Surprised by Joy

When I was on the race the Lord taught me a lot about choosing joy. It’s something that I have to constantly remind myself to do, and sometimes I choose not to be joyful. We can let the little things frustrate us, and bring us down, or we can laugh about it and choose to be joyful. Today the Lord gave us the opportunity to choose joy and what a blessing it turned out to be.

Every afternoon after school, Ming, the daughter of the pastor, takes us home and drops us off right in front of our gate. This afternoon, when I opened the gate, I couldn’t get it to close. That was just the beginning of our problems. Terri went to open the door to our house and both doors were locked from the inside. There was no way in. We found a coat hanger and tried to pick the lock that locked the door to the floor, but it was a futile attempt. We called the pastor, and he said he would be there in a few minutes. Terri and I decided we would just wait on our swing. Just when we thought that matters couldn’t have gotten any worse that’s when it started to sprinkle. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I didn’t really have to use the bathroom.

But then that’s when I saw her. Badee.

A student from school who despite our language barrier always seemed to find me and stay by my side after school until her ride came.  I decided I would go and try and talk to her, and I found some more friends. I recognized a few of them from church on Sunday. I tried to talk to them, but they were being silly boys and making up words when I asked for their name, so I walked back to the house. Meanwhile, the pastor came over and we showed him what had happened. The children had of course followed me, and were now in our front yard. The pastor had the children move a table over to the benches. The table was really heavy, so Terri and I helped them. When we turned around, the pastor had fixed the door!! I ran inside, went to the bathroom, and grabbed some candies that I had picked up a few days before from a 7-11. The kids were so thankful for the snack, and we played rock, paper, scissors for a while.

It didn’t take long before we were tired of playing that game; so naturally, I started a game of tickle tag. At first, it was just me tickling the kids, but they soon came after me too! We even had the opportunity to review a song we taught some the children at church and teach it to the others! I will never forget the smile on Ba Dee face as she sung, “God our father…”. I taught the kids a silly song that is similar to “Father Abraham”. They really enjoyed that! One of the girls went back to her home and brought back a home-made jump rope and badminton equipment.  We had so much fun! Praise God for the opportunity to build relationships with these kids and to be able to give them a safe place to play. When Ming came to pick us up for dinner, we let the kids stay in our yard. She just told one of the boys to close the gate when they left.

Thank you Lord for your sovereignty and for taking what could have been a frustrating experience and turning it into a blessing. Thank you for surprising us with joy!