“Daddy, Daddy! I want to play with the balloon!”

Snatching his hand from my grasp, Justus darted under the overhang of the thatched roof hut and snatched the dirty, faded balloon from the bamboo pole to which it was loosely tied.

A barefoot Thai grandmother was sitting cross-legged on the raised floor. Her tiny granddaughter, younger than Justus, was sitting between her legs peering out at the world like a newly hatched chick. Eyes round and unblinking, the little girl watched as Justus scampered away with the balloon trailing behind him on a string.

“Justus, Justus! Please come back here. Wait, stop!” I called after him.

He stopped abruptly, peering at me over his shoulder. He began to turn circles in the dirt. The string of the balloon wrapping itself around him. I crouched down next to him and began to untangle the string. “Justus, do you have lots of toys and books at home?” He nodded. “That girl doesn’t have many toys or things to play with. Before you grabbed the balloon, she was playing with it. If you take it away, what will she play with?”

“I don’t know, Daddy.”

“Do you think we should give it back to her?”

Justus nodded again. Then he walked back to the little hut and returned the balloon.

As we walked away, hand-in-hand, I asked Justus, “Do you have some toys at home that you could share with that little girl?”

“Yes, Daddy, I do.”

“Mommy and I will help you pick something out to give to her. Is that alright?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

Whether rich or poor, we know that in Christ we have “all the riches of God’s grace” (Eph. 1:7), and we want to share “the boundless riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8) with the Thai Buddhist people of Isan. Please consider partnering with us to share Christ with them.

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