The winning team from Race Day in Bangkok won $50 to spend on ministry. Unfortunately, we didn’t win, Team Concrete did. However, they got to choose a team that would also receive $50 and (because we’re so cool) they picked us. We decided to use it to throw a pizza and Jackie Chan party for the boys at the orphanage.
We’ve been incredibly blessed with good accomodations this month, which include a TV and DVD player. It was really exciting at first but it didn’t take long for that to wear off and now watching TV feels normal, like being at home.
But those boys last night. The apartment we live in is directly above their bedrooms but they’re not allowed to be up there except on special occasions when a team invites them up. That means these boys very rarely get to watch TV. Don’t be fooled though; they know what they like. When asked what they wanted to watch, they responded unanimously and consistently, “Jackie Chan!” So we ate pizza and watched Shanghai Knights.
Most of these boys don’t speak enough English to have more than a basic conversation with you, which means they probably understood very little of the dialogue, but they didn’t care. They were enthralled. Even when I was in the kitchen I knew when a fight scene came on because the living room would burst into laughter.
About 2/3 of the way through the movie it just stopped. It wouldn’t play. It wouldn’t fast forward. Normally we’d just try it a few times and give up but that wasn’t an option tonight. We didn’t want to send them back downstairs with only 2/3 of their Jackie Chan night. After Silas tried a fixing it few different times and it still wasn’t working, he felt we should pray. So he led, and they repeated, “Dear Jesus, please let the movie work so we can continue our fellowship. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” He turned back around, pressed play, and the movie worked! We all cheered and then Silas paused it and had the kids thank Jesus. It may seem silly but this was their big night. Jesus cares so much about these kids and one way he shows it to them is by answering their prayers and letting them watch a little more Jackie Chan.
