When the new school year began in North Thailand, all 15 of the Shan girls sponsored through SEND were in class!
This might seem like a small thing, but it could only have happened by the power and grace of our Mighty Lord Jesus Christ. During the summer months, some of the parents changed their minds and vowed to send their girls either back to Myanmar or on to Bangkok to earn money for their families. At least three of the girls were told they would not go to school, despite the sponsorship, and would likely have been working in the sex trade.
But we prayed earnestly for each of these girls; we pleaded with their parents to allow the girls to receive these sponsorships and get a valued education. Remarkably, in every case, the parents relented and all the girls are registered and attending classes.
Six of the girls will be living in the student dorm, but all 15 will gather there for computer time and tutoring. And we are incredibly thankful to have found a young adult Shan believer who is serving as the girls’ dorm mother!
This month, we will dedicate the dorm as a safe place for these young ladies to live and study as they earn the education that, we pray, will change the course of their futures in this prevailingly Buddhist culture.
We don’t want to see long-term dependency on this sponsorship, but pray that these girls can finish high school and perhaps vocational school and then become self-supporting. We dream of the day they could establish beautiful Christian homes reflecting Shan culture. And we pray that through their witness, the Lord will bring entire families into his Kingdom.
