Maya's Birthday Celebration

This past week has been a week full of birthday blessings for Maya. The best part was her party at the

House of Hope. It took Maya and I a whole week of shopping to prepare for her birthday bash! She had a ton of fun picking out the presents for all of the kids. Of course one of the best parts of shopping was taste testing her cake! She picked out a creme cake with lime zest in the middle layer. We also got some pandang and buttermilk cupcakes! So good. The only downer was that the lady who made her cake put 1 on the cake instead of 2. It's OK, because they tasted delicious. mmmm..... The ladies at the house of hope prepared all of the food for her party. We had spaghetti, chicken and vegetables, fried chicken, an assortment of fresh fruit, sticky rice, steamed rice, and a couple of different types of soups. The did a fabulous job! However delicious the food was, the true highlight of her party was just getting to hang out with the kids. They received two soccer balls, a volleyball, 4 baminton rackets, birdies, and a net. When we got everything out for them the kids dove right in and the place came alive! We also had water balloons, and a foam rocket launcher! At one point I was playing with Mee, the boy to the left of Maya, in the above picture. He ended up rolling his eyes at me because I was so bad at badminton. It was funny. I eventually got the hang of it. Badminton is a popular sport in Thailand so most of them are pretty good. It was so great to be able to bless the kids. They really enjoyed it. For Ruth, Mary, and Esther we got bags and filled them with hair clips, mirrors, combs, notebooks, stickers, nail polish, scrunchies, and Jewelry. It was so fun seeing them prance around with their purses at church the next day :) We blessed each of the seven boys with a soccer Jersey and Matching shorts. They were so humble in receiving gifts. They didn't really know how to respond to their individual gifts at first but we could see them secretly smiling. At the end of the party one of the kids got his guitar out and we sang songs of thanks to God for the blessings he has given us. Sang prayed over Maya and blessed her for her birthday . The picture below is Sang praying for and blessing Maya. I love Mayas expressing. She is taking it all in. After Sang prayed Jared prayed for and blessed the orphanage. Such a great ending to the party! Many of you helped bless these kids by your prayers and donations. We can't thank you enough! Just know that your gifts are being used for good work and your prayers are coveted. We are so blessed to have you all behind us!

As far as Jared and Diane go with their schooling.... after today they will only have 4 days Left. Praise God. They have a couple of tests coming up so please keep them in prayer specifically for focus and clarity of mind as they are wrapping up this phase. School and their teaching practices have been taxing on them. Your prayers have definitely helped. Peace has surrounded all of us through this challenging time. As they do complete this phase please keep in your prayers that we will be able to hear God's clear direction as far as housing and Jobs. We believe God has already provided Jared and Diane a job and our families a place to live. However, we want to make sure we hear what those jobs are and where are homes are, so that we can receive it. I have no doubt that God will tell us, it's just whether we will hear. We know God is aware of our needs so we are standing in faith and ask that you stand in faith with us and claim that our God, will in fact, provide all of our needs! Isn't that wonderful. Our assurance is in HIM!

WE LOVE YOU ALL!

The Lees