Lessons about Grace from 7-year-old experts.

Selemat Pagi! It's 4:30AM here in Bali and I got up early so that I could write this post. Camille and I have been here for a few days now, and already it feels like home. As worn-out as we are at the end of the day, by the time the rooster starts to crow (which could be any time of night, actually - our rooster doesn't keep very good time), I lay in bed unable to sleep, filled with the excitement of knowing that I have another day with our wonderful kids ahead of me.

I actually woke up early to write this because Camille and I are going to be taking off for about a week and heading to the island of Lombok. While we were back in Oregon planning our journey, we decided that since things have been so hectic and strange for us this year, we would take the opportunity to 'unwind' and relax a little when we got to Indonesia before settling into our schedule. Lombok has some great surf and isn't as crowded as Bali, so we purchased some tickets to Lombok (an 18-minute flight from Bali). Truth be told, now that we are here with the kids, it is going to be hard to be away from them for a week, but the tickets and hotel, etc. were already a done deal, so we're off this morning for a week. It's funny how your priorities change when you let God sit in the driver's seat of your heart!

We probably won't have internet service on Lombok, so we're not bringing the laptop. If we get a chance to hit an internet cafe or anything, I may try to update the blog, but if not - it will be next week before I have a chance to blog. I wanted to write a few quick thoughts before we leave.

Grace. It's not something most of the world spends a lot of time thinking about...let alone using. As a Christian, grace is central to who I am. Without God's grace, I would be about as valuable as a worm. God is perfect and only by His grace does he allow a dirty, imperfect sinner like me into His presence. I am supposed to turn around and return the favor to my fellow man, but you know how that usually turns out...just think about the guy who cut you off on the freeway this morning and which finger you used (or maybe just wanted to use) to wave a friendly greeting at him. You get the picture - grace is something that I will probably spend all of Eternity trying to understand.

Knowing this about me, God has decided to place 36 Indonesian children in my life to give me a daily illustration of what grace is all about. Our kids have only been here since April and May. If you've seen the website for My Father's Home, you have had just a glimpse of how horrible their lives were before then. They came to us broken, unloved and hurting. Where they were from, it was everyone for themselves. You had to be tough to make it through one day of their young lives. When they showed up, they didn't know a thing about love.

Christ changed all of that. The staff at My Father's Home took them in, loved them unconditionally (many of them had to be taught what a hug and a kiss is) and showed God's love to them. One by one, they started to trust, stopped being afraid...and they started to love. Today, they are absolutely radiating happiness and love.

One thing that they understand better than I ever will is grace. When they came here, they had that 'dog-eat-dog' mentality. Especially the kids from Sumba. Sumba is a tough place where being a warrior is respected and life is often violent and brutal. A couple of our 9-year-olds have actually run into battle with swords...real swords. Did I mention they were 9 years old? There's not a lot of time to worry about showing grace to your fellow man when he's trying to run you through with a sword! All of our kids had to fight to survive and were never shown an ounce of grace. When they opened their hearts to God's love however, grace flooded in and coming from where they had come, it must have been the best feeling in the world.

When they came here, before letting God's grace heal them, they were hard and tough and ready to beat-down the kid next to them if needed to secure their place in the food chain. That was then, this is now. Now Christ is in their hearts and without anyone having to teach them, the 'grace lightbulb' has clicked on in inside of them. I love to play soccer. So do they (and some of them are better than me, the little stinkers). Usually, when you put a dozen or more kids on the field and let them go at it hard, emotions will flare and unintentional fouls or the occasional push can escalate into scuffles or even full-on fights. It humbles and amazes me to play soccer with these kids. They are playing as hard as anyone I've ever played with, yet there is almost never any need for us 'adults' (yes, I consider myself an 'adult'...not an adult) to intervene and stop the skirmishes that you would think would naturally ensue. When one of them gets knocked down, someone will almost always rush to help him up and brush off the dirt before he even has a chance to get angry or point fingers. They're not playing like wusses, either! Like I said, these kids know how to fight and take that warrior spirit into a soccer match. I think that because of grace, and their grasp of it, they just have an unspoken understanding that at the end of the day, we love each other so we'll extend that grace to each other.

With 36 little ones running around, you would think there would be more bickering and fighting than there is. I'm not saying that they are perfect - after all, they're still kids, but there is an unseen but very much felt undercurrent of grace running through My Father's Home. The love and patience they show towards each other is something that will be teaching this 'adult' for a long time to come. It's not a show - when you walk in to a room full of these kids, you can tell that they actually love each other. In just a few days, I've learned more about grace from these precious kids than I have in the 39 years I've been on this planet.

That's just a few days. I'm supposed to be here to teach them...looks like the tables are being turned! Isn't that just like God? What an adventure we have started! It is with very mixed-emotions that we take off today on our little mini-vacation. Lombok will be fun and relaxing, but our kids are here in Singaraja, Bali. Truth be told, if we didn't already have the tickets, we would probably postpone the little vacation. Like I've said before, when God gives you your cake, He lets you eat it, too. Don't be afraid to serve Him - He makes doing His will the only thing you want to do! I'll update this blog in a week the first chance that I get. Until then, I'll try to post some stuff on facebook on my iPhone while we are gone. God Bless!