Participants: Lisa Sharon
Series Code: JFAN
Program Code: JFAN000037A
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00:21 Hello, and welcome to Jesus for Asia Now.
00:23 I'm Natalie Wood 00:24 and I have a special guest with me here today 00:26 to talk about the work 00:28 that she and her family are doing in Thailand, 00:30 and I know you are going to really enjoy these stories. 00:34 And before I welcome my guest and introduce her to you, 00:38 I want to share with you one of her favorite texts 00:42 and that is in Romans 8:38-39. 00:47 "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, 00:50 nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, 00:55 nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, 00:58 nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us 01:02 from the love of God 01:03 which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 01:06 So I want to introduce you 01:08 to our special guest today, Lisa Sharon. 01:11 Welcome to the show, Lisa. 01:12 Thank you. So glad you could be here. 01:15 It's been a long time coming. 01:17 We've been wanting to have 01:18 a show like this for a long time. 01:20 We did one about your family's work, 01:22 but you weren't here. 01:23 No. 01:24 And neither was anyone else from your family 01:26 so all we had was video, 01:28 and now we'll get the stories in person. 01:31 So we first met when you still lived in Idaho. 01:34 Yeah. 01:35 And we lived in California at the time 01:37 and we were in Idaho visiting family. 01:40 And then you moved with your family to Montana. 01:42 Right. 01:43 Can you share a little of the story 01:45 of the beginning there of your family in Montana and...? 01:49 Well, when we moved from Idaho, 01:51 I had asked my boys, "What they wanted in home?" 01:55 They were upper teenagers by then 01:57 and so I wanted to, 01:59 you know, I wanted to let them decide. 02:01 It had to be a place with a lot of snow, 02:06 and they wanted to be way out where it wasn't like 02:09 right in the middle of a lot of people. 02:11 It had to have no electricity, no water and no phone. 02:16 I put my foot down when they came to the phone part, 02:18 so we found this place that was way out 02:21 and it had, you know, 6 to 12 feet of snow every year 02:25 and we had to use snowmobiles to go in and out. 02:27 And, you know, at the time it was a really crazy idea 02:30 but that's what prepared us for mission service. 02:33 And so it turned out to be a really big blessing. 02:38 It was a long ways out there. 02:40 I remember coming to visit you in winter 02:43 and then it snowed a little bit before we got there 02:45 but then it snowed a foot overnight 02:47 and so we were able to drive out 02:49 but after that it was snowmobiles 02:51 for you all the rest of the winter. 02:53 Yeah. 02:54 So you were home schooling your boys there, right? 02:57 Yeah. I was. 02:58 So it wasn't like you lived way out 02:59 and you were trying to take them into school everyday? 03:01 No. 03:02 And especially that first year, 03:03 we didn't have any work up there 03:05 and so we didn't have to go anywhere. 03:08 So it was probably the best year of our lives 03:10 as far as getting to spend time as family 03:13 and really big, drawing closer together and stuff. 03:17 And it was right after that 03:19 when Ben left on a vision trip for Asia, 03:24 and basically that was his last year at home. 03:27 So it was a really, really special time. 03:31 So he went over with us on the vision trip 03:33 and he was there for just maybe a few days. 03:37 It seems like maybe a week but it wasn't very long. 03:41 And he said, I think I need to call my mom. 03:44 Yeah, he called me and he told me, 03:46 "Mom, I just can't come home 03:48 that there's such a need over here, 03:50 I didn't realize that there was such a need in Asia 03:52 and so I can't go home." 03:54 So I didn't see him again for two years. 03:59 But, you know, if you're going to lose your kids, 04:01 that's a great way to wisdom... 04:03 To God's work. To God's work. 04:04 To caring about other people and serving them. 04:06 That's right. 04:08 So he came home two years later? 04:10 Two years later, he came for a one month visit. 04:13 And one morning, we were all sitting at, 04:16 we just had worship 04:18 and we were sitting around in the living room just talking 04:20 and he turns to his brother. 04:23 I think he turned to Jason first, 04:24 I'm not sure but he said, "Hey, Jason, 04:26 why don't you come over to Asia with me? 04:28 I need some help." 04:29 And Jason said, "Yeah, sure I'll do that." 04:33 And then he was like, wow. 04:36 You know, and then he turned to Andrew and he said, 04:37 "Andrew, how about you?" 04:39 And Andrew said, "Yeah, I think I might like to do that." 04:42 I'm like, "Oh, no, three of my boys are going to be gone." 04:47 So they left, the three of them left on my birthday of all days 04:51 and that was in March of 2009, I believe. 04:56 And so it was just the three of us left at home, 04:58 we didn't know what to do with ourselves. 05:01 You had Travis, the youngest of them. 05:02 Yeah, I still had Travis at home. 05:05 So we decided to become more involved 05:07 with Jesus for Asia at that point 05:09 because I was already talking to them. 05:11 And so then we decided to help out 05:14 a little bit more with the ministry. 05:16 And Jon decided that it was a good idea 05:20 for me to just go over there 05:21 and kind of check it out for myself 05:23 so I know what I was talking about 05:24 and then I could write about the projects 05:25 while I was over there. 05:27 So we went for a three month mission trip too. 05:32 But same thing that happened to Ben, 05:35 you know, when you see the need, 05:37 you meet the people and you get to know them... 05:40 I mean, they're not just statistics, 05:41 they're not just people 05:42 that live on the other side of the world then, 05:44 they're real people and you just can't, 05:48 you just can't go off and leave them once you see the need. 05:52 You know, whether you can stand on a mountaintop 05:54 and see 50 villages that have never heard of Jesus, 05:58 I don't know how a person could leave after that. 06:01 So we decided to stay 06:04 and my husband had to go back to America 06:06 and he had to just, you know, wrap things up 06:08 we hadn't planned on moving over there. 06:10 And so he left, Travis and I to move to our new location. 06:17 We had found a training school 06:19 that had been built by donors from America 06:21 but nothing was, it was empty. 06:24 Nothing was being done there. 06:26 And so actually Jason joined us 06:28 and three of us moved down near Sangkhla Buri 06:33 and we were only there a couple of months, 06:38 my husband was still in America. 06:40 When I was handed my first baby, 06:43 Hannah was 14 months old 06:46 and she'd been abandoned by her mother, 06:48 and her father was a soldier and couldn't take care of her. 06:51 And so it was like, I had to email my husband, 06:55 "Surprise! You're dad again." 07:00 So you now have four boys and a girl. 07:02 Yeah. 07:03 It's a girl. 07:04 Yeah, it was a girl. Congratulations. 07:07 We were really excited to get a girl. 07:10 But it wasn't like something that I had planned on. 07:13 You know, when you're handed a child, 07:15 you look at the child and you say, 07:17 "Twenty years, wow, that's commitment." 07:22 But, you know, if that's what it takes 07:24 that's what we're going to do, so that's what we are doing, 07:27 it's our 20 years of commitment at least. 07:32 And it wasn't very long before 07:35 more children came in to where I ended up with six girls 07:39 because God has a sense of humor. 07:43 Four boys and then six girls. 07:48 But we'd always wanted girl so it worked out really good. 07:52 So couple months later, 07:54 I was given another little girl, 07:55 she was eight years old, we've named her Mary Beth. 08:00 She likes to have an American name. 08:02 And couple months after that, 08:07 my, Jason, my son had saved 08:11 the life of another little girl, 08:12 she was seven at the time 08:15 and she needed special care for a while 08:17 and so we took her in, that's Esther. 08:20 She's 14 now. 08:22 And then like a year later, we got Destiny Grace. 08:29 Oh, I always forget my older ones, 08:31 my older ones were Sanda and Nam Phoon. 08:34 Sanda is now married and has her own family, 08:36 so she's not living at home now. 08:38 And then Nam Phoon just finished academy 08:41 and so she's been away from home for about five years 08:43 and that's why I forget. 08:45 Yeah. 08:46 But yeah, they came around the same time. 08:50 Wow! So suddenly you had six girls. 08:52 Suddenly I had six girls, ranging from 6 days old to 16. 08:59 Well, that's quite a spread. 09:00 Yeah. 09:02 Thankfully you had already experienced 09:04 most of the teenage years... 09:05 Yeah. 09:06 Once before from a boy perspective. 09:08 I really thought I was pretty well prepared. 09:10 I thought I was a pretty good mom, 09:11 I found out I didn't know anything. 09:14 Every child is different though. 09:15 Every child is different, 09:16 and girls are far different than boys. 09:18 Yeah. 09:20 And the learning needs, and the emotional needs, 09:23 and some of the traumatic experiences 09:25 that a lot of young people have had over there. 09:28 Yeah, they bring across a very sunny disposition 09:31 when you meet them. 09:32 But deep down inside they're very damaged little girls, 09:35 so it takes a lot of work, a lot of love. 09:39 A lot of love. 09:41 But they smile and they love back to you. 09:44 They do. 09:45 Yeah, I like being there and meeting the girls. 09:48 Finally, it was many years actually... 09:50 Before I got to meet them, but I enjoyed it very much. 09:53 They are so sweet. 09:54 They are. 09:56 The love is paying off. 09:57 Yeah. 09:58 Okay, so you were in Sangkhla Buri 10:00 during all of this time? 10:02 Yeah. 10:03 And then what happened next? 10:05 'Cause you aren't there anymore and I know you've been, 10:07 so we're going to keep on going with the story. 10:09 Yeah. 10:10 Well, that there was a lot of problems 10:13 that developed there, 10:14 one of them a major one 10:16 and that the mission was really concerned about 10:17 was the child traffickers. 10:19 You know, we were kind of rescuing kids 10:21 that would have been probably taken by them. 10:25 And they didn't like that 10:26 and so it was kind of a dangerous area for us. 10:30 The other problem was that our neighbors 10:32 had put in loudspeakers right behind us, 10:34 and in Asia it's a very polite thing to do 10:38 to share your music with your neighbors. 10:41 But... At very high volume? 10:43 At very high volume. 10:45 But unfortunately 10:46 we didn't approve of their choice of music. 10:49 It wasn't peaceful and pleasant for country living? 10:51 No. 10:52 We were trying to, you know, run a school there 10:55 and having this loud and rocked music 10:57 blasting at us continuously was, 11:00 it just wasn't a good idea. 11:01 So because of those two things, 11:04 we decided to look for a new location 11:06 and we went a couple of other places 11:08 and kind of checked them out 11:09 but nothing was really where God wanted us. 11:13 And so we finally, we were talking about it as a family 11:17 and we decided that we needed to move someplace 11:19 that was dark, where there's no Christians, 11:22 where there's no other missionaries, 11:24 where there's no churches 11:25 so that because, you know, there's thousands of villages 11:28 that need help 11:29 and we didn't want to be someplace 11:30 where there's other people already working. 11:33 So the only problem was that I have a bad back 11:36 and so we couldn't be on bad roads. 11:40 So Jason looked at Google Earth, 11:43 that's just a great way to find your new location. 11:46 It's a handy tool. Yeah. 11:48 He found a river that we can navigate with a boat. 11:52 And so it's kind of a long story 11:55 but they went to the nearest town to that area 12:00 and they just kind of talk to them 12:02 and asked if it would be possible 12:04 for us to find property there to start a school. 12:08 And we got nothing but yes, it was amazing, 12:10 we didn't expect that. 12:12 But, I mean, the emperor said yes, 12:14 the headman of the village said yes 12:16 everybody was like, 12:17 Just go choose what you want, you can do whatever you want, 12:19 and just let us know where you decided to settle." 12:23 So we did and we were very careful, 12:26 we got permission from every headman 12:28 of every village around, and the emperor and the... 12:30 I mean, we were very careful, 12:32 made sure that it was really true 12:34 that we could have whatever we wanted 12:35 and how much land we wanted. 12:37 So we went down the river and we found the perfect spot. 12:40 It had streams coming down the mountains 12:43 and it was in the jungle, there were no loudspeakers. 12:48 That was very important to us. 12:49 And so we got permission, 12:52 then we started building our school there. 12:54 And we had to chop out the jungle, 12:56 it was a lot of work, 12:57 there were these huge bines all over the place. 13:00 And we cleared and that took us a year to get the school ready, 13:05 and build the buildings 13:06 and get the jungle cleared enough 13:10 to where we could have students there. 13:13 And then the students started coming. 13:14 We started out with hot season school 13:17 which is like summer vacation for them. 13:19 But everybody wants to learn English 13:21 and so we just thought, 13:23 well, you know, if we invite the students 13:25 to come during summer break, 13:27 then we can get to know who the good students are 13:31 and who the bad students are, you know. 13:32 Who are really interested in spiritual things 13:36 and then we can handpick our students. 13:38 And so that's kind of what we did, 13:39 we didn't handpick them all of that way 13:41 but a lot of them we did. 13:43 And so we started out our school year with, 13:45 I think it was around 20 students, 13:47 I don't remember now. 13:49 But that was our ideal maximum. 13:53 We didn't want more than that 13:54 because we wanted really one on one time with the students 13:56 so that they could learn. 13:58 Okay, so what kind of school, what were you teaching? 14:01 You said English, they want to learn English? 14:02 Yeah, all of the students wanted to learn English. 14:05 They wanted to learn medical, 14:06 and they wanted to learn about the Bible. 14:09 So it's kind of like an English Bible training school. 14:12 So that's what we've done. 14:13 We had a work study program. 14:15 We wanted to follow Ellen White counsel 14:17 for the medicine school basically. 14:20 And so we had half study, half work. 14:24 Well, a lot of these students didn't know how to work. 14:27 I mean, here we are. 14:28 Where were they from? 14:29 Well, a lot of them were from refugee camps 14:32 and a lot of them were from Burma. 14:35 And the ones from Burma knew how to work. 14:37 But the ones from the refugee camps, 14:38 they had never learned. 14:39 There's no place in the refugee camp for them to work? 14:42 No, there's no place for them to work. 14:43 It's just full of house after house, 14:45 hut after hut after hut. 14:46 Yeah, bamboo house. 14:47 We call house, you know, you say house in our culture... 14:50 And it means something different, 14:51 vastly different from the reality for them. 14:52 Vastly different. 14:54 Yeah. So hut after hut. 14:55 Yeah. 14:56 Miles and miles, I mean, you drive pass 14:58 some of these places on the road, 15:00 and you just miles and miles 15:01 of hut after hut after hut, all the... 15:04 It's like all of the roofs just, 15:06 they're like stacked on top of each other almost. 15:08 Yeah, I can't imagine living that close together, 15:11 it's just so, it's so hard. 15:13 Anyway, they didn't know how to built houses, 15:16 they didn't know how to make the leaf panels for the roofs, 15:18 they didn't know how to do anything. 15:20 And so when they came, we had the work and study. 15:24 And half of the students left 15:28 because of the work program which was fine. 15:31 So they didn't want to learn to work. 15:32 Yeah, they didn't want to learn to work. 15:33 And so we ended up with only nine students, 15:36 but they were so excited. 15:39 They told us, they came for the English. 15:42 They stayed because of the Bible. 15:45 They started out with we had like a, 15:46 Jason was teaching Bible, and he taught a one hour class. 15:50 Well, pretty soon it became an hour and half, 15:51 and then it was two hours, 15:53 and then it was three hours everyday 15:54 and they just, they couldn't get enough. 15:55 They weren't just getting enough. 15:57 Yeah, plus, morning and evening worships. 15:59 It was like they just couldn't get enough. 16:01 Wow. 16:02 And so it was beautiful. 16:05 It was so exciting to see 16:07 because they were just so hungry 16:09 and so thirsty to know the truth. 16:12 You know, and they ask us difficult questions. 16:14 You know, where like, in one Sabbath, 16:15 they asked us, "What happens to you when you die?" 16:19 And we kind of talked about it. 16:21 We're like, you know, I'm afraid 16:23 that this is gonna offend them 16:25 but let's just do a Bible study. 16:27 So instead of preparing a Bible study, 16:29 we just got out our "Strong's Concordance" 16:31 and looked up every verse in the Bible about it. 16:35 And when we finished reading all those verses 16:39 and then just summarizing, 16:41 the students, their reaction was, 16:43 "Oh, so that's how it is." 16:46 It was like... Okay. 16:48 That's what the Bible says, that's way it is. 16:50 It was... They... 16:51 It's so beautiful to see it. 16:54 I wish you could experience it 16:55 'cause it's just, it was so neat. 16:57 Wow! 16:59 But... 17:00 So how did you build the buildings there, 17:02 the house and the buildings on the property? 17:07 Well, it's a little different than what we would build here. 17:12 We go out into the jungle, 17:14 and we find a nice looking bamboo clump, 17:17 and we start chopping with our machetes, 17:19 cut down the bamboos, strip off all the leaves, 17:22 and haul it on back to the house site. 17:26 When you get enough of that then you... 17:28 Well, you also have to find logs 17:30 that are down in the jungle. 17:31 It has to be either teak or iron wood. 17:34 If it's... 17:35 And they have to fallen away. 17:36 Yeah, they have to have already fallen down, 17:38 you can't cut anything 'cause that would be illegal. 17:41 But then you haul those back, those are really heavy wood. 17:45 Especially if they're big. 17:46 Yeah. Yes. 17:48 And then you have to make them 17:49 into smaller posts or something. 17:51 No, you don't cut those things because they are just, 17:54 they are the way they are sorted all. 17:55 They're not cut at all. 17:56 Yeah. Anyway so... 17:57 Okay, your house posts are whatever size the tree was. 18:00 You start out with just four posts in the ground, 18:03 or six, or eight, or however big you want the building, 18:05 and then you just start trying bamboo on with, 18:08 then we use bamboo to make ties to tie it all together. 18:12 And sometimes we use wire and nails 18:15 but usually is bamboo ties. 18:18 'Cause you're in the middle of the jungle... 18:19 It's not like you're just gonna run down 18:21 to the hardware store and buy nails. 18:22 No, we don't do that. 18:23 We get everything we needed from the jungle. 18:25 It's a lot cheaper. 18:26 But it's also not as, it doesn't last very long. 18:31 Like, if you build a house, 18:33 if you cut the bamboo at the exact right time 18:36 so there's no bugs in it, 18:38 then it'll last a long time. 18:39 But if there is any bugs in it, then they chew your bamboo up 18:43 while it's in the house, and then it gets, 18:45 it's like sawdust all over the place. 18:48 And it's really unnerving 18:50 when you sit or lay next to the wall, and you hear that. 18:53 Yeah, you can hear the bugs chewing. 18:58 But it's a lot of work 18:59 but you can put up a house in maybe a week or two. 19:04 What about bathrooms? 19:05 What did you do for bathrooms? 19:07 Well, we dug out houses which... 19:11 It's not, you know, there's not a lot of rock in the dirt 19:14 so you can dig a pretty good outhouse pretty fast. 19:18 And then we just used, for that we use tin 19:20 'cause I didn't want to use bamboo 19:21 'cause you can see through it. 19:23 So we used tin and it just made a little square outhouse with. 19:29 Yeah, there's yeah... 19:31 That's a really fancy one. 19:33 They have squat toilets. 19:35 It's not like the nice things like we have here, 19:37 but it works... 19:39 It's not flushing, you use the dipper and... 19:41 Yeah, you use a dipper and a water tank 19:43 to flush the toilet. 19:45 You have the big school building 19:47 where the boys are living, 19:48 you have the girls' dorm, you have a house, 19:51 and you're living there for how long? 19:54 We were down there for two years. 19:56 Okay. 19:57 And then something happened to this school building? 20:00 Yeah. 20:02 It was a Friday. 20:04 And we only allowed one home weekend per month. 20:08 And it was not a home weekend, 20:11 it was a weekend 20:12 where everybody was supposed to be there. 20:14 But that morning, one soon after another came to us 20:18 with really good reasons why they needed to go places. 20:22 You know, one was gonna go get some yellow beans 20:23 for the school 20:24 'cause we were out of, we were really low on food. 20:28 We said, "Okay, that's fine." 20:29 One of them needed to go get seeds for the gardens. 20:32 I mean, they were really good reasons. 20:35 Every single one of them, we just said, "You know what? 20:37 This is a real need. 20:38 They're not just trying to get away or anything." 20:41 And so one by one, the students left 20:43 until there was only four students left. 20:46 And since it was Friday, 20:48 we were in the kitchen building making bread for Sabbath. 20:52 We always did a special meal for a Sabbath. 20:56 And it was like a baking class, we had every Friday. 20:59 And so normally on a Friday afternoon, 21:03 the students would have been in the big building 21:05 in the classrooms cleaning and getting ready for Sabbath. 21:09 But that day, there was nobody there. 21:12 And the wind came up, 21:15 you could see the rain was coming. 21:17 And all of a sudden, we heard this big snap, snap, snap, 21:20 and then we ran to the front of the kitchen 21:23 to look out to see what was coming down. 21:25 And there came a 90 foot mango tree 21:30 right at center over our new building 21:33 and smashed it completely to the ground. 21:37 With the branches and everything 21:39 the entire building came down. 21:42 There was nothing left. 21:43 Wow. 21:44 And we just sat there with our mouths open going, 21:47 "God is good." 21:50 If those students hadn't gone home that day, 21:53 people would have been killed. 21:56 But nobody was injured. 21:58 We went right out and started cleaning up, 22:01 and within two weeks, we had a brand new classroom. 22:04 Wow. 22:05 The students for just so... 22:08 They worked hard but they got it up. 22:10 And it was good for them 22:12 'cause they learned how to build even better. 22:16 So the first time you built that building, 22:17 do you have any idea what it cost you 22:19 to build the building? 22:20 I believe it was around $400. 22:24 I think that's what you told me at the time. 22:26 Yeah, I believe it was around $400. 22:28 The second building cost us a grand total of 10. 22:32 Wow. 22:34 Because you could reuse the materials, 22:36 or you could get everything from the jungle, 22:38 or what was, it depends. 22:39 We could reuse some of it, but the difference was 22:41 is that we knew how to make things by then. 22:44 So we knew how to make our own leaf panels, 22:46 and we knew how to do our own thing. 22:48 So all we had to buy was some more nails. 22:50 Wow. Yeah. 22:52 Wow. 22:53 So God blessed even though there was destruction, 22:55 and it seemed like loss of property at the beginning, 22:57 there was no loss of life. 22:59 There was no loss of life. 23:00 And we made the second building much better and bigger. 23:04 And cheaper. And cheaper. 23:06 And there were no more mango trees 23:07 to fall on the building. 23:08 So after that we call that mango hall 23:11 just to remind us 23:12 of how good God is to take care of us so well. 23:16 Wow. Well, I think at this time we have a little video. 23:20 Do you want to tell us about it? 23:21 This video, Jon took when he came to visit us. 23:25 And as, you know, no words or anything 23:27 but it just kind of shows a little snapshot 23:29 of what our school was like. 23:31 Okay, we will play that at this time. 23:32 Okay. 27:17 Well, that was a beautiful place. 27:19 That video, I'm sure, just barely captures 27:21 a little bit of what it was like there. 27:23 Yeah, it just shows a little bit. 27:27 Well, I know that not long after that whole incident 27:30 with the mango tree, 27:32 you were forced to leave this beautiful place. 27:35 And I know that we don't have time 27:37 for that story in this show. 27:39 So I want you to join us next week 27:42 for the rest of the story of Lisa and her family, 27:45 and where God has led them from there. 27:48 If you have been impressed 27:50 to give to support this ministry, 27:53 you can send your tax deductible love gift 27:55 to Jesus for Asia, 27:57 PO Box 1221, Collegedale, Tennessee 37315. 28:02 Call us at 423-413-7321 28:06 or visit our website at Jesus4asia.org. 28:09 May God richly bless you 28:11 until we see you again next week 28:12 on Jesus for Asia Now. |
Revised 2017-12-04