Gratitude. Thankfulness. Appreciative. Looking at the glass half full..whatever you call it I have been purposeful in my every day to pay attention to the things I would miss in life if they were suddenly taken away.  Gratitude is the highway to joy and we all want more joy. More of His joy…not a joy that is rooted in circumstances or people. The joy that bubbles deep down, that in the face of trials joy will radiate off you. Sign me up! Thats what I crave and hunger for!

So, in effort to seeing His blessings in my life here are some  of the things I have stopped and truly thanked my papa for lately:

My husband- He is legit the most level headed and strong man I know, this season has highlighted so many of his strengths to me. So very grateful.

My children- Yes it’s exhausting..it’s supposed to be..I am raising humans! They make me laugh, and bring so much joy into my life.

My role at DR- I have come into myself being here, seeing I was created to love others well and that I am not perfect in this but its a goal I set out to do every day.

So now we have the three doozies done, there is more:

Thankful I can pick up my fruit at a fruit stand where the little old lady every time laughs as she corrects my broken thai.

My relationship with some of the Thai’s I have gotten to know, I see Gods fingerprint in their culture and it blesses me.

Gods provision- Living in faith and knowing He is good and He is my provider- there is nothing like that.

Amazing friends back home that support us and cheer us on- means the world.

The mountains that surround our home- it reminds me God is big…real big.

For the tribe that I work with every day, leaning on Him to make a difference in these kids lives. Us doing our part as the body, they way God himself intended it to work it really is magical some days.

Good coffee- Honestly the coffee here is amazing. I literally hate Starbucks now..which seems sinful I know.

The adventure of going to new places in this beautiful country; I was made for adventure and I am in the perfect place to do so.

Quiet moments on my porch inhaling His grace and peace, exhaling chaos and brokenness- I have cherished it more this season as I learn to rest and slow down.

There is so much more..I want to encourage you to be a person of life, to try to grab hold of the things you would miss if they vanished..it opens the doorway to His joy..I can feel it already seep in.

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” -Melody Beattie

In a few short..I truly mean SHORT hours we will be waking up, boarding the first plane of our long (46 hours +) journey. If anyone reading this has invented a teleporting machine NOW is the time you should contact us. As we charge all our electronics, wash our “plane attire” and fret about all the nothings we wanted to pause and Thank GOD for everything this place has given to us and THANK YOU all as well.

From the Martineau family that picked us up at stupid o’clock at night in May and picking us up at 2am tomorrow to drive our tired selves to the airport.

To the Dahlberg family that has unmatched hospitality and patience to add 6 people to your home. Unreal.

To Chanda and the Donat girls who cooked their hearts out for Taste of Thai..and many hands that made the whole nights smooth.

To the Selander’s who didn’t know us from Bob but stayed in their RV so we could have their lovely home on the lake for a month!

To The Crossing church who have supported this cause and our hearts in it.

To Kelly Dykstra who gives me perspective and passion in this cause.

To Rachel Litzinger and Tracy Keech for your graphic design magic.

To Mac Franssen for making us some awesome video clips to share!

To all the churches who have had a role in helping us!

To the Rothemeyers who breathed life into our tired marriage.

To the Bohn family who let us stay in their beautiful cabin up north unplugged so we could laugh and “be” again.

To our fundraising team who made this all possible, raising money to get us here! We love you all.

To Kala Hoffman who invested in our marriage so we could go away on our anniversary.

To Amber D. and Sarah B for the pampering you gave this mama! Anyone who needs their hair done or a fantastic massage message me!

And to everyone who has given to this cause, prayed for us or encouraged us along the way. We cannot believe how incredible you all are.

Our hearts are FULL…which makes it hard to leave…but our eyes are on the prize never giving up on doing good.

Ever grateful and already needing caffeine!

The Platts!

People ask us all the time ” So whats it like?” The “it” they are referring to is ..life. What’s life like in another culture, another world away. To tell you the truth it’s..life. Taking kids to school, figuring out what to eat for dinner, washing clothes and paying bills. These things stay the same.

What has changed so much is our hearts. Our hearts for the least of these, the broken and the lost. Our hearts have come alive to what injustices are happening all over the world. The difference for us is we come face to face with it, these kids who have endured so much(things you and I don’t want to even discuss) and yet cling to hope in the midst. We learn all kinds of life lessons from them and I am so grateful.

We pray all the time that us living out our faith like this will inspire others to do the same. We also know that it takes a community of people coming around us to support, pray for and cry with to continue to do this ministry. It cannot happen with out generous hearts, God uses people..broken, ordinary people to bring Him glory..something I still cannot wrap my head around.

We are praying for monthly sponsors..those who can give $25-$100 a month to help us keep going in Thailand! Your gift, any gift a month makes such a HUGE difference for us. It’s a great mistake to think to yourself ” I can’t really help, I can only give them $25 a month” everyone giving a “little” adds up to us staying in Thailand making an impact on these kids!

We are needing to raise $850 more per month in monthly sponsors! If you are even wanting more info on how you can be apart of this drop us a line and we would love to share our hearts with you. We look forward to the coffee dates we get to share what Destiny Rescue is doing with these kids, and share our passion with you!

Ever Grateful,

The Platts

Have you heard?!

We are thrilled. To say the least! We raised enough money to bring us back to the states! It was such an awesome experience to see God do it thru several people who believe in this cause, this mission, these kids. We arrive in the states May 25th!! We raised just enough to get a round trip, so we are praying that God will bring in the rest!! We still need to pay for school for all three boys for a year, passports and just the extra traveling expenses. Our monthly budget unfortunately has dropped significantly due to people not being able to support us because of circumstances in their lives, so every dollar that comes to us we are thankful for! In fact every time we get a notification that someone has donated I run to tell Sam and we both say aloud” Thank you JESUS”! We are well aware every day that we cannot be here without supporters like you that are willing to stand and say ” Yes I will do something!”  SO THANK YOU! Thank you for doing your part as we do ours.

5 weeks and we will see you all soon! We have some tasty fundraisers coming up so stay tuned!

If you would like to donate to our family you can do so right here on our blog by clicking the donate button. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Ever Grateful,

Love the Platts

Hello!!

In just three short months we are believing that our entire family will be on a plane. In fact it just has to be we keep saying! We need to renew our Visas for a year, because they expire early June and so do our passports!

We wanted to update you all..we are finding the largest portion of our trip from Bangkok to LAX for around $750.00 per person! That is a pretty great price. We have about $1500.00 currently towards our tickets which means we need about $3000 to  buy just that part of our trip. This isn’t counting the other smaller lags of our journey or all the costs that it will take to go home. ie. Visas, passports, food, travel etc. Thank GOODNESS our Heavenly Father goes before us and is a good daddy!

Please pray with us that God will provide this money, please pray that we will not worry or stress..that we will remain in faith. If you feel lead to give towards us going home you can give by clicking the Donate button at the top.

Pray that these tickets do not go up! Thank you for standing in faith with us…We will continue to update you all as we go! Please share our blog with friends and family as well!

Ever Grateful, Samm & Angie

What happens when your child’s little heart is heavy about a choice that you as a parent ultimately made?

A choice that you believe was the right one because you know God led you there? What do you do as a parent? You cry. You wrestle with the thoughts and try not to be defeated by them. Where you know that them missing home is part of the sacrifice. It’s part of trusting God and laying down my life completely..which in doing so is allowing Him control over my kids life. THATS HARD. All of us have a choice to trust Him with our kids to a degree. We can decide to worry and fret over their lives or we can lay it down. Being here and hearing our youngest son be sad off and on, seeing that with all the blessings God has given us by being here there is ugly hard stuff as well.

Cyrus misses America still. He used to say ” I miss home” but now has said ” I miss America”. I thought that meant he is transitioning after a year and half that Thailand is his home now. Until last weekend when he had some serious behaviors coming out and we talked. We talked about his heart and how he misses friends and that he doesn’t have any here. I know that next year when he goes to school with his brothers his life will change immensely. I know that God has us here to fight sex trafficking, to love these kids, to help create a place where people are excited to serve. I know all of this…but still. I cried so hard and even now as I write this days later I tear up. Knowing something doesn’t make it always easy. I want to be transparent with people, people that see us and say how brave and strong we are. It’s not always truth. We have seen God in all of it, especially the hard stuff I would say. I keep coming back to the notion that I seek first the kingdom, the rest will come. So I pray hard that God alone will meet his little heart in Thailand, I pray that we will be more purposeful in creating friends for him. Ultimately I pray one day he will look at this time and miss it like crazy. Thank you for allowing us to share here with vulnrabilty and courage. We are so looking forward to connecting with each one of you in a few short months!  I bet you can guess how excited he is to go back to America  for a visit! We started a ” Summer bucket” list to get excited and planning to  go. His eyes lit up and was smiling the whole time.

Thankful that Jesus holds both our hearts at the same time and we praise Him thru the rain!

 

Ever Grateful,

Platts

 

We are celebrating the WINS over here! The Valentines Fundraiser that happened last Friday was a success! We had some generous people and we raised around $700 that goes to buying our tickets! We are just under $2000 towards our tickets! We are praying that we can get round trip tickets from Thailand to Minnesota for $6000. We are seeing some GREAT deals and praying that God will move and we can buy our tickets ASAP. We are now looking to come home end of May or very beginning of June as the boys passports are expired early June and our Visas do as well! Any support that comes in past our monthly expenses will go directly to getting us home and getting us visas!

We want to thank each person who helped with this last fundraiser. We are HONORED that people are jumping on board left and right to help! Thank you to the people that have given to us getting home, it fills our hearts with joy and faith. He sees us and we know He will complete it and get us there. If you would like to donate you can do so right here on our website clicking our DONATE button. Thank you so much for helping in anyway you can.

Ever Grateful, The Platt Family