And then it turned, the page fell and it all of a sudden became February.
What has this new year held for you so far? Are you finding yourself encouraged by new accomplishments and facing your fears? Or are you fumbling and stumbling through the beginning of this New Year? Often we can start the year with the best of intentions and ambitions but don’t know how to achieve them when life gets busy…or even when life is a bit dull and boring. But, I know one thing…we should not be ashamed. We just get back up, kick the dirt off our shoes and keep moving forward…

Sometimes it takes hopping on someone else’s bandwagon and riding off their momentum. But really the key is actually clinging to the Vine, Jesus. He is the perfect source of strength, inspiration and courage. Cling to Him, and you will surely grow stronger, braver and more accomplished!

Giving Hope and Restoring Lives,

Kelly E Cook Tana
Administrator

There’s more! Keep reading below!

▪ Our volunteer Penny Ingwersen is absolutely thriving at Help Save The Kids. Below is her journal entry after just a week of being at Help Save The Kids, this is her second stay teaching at the school – and it certainly won’t be the last! By profession, Penny is a music teacher, she is teaching music and English to our students. Thank you Penny for your hard work and determination! WE LOVE YOU!
▪ Our student Soe Soe Myit shares part of her story and her dreams for 2017.

Hi, my name is Soe Soe Myit. I am 15 years old. I want to tell you about my family. I grew up living with my parents and my younger brother. My house sat beside the hills and far away from our neighbors. My parents were having a problem. When I was 10 my parents started to fight everyday. Sometimes because of my parents fighting, we missed our meals. When my aunt heard about this, she allowed us to eat at her house. I was so afraid when my parents were fighting so I stayed quiet. Now my brother stays with my aunt and she sends him to school.

My dreams for 2017 are to have peace and love in my family. I want my parents to love each other and stop fighting. I want to see happiness in my family. On summer holiday, I hope I will get to visit my family. Thank you very for praying for dreams to become real!

Written by Diane Kennedy
For some time now I have had a question on my heart, “But Lord, how do we reach the families of our kids with the message of salvation?”
I was greatly encouraged by a word from David Damien, (Watchman for the Nations), “The Lord will move with salvation on whole people groups.”
I have been called to a particular people group, the Karen, who are mostly unreached, and in an area closed off from the outside world.
It has been such a privilege to have this open door for many years now
It’s where, with my son Judah Tana, I began a school 9 years ago. Although this school is now an official government school, 4 years ago I began a kindy/preschool in this same area. The kids that live with us in Thailand come from this people group and area.

Friday

We celebrated Christmas at the preschool in Burma with most of the wider community coming to share a meal and enjoy the day with us. Many old students came including 3 girls with their new babies, I feel like a great grandmother.
A highlight of Christmas has been former students, “our kids”, joining in the celebrations and festivities. We have always worked towards being a family, not just a school, while building strong and enduring relationships with their families. We experienced the evidence of that vision of being “A Family” this Christmas.

Christmas Eve

Family members and of course our “old kids” came from Burma and slept over, joining us in celebrating Christmas with great food, (chicken curry), present giving, singing, dancing and games.

Christmas Morning

As I shared a word about the love of God, the peace that Jesus gives, I saw one young woman being touched by the Holy Spirit. I sensed a yearning in her heart for what she was hearing. We ended church with inviting everyone to come and walk through a prayer line to bless them for the coming year. When this young mother came to me I asked her, “Would you like to invite Jesus into your life?” she said, “Yes!” Glory, glory, glory, Jesus Saves!
After her, came many other families and all said, “Yes!” to Jesus!

“The fields are white unto harvest…”

Sometimes we just have to step out past our fears of rejection, and even pride that keeps us silent and ask the question! The whole world is waiting for the Sons of God to arise and invade the darkness with the Kingdom of God and the message of salvation. We are the “Light of the World, a city on a hill that should not be hid.”

A missionary life is not always easy or comfortable; I am without any of my own family this year.

I spoke to my son on the phone, he said,
“You are with your other family.” Jesus said “Who is my mother, who are my brothers, those that do the will of the Father.”
I have not had Christmas in Australia for 10 years.
We are quite often without power or running water, it’s hot and humid most of the time, and it can be years without seeing results from your life investment.
But, it is a life worth living.
The rewards are eternal.
But, the laborers are few.
And my heart for Australia is:
“Come into your destiny!”…a conduit for people, finances and resources to the harvest fields of the world!

Merry Christmas to your family from ours here at Help Save The Kids!
May you walk into this New Year with the amazing grace to be bold, brave and courageous! Ask and it shall be give to you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened!

Giving hope and restoring lives,
Diane Kennedy

Thank you for partnering with us in “Giving Hope & Restoring Lives!

Click here to give today!

We have nearly finished our new girls dormitory! Only a couple more weeks and they girls will be moving into their new rooms! Yay! Check out the image below to see the nearly finished project! Thanks to our hardworking building team!

The cooking team is planning to open a restaurant somewhere close to the highway near where we are located. Visiting teacher, Holly, taught them restaurant serving skills and English useful for waiting on tables. While they are cooking, they only speak Thai and English. They cannot speak other languages like Burmese and Karen. This is to improve their English and Thai quickly. Most of the restaurant clientele will be Thai speaking as it will be in Thailand as well as English speaking foreigners living along the borderline. The chefs will be Kallaya and Nay Lin Oo.

Thank you for partnering with us in “Giving Hope & Restoring Lives!

After a long awaited time we have finally done it!

We moved!!!

On September 30th to October 2nd we were very busy with moving to our new property. We used tractor and truck to carry our stuff down to the new property. The girls had so much stuff. It took the tractor many times to go back and forth. We had many things to move but when we worked together in unity it was quickly accomplished. Now we live in our new land, in our new village and in our new home!!!

We want to thank the builders for working hard to build such nice housing. We also wanted to thank the Mudgee team for helping us with the girls dormitory. We especially want to thank the people who generously giving money for the buildings. You give us hope for our future! We are blessed by your kindness. May the blessing of God overflow upon you as you give to others. Above all we thank God for our new home!

We love living in our new property for many reasons.

▪ We like to live at the new property because we have better toilets and bathrooms.
▪ The girls dormitory is face to face with church. It makes the girls happy, because they do not need to walk far to go to church. They just step out of their room and in a few seconds, they arrive at church!!!
▪ The boys are happy living in the new property too! They have a football field right in front of their dormitory. They are happy because they can play football whenever they want!!!
▪ At the new property we are not permitted to leave the property without permission. So we decided to have our own shop! We sell toiletries, cookies and drinks. Now we do not have to go out of the property anymore!!!

A Dream Becomes Reality

We have moved to the land, HSTK has a place to call home.

After many years of living in rented houses across a village we now have a permanent home on our own land.
A very special thank you goes to Shar and Luke Hodgkinson, my daughter and son in law who made this dream of owning land a possibility. Your generosity and vision will never be forgotten it will endure for generations of young people into the future.

Many reading this newsletter have faithfully supported HSTK for years and a huge thank you goes to you for standing with us in the vision of creating a sustainable future for these kids from poverty and at risk situations. We are training up youth, educating and now creating businesses and work opportunities so that they can contribute in a positive way for their families, villages and country.

Many young ones are being trafficked from the area our kids come from and we are actively working to give a better alternative to the youth of this part of Burma. We are working at the source of the problem before youth are trafficked.

We now have a big job to transform the land that tends to grow wild very quickly, into a beautiful and bountiful garden. It’s an exciting time and it’s so peaceful. It’s a joy to look out at the beauty of the surroundings and marvel at how far we have come, how much we have achieved and to give God the Glory for the vision and praise for bringing it to pass.

Thank you all for being part of HSTK.
Together we are making a difference. We are transforming lives. We are reformers, people of vision, people who love well and people who know that a sacrifice costs something.

In His Love,
Diane

We are raising up some ducks. We have a male, 2 females and 12 ducklings. We dug a pond for them to swim in. We also built a little house for them around the pond. They swim everyday in the pond. It seems like they really like their home.

Thank you for partnering with us in “Giving Hope & Restoring Lives!

Usually, Karen girls marry when they are about 16, 17 or younger and have lots of children. They feed breast milk to their children till their children are about 3 years old. After that they start giving their children rice. They chew down the rice in their mouth and add a little bit of salt. After that they put it in the bowl and start feeding their children the pre-chewed rice. Children usually start learning to cook when they are about 10 years old.

Most Karen children do not attend school because they have to look after their baby sisters and brothers while their parents worked in the fields. Most children want to go to school but their parents can not afford to send them, instead they stay at home helping their parents. Many children start carrying water when they are about 5 years old to help their mothers.

Most of the Karen people chew beetle nut and smoke. Even when they are old and have lost most of their teeth, they still chew beetle nut. Children learn from their parents and grandparents and often pick up the same habits as teenagers.

An important part of traditional Karen culture is a yearly wrist binding celebration. On the 12th of August families and villages come together and bind a string of white and red cotton around each persons wrist. They will wear this string of cotton until the next years celebration. The history of wrist binding was passed down from our grandparents. They say it would call back the spirits of the ancestors. They wear Karen traditional clothes on the celebration day and enjoy lots of food together.

Our Karen people continue to pass down ancient stories that have been told from generation to the next generation. Story telling is a major way of communicating our history to the next generation. Especially as many people don’t have the ability to read and write. Enjoy the story below of the “The Lazy Man”

The Lazy Man

Retold and translated to English by Paw Lah Moo
Cartoon Illustrations by Myit Shwe Lah
Cartoon Illustration colouring by Paw Lah Moo

One of our most known stories is the famous story of a powerful king, his 7 daughters and the lazy man. The lazy man was so clever. Although he was poor, dirty, and lazy, because of his clever plan, he got to marry one of the kings daughter.

Thank you for partnering with us in “Giving Hope & Restoring Lives!

At the end of June to the beginning of July, we had a team of visitors from Frontline Christian Church of Mudgee, NSW, Australia. Builders, sewers, a medical team, photographers, businessmen and women, and worshippers made up the 21 person team. Their team accomplished so much in the short 10 days they were here with us. We were able to really partner with them! The sewers learned new skills and made backpacks and sewing kits. The photographers took lots of photos of our trades classes so we can share them with you. The business men and women taught some of us about business planning and development. The medical team went to Burma to a clinic and taught some important lessons and gave out some medical supplies to the nurses. A big thank you to Frontline Christian Church for sending an amazing team of people to partner with us!

We really want to give a big thanks to the Frontline team for helping to work alongside and teach our building apprentices new skills in electricity and building! You worked hard to expand their skill sets and made dramatic improvements! Thank you for the huge accomplishments!

The Frontline team of electricians wired the electricity for the boy’s house. Now the boy’s housing is almost finished. The toilets and electricity are completed. The boy’s house is not so hot and not so cold. It is the perfect temperature. We hired a crew of people to tile the boy’s house. It is now nearly complete!
The Frontline building team helped us build the student classroom (girls temporary dormitory). They put up the walls and installed the window and door frames. The student classrooms will be finished soon.

Saw Nyunt Win

Min Min Soe

This year we are focusing on training our students in different areas of trades. One of our areas of focus is in administration. We currently are training several of our oldest students to take over a bulk of the office work for school such as photocopying. The other aspect of their training is in email & social media. Please tune in for lots more email updates and daily social media updates via Facebook & Instagram. This email update is written by Paw Lah Moo!