all secured. So now it is apparent that no one was EVER there. But the children are all too scared to return to their rooms…including Danielle who now knows that no one was ever there. We may have a big bed, but there isn’t room for the two of us, five littles, one teenager, and a doberman. So Madi isn’t going to leave her daddy now that he has returned. She did however let him take a shower since he had been in the attic.

 So Chantal and Seth are to go to bed down on her bed, Danielle and Christopher with Mary go to sleep into the girl’s room with the doberman. At least that is the plan. So I send Danielle and the boys up to get their pillows and Lexi’s doggie bed. They come racing back down the stairs with NOTHING in the hands. “There is a hole in the ceiling now!” Danielle yelps.

 I ask, “What do you mean a hole in the ceiling? Dad has checked it all out.”

Mark steps out of the bathroom, dressed in clean sleeping clothes. He says “the hole where I put my foot through the ceiling while I was walking around up there.” ARGH! Now we have a broken ceiling!! So they go back up and get those things and everyone goes to their assigned sleeping spaces. It is hours before Mark and I can sleep again but the children in our room go to sleep rather quickly.

This morning I am stiffly walking outside with the dogs to feed them. The guards are not normally there when I come down on Sunday mornings because their church service is at the crack of dawn. But they have stayed in order to speak to me. Dtha, which is the Cambodian word for grandfather, is kinda hard of hearing. But he makes it a point to tell me that EVEN HE was woke from a sound slumber with Danielle’s screams. They wanted to hear the whole story. So I try WITHOUT COFFEE YET to explain in a different language what had occured. From the look on their faces, I don’t think I helped. But they also went on to tell me how the ENTIRE neighborhood was disturbed by the screaming! Danielle woke the whole village!

 So that is how our Sabbath Day started over here in Cambodia. It began at 1 15 AM with terrified screams bouncing from the concrete walls and reverberating through the entire neighborhood. But with a start like this…it can only get better!

Breathing in, Breathing out,

Rhonda

The hole in the ceiling made by Mark’s foot.

 

 

 

 

 

Hat rack that the red headed mother used to defend her children…

 

Miss Heather

Hi, I am Heather Abernathy and Rhonda has asked me to write up a little something about myself   I am so excited to begin working with Mark and Rhonda in September.  I have been a Christian since I was 4 1/2 and knew at a young age I wanted to be a missionary.  I loved babysitting and working with the younger kids in my school and eventually went to school to be a teacher.  Upon graduating from Asbury College, I got a job in inner city Akron, Ohio and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that was my mission field.  I loved my job and the kids I worked with, but after 9 years, God reminded me of the dream to teach overseas.  I began pursuing that and ended up teaching at Dalat International School in Penang, Malaysia.  I enjoyed my time there, but know God is moving me from there to Cambodia!

I guess I should back up a bit and let you know how I got to Cambodia from Malaysia   After my first year at Dalat, one of the parents called and asked if I would be interested in going to Cambodia with her.  She wanted to do some kid ministry and had heard of this family that had a group of orphans that they were caring for and loving as their own; they were living as a family.  She contacted them and found out that they were just getting ready to open a school and could use the extra help.  I agreed to join her for the main reasons that, not only would it give me something to do, but it would also give me another stamp in my passport (yes, I know, not very good reasons to go, but hey, God used them in a great way!).

We arrived the first day of school for the Bykota kids.  As we sat down to lunch and I looked around I was thinking something was looking VERY familiar; I just couldn’t place it.  I finally asked what curriculum they were using and about fell out of the chair when they told me ACE.  You see, I graduated from an ACE school!!  I went to an ACE school from 6^th-12^th grade, so I know the system quite well!!  I was able to give Marks lots of pointers and had an incredible week with them.  When I left, I planned to go back on spring break.  At one point before that, Rhonda asked if I might consider spending my summer in Cambodia while they were on a much-needed furlough with the family.  She knew I would be spending a surprise visit home with my family at Christmas, so thought I might consider the summer in Cambodia.  After praying about it, I knew that’s what I was going to do, so my second summer away from home was spent in Cambodia with the Bykota kids.  It was weird being there without Mark and Rhonda, but the kids and I had lots of fun and I fell deeper in love with them.  I had always assumed I would leave Malaysia and head back to America, but by the end of the summer was not so convinced.  I spent a pretty intensive month and a half in prayer about the decision to stay put or move.  During that time, God made His plans very clear and in mid October, I told my director that I would not be at Dalat the following year.  He actually was not surprised and knew it was coming, which just affirmed the decision.  Since then, God has continued to affirm and confirm this move!  I am so excited and am looking forward to being able to work with and love on the Bykota kids and watch them grow in their knowledge.  I am amazed and in awe of the great God I serve!  He began preparing me for this way back when I entered 6^th grade.  Only He knew some 22 years ago that I would need the knowledge of ACE to teach in a school in Cambodia; Dad and Mom just thought they were enrolling me in a good Christian school. God has used Malaysia as a stepping-stone to get me used to living in a foreign land and He used a South African to get me to Cambodia for the first time.  He works in strange and mysterious ways that are always perfect and always in His time frame!!

I am currently living with my sister as I am home for the first time in three summers.  I am here raising support for my ministry in Cambodia and will be here until September 8^th.  I will then fly back to Malaysia and pick up the rest of my things there, then fly to Cambodia on September 13^th.  I am very excited and am walking in faith knowing that this is what God has called me to and HE will provide all that is needed in His exact time and way.

 

The battle over children…

Last night I went to bed thinking about the struggle/fight/battle for the hearts and minds of children.  I haven’t been able to shake it all day long…I hope to find release with some of my thoughts with this posting.

This battle over children is not specific to where you live, who you are, your race, your gender, your income level…it isn’t even specific to our time and place in history.

The battle began as our recorded history began…in the beginning.  The fall of man in the Garden can even be seen as a war that was waged by the enemy against the first children of God.  A battle that was seemingly won but for those who have read the last page of the book, we know that the WAR will be won by the Father.

The battle came against male and female both.  How did the enemy inflitrate in the garden?  He began by saying in today’s vernacular “Did your Dad really say?”  He called into question the values and teachings of a father to his children.  Doesn’t really matter (for this blog posting) that it was the Heavenly Father and the first children, Adam and Eve.  In a nutshell,  it was just a voice speaking against and calling into question the teachings and instructions of a father to his family.

The battle continued through the wealthy seed of Abraham and through the seed of a servant woman, Hagar.  The battle raged with Abraham and Sarah.  Not able to wait upon the promise, Abraham and Sarah turned to Hagar for what?  A child.  The battle between the child of promise and the child of the flesh still wages today and is played out so sadly in newspaper headlines.

How did God, in His infinite wisdom, choose to reconcile with fallen man?  Through the birth of a child.  “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…”Isaiah 9.

But with the birth of our blessed Savior, came one of the most vicious attacks against children in recorded history.  It came against sweet innocents.

Matthew chapter 2 recounts the event in stark terms…Our enemy (through Herod) was so frightened of the newborn Christ child that each and EVERY male child in Bethlehem was put to death.  Each and every single male child two years old or younger… That grips my heart as I am the parent of a two year old myself.

I live in Cambodia where the enemy (through Pol Pot) stripped away the true meaning of family with the Khmer Rouge.  Families were torn asunder while 2 million lost their lives so quickly and somewhat quietly …the world didn’t and still doesn’t shrink back in horror at the atrocities.  When I share about our ministry and the country of Cambodia, time and time again folks will tell me that they have never heard of this…”when did this happen?”  Or worse yet, some will say “Oh, I’ve seen that movie, The Killing Fields.  That really happened?”
Yes, folks, that really happened.

At times, I will be to the point of pulling my hair out because it can be just so stinkin’ hard ministering/living in Cambodia.  Mark and I seem to often go from one situation to another…one fire put out to another…it is a constant battle.  Time and time again the thought has visited my mind…”Why is the battle so fierce over just 22 little children?  (Benz kids plus Bykota Kids) We aren’t that big.  We are just trying to love and care for 22. “  Why?  Because we are engaging the enemy over his favorite target and his biggest threat…children.

I have had many who question, some kindly–some not, our ministry.  “We like to support church planters” they say and for a while I thought that I understood.  But something has risen up inside me…I think it is a truer understanding of our calling and the HOPE that is ever present in our calling.

We ARE church planters!  What the enemy has taken and tried to destroy…God is rebuilding through the lives of the children of Bykota.  We aren’t building a church building and doing provincial outreaches or doing medical ministry…all those things are so needed by the people of Cambodia and we so desire to see them come.

What we are doing is trying to raise up 22 warriors.

Twenty two warriors that already have the enemy of God shaking in his boots.

Twenty two warriors that are being equipped to handle the Word of God and life’s affairs in an approved and unashamed manner.

Twenty two warriors who will walk out into the country of Cambodia and take it by the power of the Word of God and their testimony.

PURE AND UNDEFILED RELIGION IS THIS…TO CARE FOR ORPHANS AND WIDOWS IN THEIR TIME OF NEED!

Want to join us?

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda

 

Rejection

I am wondering if I should take it as a serious rejection that the cats…all 3 of them…refused to sleep on the fold out couch with me last night.  They took turns perching on a chair opposite of my bed to stare at me while I laid there.  I am trying to tell myself that they had no evil intentions but rather were simply playing “guardian angels” for me.

The Chronister’s new home in Washington DC area is so gorgeous but in a way it is kinda freaky.  I can look out in their back yard and it looks VERY similar to their back yard in Seattle.  So I keep having dejavu moments!

Breathing in, Breathing out,

Rhonda

 

CHANGE is not a bad word…

It is an inevitable fact…one that I am only now in mid-life coming to accept as truth…that some things in life cannot be changed.  But there are some that can.  There are some things that God as given us as realities that are “fixed” in our lives that we have to learn to accept.  But there are some things that He would have us to never accept, but rather, with His power that resides within us, always work to change.

We must set the mark for ourselves to accomplish both of these things…to accept some things and to work to change others.  If we fail to do this, we will end up saddled with worry, guilt (although often undeserved), and be constantly frustrated.

While visiting with my aunt this week who is recovering from chemotherapy for Acute Leukemia, she read to me from a devotional, “Worry is the interest paid on trouble before it comes due.” 

God’s ways are always much higher than our ways…we must learn to trust Him.

Remembering Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you.”

I love you, Aunt Janice!  We claim your total healing!

Breathing in, breathing out,
Rhonda

 

Prayers needed for Linda

Little Linda is our youngest Bykota Kid.  She is approximately 3 years old.  She came to us with hydrocephalus which is congenital issue which is sometimes called “water on the brain.”  When she came into our custody, she was already a patient at the local children’s hospital but she had been abandoned in province by her natural family.  The provincial village chief found a family to take her in and the village helped to care for her.  However, the situation changed for the foster family and the village chief, who has met us before, instructed for her to be taken in to Phnom Penh to our ministry center.

Linda has suffered with a great deal of shunt problems and has it replaced repeatedly.  The last time it was replaced, she suffered a stroke after the surgery and an infection set in.  The doctors didn’t believe that she would live but the prayers of the saints calling this little child’s name out before the throne were heard and answered with a miraculous recovery.

This last Tuesday evening, which is Wednesday morning in Cambodia, Mark spoke to me on the phone and told me that Linda’s eyes were very droopy.  But within an hour she went from being droopy to being asleep and unable to be roused.  She was taken into the hospital and it was assumed that it was again an issue with the shunt.

A CAT scan showed that the shunt was functioning but that the issue was a hemorrhage and she has since had surgery to correct it.  Again, the doctors in Cambodia did not expect her to survive the surgery but she has.  So we give thanks for the strength and life that flows through this beautiful little girl.  But we ask that you please contact the prayer warriors in your life and to pray protection for her against infection and any relapse.

Breathing in, breathing out,

Rhonda

 

In the States

Rhonda addressing partners at Calvary Fellowship, Carthage, MO

I find myself in the States because it is once again time for the annual update to our partners. Our partners are wonderful faithful folk who walk along side us in ministry in Cambodia even though most of them will never visit the country in person.

This trip has kinda not turned out like I expected.

Scheduling times and dates to share with partners has always been pretty easy. But this year has proven to be quite the challenge because of a variety of reasons. In some cases, it is simply the case of “not going to work out.” But in other instances, even the weather has interferred.

I landed in DFW and thought that the balmy weather on the evening of May 1st was much like what I had left in Cambodia. But then by the next day, storms and tornadoes moved in. “Hmmmm,” I thought, “It seems that the monsoon season has followed me to the US.”

This became even more apparent when I moved from the DFW area to Tulsa and yes…it was nice when I got there but my the next morning, it was stormy and rainy.

Then I move on to Carthage and you guessed it…STORMS. So much in fact that it was highly questionable if I would even speak at the first church because they had their power knocked out late Saturday afternoon. However, by Sunday AM service it was fine.

The rain and storms continued on and off for the better part of two weeks. In the course of that time, it was time to go on to Stillwater, OK. It was a beautiful day when I left Missouri with my college-bound daughter, Kati. But by the time we reached Tulsa…storms. BAD STORMS such that Kati, a new driver, was quite stressed out on the road.

I got Kati settled the next week at college and I have journeyed on to Kentucky where I am staying in Benton with the Bailey family. It seems that I have shaken those storms lose or…maybe they just haven’t found me yet.

Should a reader of this blog be interested, I would love to share my upcoming dates:

June 7th…Heritage Bible Church, Possom Trot, KY
June 10th…First Baptist Church, Hughes, Arkansas
June 11th-12…Home of Ben and Christina Chronister Washington, DC
June 14th…Immanuel Baptist, Butler, MO
June 21st…Bykota Church, Carthage, MO
July 12th…Home of Greg and Aleta Ford, Tulsa, OK

Other dates and small groups as yet pending….

Please pray for my family as they are trying to manage things alone without me in Cambodia and they are having to manage without Kati as well since she is gone to college.

Breathing in, Breathing out,
Rhonda

 

Decorating for Valentine’s Day

As most of readers of our blog know, our children’s home is founded on the Biblical model of a family. Mark is Dad to these 17 children and I am their mother. We feel that with all our hearts and so do they. It is a different type of family than the Benz family is with our bio/adopted children…but it is a family nevertheless.

Still, the situation dictates that we live in seperate facilities. But one of the drawbacks to living with SEVENTEEN other children and staff in a dorm is that there is very little “personal space.”

That is another great blessing of using the ACE model of school with the Bykota Kids. Mark had the typical ACE school desks built. (or as we refer to them…their ACE offices)

We allow them a whole lot of creative license to decorate there own personal offices. We do ask that it be clean enough to be free of germs LOL…and that it be an area that allows for them to do school. They aren’t allowed to put something in there that gets in the way of studying. We have to sometimes speak to Bee because he will put his educational toys in there or coloring supplies and leave no room for his school books.

Today the Bykota Kids decorated their offices for Valentine’s Day. They had lots of fun and it really pleases me to see them enjoy their personal space and to do things in their own individual way.

We are certainly not busy over here trying to put out cookie cutter kids. They are all unique, special, WONDERFUL individuals. Each and every one of them are necessary to the body of Christ. They have a role that no one else can fulfill as well as they can.

Of course, because it is Mark and Rhonda Benz who are parenting these children, we are so often reflected in them. One of the funniest ways is the fact that these Cambodian children are learning to speak English and try as we might, we still sometimes see a little Southwest Missouri come out in their diction. Ät Bykota House you can hear Cambodian children saying “ya’ll dun with those scissors?” or “Mom, I fixin’ to go to my house now.” LOL

Breathing in, breathing out,
Rhonda