Missions Blog

Evangelistic Dolls — Dee Teaches the Girls to Share the Gospel

Dee Johnson has a gift. She has a way of taking the most important truth in the universe and making it feel like the most natural thing in the world to talk about. And this morning, she handed every girl at Faith House a tool to do exactly that.

The lesson centered on evangelistic dolls — handmade cloth dolls, each one wearing a strand of colored beads, each color telling a piece of the gospel story. Flip the doll one way: she is lost, her face downcast, carrying the weight of sin and shame. Flip her over: she is smiling, covered in grace, alive in Christ. Simple. Brilliant. Unforgettable.

Dee walks the girls through the gospel story, bead by bead.

Dee walked them through each color. Yellow for God and Heaven — “God made you in His image. You are Princesses of the High King.” Black for sin — the separation that began in Eden and runs through every human heart. Red for Christ’s blood, shed because God always had a plan to buy us back. White for restoration — the debt canceled, the shame wiped clean. Blue for the Resurrection — the third day, the empty tomb, the Lord who knew exactly what was coming and walked toward it anyway. Green for new life — the life He is still completing in each of us. And yellow again, at the end, for Heaven — because the story that started with God ends with God.

One doll carries the weight of sin. Flip her over — and she is smiling in grace.

Then came the moment Dee had been building toward all morning. The girls got to practice. Each one picked up her doll and, one by one, began sharing the gospel with the girl sitting next to her. In Karen. In Burmese. In Thai. It didn’t matter.

Dee and Joelle hand out the dolls — every girl gets one.

Pure joy as the girls share the gospel story with each other.

Dee watched with a proud heart. “It gives me life to hear them sharing the gospel using the dolls,” she said, “because I know they will do it.” Not someday. Not maybe. They will do it. These girls live at the edge of the world, on the border of a nation in darkness, and now they are holding the gospel in their hands and they know how to share it.

Deborah picked up her doll, turned it over, and said with a wide smile: “Sharing Christ is so easy with the dolls.” And little Zuzu, examining hers with wide eyes, announced to anyone who would listen: “Mine has a hat!”

Holding their mirrors — daughters of the King, made in His image.

Everyone gets a doll — even the littlest of these.

These dolls were made by the women of a Virginia Baptist congregation, stitched together by hand and carried across an ocean and an international border so that girls at risk of trafficking could hold the gospel in their hands. That partnership — women in Virginia, girls in Mae Sot, one Body across every border — is exactly what the kingdom of God looks like. There may be many states, many nations, many languages. But there is only one kingdom, and it is advancing.

Dedication of the Wall — Glenn Brings It All Home

All week, we have been walking through the book of Nehemiah together. The rubble. The resistance. The rebuilding. The obedience. And now, on the final day, Grandpa Glenn stood up and turned to Nehemiah 12 — the dedication of the wall.

The wall is finished. The people are gathered. And what do they do? They celebrate. Loudly. Visibly. So loud, the text says, that the joy of Jerusalem could be heard from far away.

Glenn asked the girls questions. He got them talking. He pulled the lesson out of them rather than just delivering it to them, because that is who Glenn is — a loving Grandpa. And what emerged was beautiful.

The lesson rested on three pillars: Celebration, Thanksgiving, and Dedication.

Celebration is rejoicing at what God has done. The wall did not just provide safety — it restored something. It was a visible sign to the watching world that God’s people had been faithful, and that God had been faithful to them. For these girls, Faith House is that wall. It is safety. It is family.

Thanksgiving is not a vague “thank you for everything” prayer. It is specific. Nehemiah thanked God for specific people, specific provisions, specific miracles along the way. Glenn asked the girls: What specific things has God done for you this week? The answers came slowly at first, then faster. There was a lot to be thankful for.

Dedication is the act of turning it all over — ourselves, our futures, the walls we have built — back to the One who made it possible. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1). Not a one-time moment, but a posture for life.

The mission was never just to build a wall. Nehemiah knew that. Glenn knows that. And now these girls know it too. The mission is to live as a distinct, faithful people who reflect God to the nations. That is what Faith House is. That is who these young women are becoming.

The Heart Mobile — Kathleen’s Capstone

All week long, after every lesson, Kathleen asked the girls to write something down. What did you learn? What scripture spoke to you? They wrote their answers on strips of paper and carried them to every lesson, and all week long the girls kept asking the same question: What are all these strips of paper for?

We kept smiling and saying: you’ll see.

On the last day, they saw.

The moment the mystery was revealed — every strip of paper had a purpose.

Each girl — from the youngest to the oldest — sat down and assembled her own heart mobile. Every strip of paper, every scripture reference, every lesson from the week became part of something beautiful that they built with their own hands. The whole week, woven together, hung in the shape of a heart.

A week of learning, woven together in the shape of a heart.

Maria, the founder of Faith House; little Kumu; and Mae, translator and teacher.

Kathleen, thank you. Thank you for the vision to see the whole week as one story, and for the creativity and love to give each girl a piece of it she can hold in her hands and take home. That is a gift that came straight from the heart of God, through yours, to theirs.

The Banquet — A Feast for Our Warrior Princesses

Every year, the night before the team leaves, Faith House holds a banquet. It is a tradition as sacred as any ceremony. The team sits with the girls, and for a few hours, the only agenda is to be together — to talk, to laugh, to eat too much, and to speak life into every young woman at the table.

This year’s spread did not disappoint. Whole fish over an open fire. Thai salad. Chicken wings with sweet chili sauce. Vegetables. Cashew chicken. Rice. And — because no warrior princess banquet is complete without it — chicken nuggets and Coke.

They absolutely loved that.

They also loved Uncle Bill’s flamingo party shirt, which deserves its own mention in the historic record.

Sharing a meal and a moment — Sally and the girls around the table.

Warriors and missionaries together on the lake patio, the fire tree blazing behind them.

But the highlight of the evening — and no one saw it coming — was Ajima.

Ajima is what the girls call “Big Sister.” She is the oldest sister at Faith House, one of the college girls supported by BBright.org, studying Tourism and Hotel Management. Sometime between lessons and the banquet, she had been knitting. And at the party, she presented Grandpa Glenn and Uncle Bill each with a handmade knitted hat — because Pittsburgh winters are cold, and she was not about to let them go home unprepared.

Ajima — “Big Sister” — presents Grandpa Glenn with a knitted hat for the Pittsburgh winter.

Uncle Bill gets his hat too — Glenn and Bill fully in the party spirit.

The girls loved the hats. Glenn and Bill got into the spirit. And the whole party celebrated the fact that somehow, a woman in Mae Sot, Thailand had found time in the middle of a mission week to knit two hats for the men who had come to serve her community. That is the kind of love that goes both directions.

We wrapped up around 10 PM with full bellies and full hearts, and more smiles than we could count.

Breakfast — and a Bible Worth More Than Gold

The next morning, after breakfast, Bill noticed one of the girls’ Bibles. On the front — a sticker: Always Pray.

These girls do two devotions a day. Ajima leads in the morning. Glenn, while he is here, leads in the evening. They are not going through the motions. They know God’s love story. They are living inside it. They are the example — the standard — that the rest of us should be reaching toward when it comes to staying connected to God’s Word and His direction for our lives.

Glenn showed Bill his Bible — the girls had drawn a picture inside it. A picture of themselves and Glenn, together at Faith House.

The girls drew a picture of themselves and Grandpa Glenn inside his Bible. Some things are worth more than gold.

Some things are worth more than gold. And sometimes, a picture drawn in the margins of a well-worn Bible says more than a thousand words — and is worth every tear of joy.

Until Next Year

That is the story of Day 5. That is the story of this week. The last morning always comes too soon — but what we thought was a trip turned out to be something else entirely. It was a homecoming. And we will carry it with us.

Seeds were planted in Mae Sot, Thailand that will outlast every one of us on the team. The gospel was taught and practiced and held in small hands that will carry it across borders we may never cross ourselves. A wall was built — not of stone, but of young women who know who they are, who made them, and what they are for.

To the congregation at The Bible Chapel, all of our supporters, and everyone who prayed for us: thank you for sending us. Thank you for praying for us. Thank you for being the kind of church that says yes when God asks for something hard. We carried you with us to Mae Sot, and we brought a little piece of Mae Sot home to you.

With love from the team — Dee, Brenda, Glenn, Joelle, Kathleen, Sally & Bill.