For those who may not be aware, one of the Youth Centres supported by Asia Focus donors is in Chiang Rai, North Thailand. This is a boarding home run by a wonderful Christian couple, Anna and her husband Chae. It was established by Asia Focus to enable youth from rural villages to get a higher education by attending high school in the city.

This is an impossibility in their home villages where they may get a primary school education, or none at all, as so many families are very poor and a good education is an expensive luxury - children are needed to work in the fields, to help feed the family.

Youth boarding homes like Chiang Rai’s Youth Development Centre (YDC) provide the opportunity for selected motivated students from disadvantaged backgrounds to live away from home during the school term and attend high school. Post-matriculation, ideally, they are then able to learn a trade or attend university and break out of the poverty-cycle, for themselves and their families.

The current YDC is on a leased property and the lease terminates at the end of 2024. This has created a great deal of concern for the few of us from Asia Focus who visited YDC last year, as Anna had hoped that AFA could buy land and build a new boarding house. Unfortunately this is outside the scope of AFA’s vision and financial means.

After hearing this, Anna set out with renewed determination to find a different premises to rent, with total faith that God would provide for her, Chae and their 14 “children”. (Anna’s search for property to buy or rent has been ongoing since 2022 so this has been a long process for her.)

As Anna said: “Praise the Lord, He has helped us!” She recently found a property which suits their needs. It is only about 10 minutes by car from their current school so the children don’t need to change schools, but even better located because it is in a Christian village. The current YDC is in a Buddhist village and apparently their neighbours don’t like it when they worship.

They will move in December, 2024. God has certainly watched over and provided for them all!

Sarie Kessler & Anna (Supattra Upama)

Asia Focus Australia - Faith and Love in ACTION!