JaRurat Christmas 2009

Today is one of the biggest days of the year for me. I help in the other two slum areas, Wisawa and Bearing, but Ja Rurat is where I invest most of my time and energy (and love). It is where I have the strongest relationships with both the kids and the parents. An awful lot of what we do through the year points toward this one day when we get so much of the community to come and have fun and receive gifts and, most importantly, hear a clear presentation of the gospel.

Today, we gave away a little over two hundred thirty gift packets, which included a nice towel, new socks and other toiletry items, as well as candy and other snacks. It was a great afternoon!

Lining up for tickets to exchange for their gift packs.

Crowd is starting to form.


"Son and games." Sontaya leads the kids in some games to kick things off.

Guarding the gifts.

My buddy Ohm is prepared for Christmas! He showed up sporting this hat. I have no idea where he got it...

Thanee gets the adults involved.

Some of the Ja Rurat kids had worked up a song for the crowd. "Christmas bpen welah," which means Christmas is the time...

Big C and Ting duke it out in a drama Son put together and directed. (I played the mean American drug lord.)

Good Samaritan Son gets hurt standing up to help an undeserving Ting. Son played a youngster from up country. The play was about prejudice, a big problem even in the slums where kids from up country or especially from Cambodia, Laos or Burma, are pretty much shunned.

Ting shared his story with the crowd. His story of a young meth addict who finds freedom, hope, and redemption in Jesus, is powerful and the kids and adults gave him their full attention.

Handing out the good stuff.

On behalf of the kids of Ja Rurat, a special thank you to my small group at Pleasant Valley Baptist Church, for their donation to help with the costs of the gift packs this year. That is all the Christmas these kids will see, and those packs help insure that many folks will at least have heard the gospel one time in their life. We won't know the fruit it bears immediately, but someday...

Someday, some of these kids are going to thank you all!