Good news, Bad news!

 I wish every day the news would be good but that is not possible in life.   While most of our girls are doing well, have goals to pursue in hopes of having a better life, it doesn't automatically happen.   One of our girls in Nepal graduated from high school and left the safe house.  She studied the Bible while in our safe house but did not become a Christian.   She got married instead of pursuing a job.   We don't know anything about the person she married or her circumstances but it must have had a turn for the worst or she became very unhappy with her life for some reason.  She may have married an abusive person or her expectations for a better life were shattered.   She committed suicide over the weekend.  

I don't even want to post her picture, give her name or notify her sponsor.  We did the best we could to teach her and provide the opportunity for her to have a good future.   It was our responsibility to do so and even though things did not go well for her, we did what we could to help her as God would have wanted us to do.

In the Bible, the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers is found in Luke 17:11-19. Jesus encounters ten lepers who call out to him for mercy, and he instructs them to show themselves to the priests; as they go, they are healed, but only one returns to thank him.

The good news is about Sompong.    She was our first girl to arrive at Hong's safe house in Vientiane, Laos in 2017 at 10 years old.   A minister and his wife in Tennessee have supported Sompong all these years and will continue to be her sponsor.  

She graduated from high school this past school year and was preparing to go to university. 

She heard of an opportunity to attend a Bible school in Bangkok, overseen by the church of Christ.   Many of their students are from Laos.  The school provides a two-year study to train young men to be preachers of the gospel but females are also permitted to attend classes.    It is good to teach women as they will, hopefully, become wives of preachers, deacons and, some day the wives of elders.   

Sompong secured all of her school paperwork and applied at the Bible school and has been accepted.   She has received approval for her VISA to Thailand and will begin school there by October 1st.   Sompong has been a faithful Christian for several years and she wants to learn enough to be able to evangelize herself and teach others.    She will, possibly, take additional college classes to prepare herself to enable herself to hold a job and support herself.   If it is God's will, perhaps she will marry one of the young men she meets at the Bible school.  Her future looks bright because she is smart, pretty and wise.   

Sompong is like the one leper who came back to thank Jesus.   Pray for Sompong's success! 

While at Hong's house, she has helped the house mother with cooking and caring for their own children as well as the younger girls who live at the safe house.   She is standing on the left in this photo.   Hong, his wife, Amphone, and their three children are also in this picture.