the strawberry patch

Bill and Renee have spent the last two weeks with us here in Thailand.  The first week, we took on the role of dorm parents and the second week they came up to Chiang Mai with us.  On their last day, we decided to rent some motor scooters and drive a loop road through the mountains for some exploring.  It was so refreshing to get out of the city and the air was cool and fresh.

Our first stop was lunch at one of our favorite Thai restaurants, which has beautiful flowers and feels like a rain forest.

Along the way, we passed several strawberry farms.

I've wanted to go pickin at one of these farms for awhile, so this was my chance.

Renee is a perfect friend to go strawberry pickin with because she is very experienced  It was her first job as a kid,  but we had to laugh at the slim pickin's.  The farmer told us that it was a bit early and to come back in a few weeks.

It was still fun to pick our own off the plants, so fresh and bright!

We got just enough to put on some ice cream and share with the grand-kids.

It was a fun two weeks and here's hoping you have a safe return to the USA and that jet lag is not too hard on you, Bill and Renee! Thanks for all you did for the kids at the home and pouring your time into them. 

Ranong to Chiang Mai

What a great time we had with the children in the home last week!  'Home, Sweet, Home'- 'there's no place like home' is the feeling right now once again after being gone for two weeks.  We brought Bill and Renee up to Chiang Mai with us and  are enjoying about 5 days together up here, before they return home.

One of our biggest responsibilities last week, was taking the 31 children to and from school everyday.  Since they are enrolled in 4 different schools, (elementary at one location, high school at another, the oldest boy Billie is now in tech school, and Sawat's granddaughter who attends another school) it takes awhile.  Mike borrowed the pastor's van and then Bill and Mike got some of the broken bikes repaired- which they boys love to ride.  Mike was happy to get several long awaited repair jobs done around the home, while the kids were in school.

On Friday, we made a trip out to the village on Koh Chang,  passing the usual fishing boats all along the way.

The main purpose of the trip this time was to do a check on the Jesus Film script that is being  worked on.  It has been translated into the Moken language and we have a dream of one day showing it to them in their own language, but because there are several dialects of the  Moken language and it is not a written language (only spoken), it is taking a lot of work and coordinating. This is the only lady in the village who can read right now.  She is reading Moken that is written in the Burmese language and testing it with some of the villagers to see how close it is to their language.  How exciting it will be one day for them to listen to Jesus speak their language.

 

I spent some time walking through the village talking with the children.

The majority of the children do not go to school because their parents do not encourage it and they just are not motivated- which is why the ones at the Ranong Children's Home are thankful for the opportunity they get. 

It was good to see my favorites (its not good to have favorites) these two,  Dawk Kaew and Yea Yea, grinning as always.  One of the things that the dorm parents in town told us when they left was that one of their biggest concerns was the children's teeth.  None of them in the home have ever seen a dentist and many of them complain of tooth aches and have rotten teeth.  This sweet girl's, in the village, are almost all rotten too.  With no hygiene- that's what happens.  We've been trying to get a dental team to come treat the children and we're  praying that  we can still see that happen someday.

I enjoy so much visiting the newest babies each time.  This baby does not have a name yet, but her big brother sure is proud.  I was reminded again of their differences in the value of time.  No one knew this baby's age.  I was first told 4 days old,  then the village head's wife told me about 6 days, and then the mother told me about 12- which is what I believe. It doesn't really matter to them to know the birth date. 

We are thankful for the testimony of this Christian village that stands out among the others.

Our last night with the kids and Bill & Renee was "Friday Night at the Movies"at the home. We had pop and popcorn and you should have heard  them when 31 kids belly laughed through "Despicable Me 2".  It made me laugh just to hear them laugh. It was a great and full week of getting to know them better.  My conclusion of the week is that they are most definitely very thankful, hard working, responsible, happy, children that love God and His Word. 

dorm parents of thirty-one Moken kids for a week

The day after we returned from the Philippines, we traveled to our Ranong Children's Home.  Somsak and Uan, the dorm parents, have not had a week holiday since the dorm was opened 5 1/2 years ago.  They love what they do, but looking after the 31 children day in and day out can be draining and we wanted to  give them a break.  This week, Mike sent them away to a beach location and we moved in to look after the children.  We also had some good friends from the USA, Bill and Renee come to join us in the fun.  It really has not been that difficult.  The children are all in school during the day and help out with chores after school.

They do their own laundry, ironing, have kitchen duties, and cleaning jobs. 

Each of us four adults, took an evening to teach them a lesson, and Bill and Renee's church sent along some crafts to have an activity to do each night with them.

This was a lesson on gratitude and they are writing things that they are thankful for on the flower petals. 

Without the dorm parents here we have been so impressed to see how the children are beginning to lead each other.  They took turns leading a worship time each night.

Now that some of the children have their own sponsors, I've been wanting to teach them how to write thank-you letters to their supporters.  This is Kla and Q writing letters in English.

 They all did a great job. This is Thong Dii.

All of them enjoyed this activity and I hope to do it more often with them.

It has been fun just to hang out with the children after school. We've had a few fun things to do with them like stringing beads into jewelry.

Once again they really surprised us with some of the patterns they already  knew how to make on their own with simple fishing line and beads.

One night the lesson was on hiding God's Word in your heart and they wrote their favorite verses on cards to share with their friends. 

You would have loved watching them dig through their Bibles, copying down verses. 

Heart pockets to keep their verses in.

Nan, (their daughter who also helps) stayed around to help us and did most of the cooking, but last night we gave her a break and had "Spaghetti Night".  This was our cooking helpers in the kitchen.

Actually most everyone seemed to want to help in cooking the farang (foreigners) food, especially when it came to buttering the garlic bread which they LOVED!

I wasn't too sure if they'd like our meal as it was pretty different from the usual, but they told us they loved it and said now they know why foreigners are fat, if we eat a lot of food like that.

Last night, we had fun decorating visors together.  It just doesn't take much to make these kids happy!

Cute models!

I love to hear and watch these kids pray together.  They are so sincere and are growing  much in their relationships with God. It's been fun to get to know them better this week as a "fill-in" dad and mom. 

Yolanda rebuilding focus areas

The decisions that we wanted to make concerning help with relief in Tacloban City last week was so much easier for us because of having a Philippine Campus Crusade team there already.  They have about 10 volunteers that have been working together with local pastors and government officials.  This helps us to know that groups that come to help are not just a 'one shot deal', but are working together with the local Christians and will have continued follow-up over time.  They have narrowed their areas of work down to three locations.

 The first group is the local PCCC Student Link ministry on the campus of Eastern Visayas State University.  The campus was hit hard and has been closed for two months.

The day we arrived was their first day (after two months) to open back up for registration and classes would resume this week. There is so much that still needs to be  done on campus.

This is what was left of the main auditorium on campus, where students gather. 

 They have a solid ministry with PCCC there already with about 50 students.  They meet every Wednesday for a prayer time and every Friday for a family time together.  The  group has been recognized on campus by the Student Services department as "The Most Valued Oriented Organization" for a few years in a row. They told us that they are very active on the campus, and the administration likes what they do.  This is the room they were using but the ceiling and roof were blown off. This room is in the Engineering Building where there are around 36 classrooms, but only about 5 are ready to be used again.

They want to continue meeting with students at their weekly meetings, but are not sure yet if they will be given a room on campus as space is limited.

We walked around the campus with some key students, stopping to talk with faculty and pray for them as they try to get their teaching areas and homes back to functionality.

All of the staff from the Student Services Department came together here for our team to share our concern for them, desire to help, and then pray for them.

Since this was the first day that the campus had opened back up, much clean-up needed to be done, and PCCC brought in two teams of students to help them.

One team came in from Korean Campus Crusade and showed real servant-hood, by cleaning out the classrooms in the Student Services building.

After wiping down every desk and cleaning the rooms top to bottom, this team had them ready for use again, minus the blown out windows.

Mike tackled one of the "Comfort Rooms" or CR's as they are called there.  There was a lot of broken glass on the floor.

I enjoyed talking with this group of students and inviting them to some of the future Student Link meetings. It was a quick reminder of how friendly Filipinos are and how eager they are to share in friendship and conversation with us as foreigners.

The other target groups are two villages out of the city.  The country is broken up into Barangay's (or villages).  The ones inside the city, will probably get help sooner, but just like the Tsunami rebuilding the farther out we went, the less help was given to the people.

We drove over an hour to this barangy called Paglaum.  Almost the entire village was destroyed and they have received little help.  This is one classroom in the village school, where all the roofs were blown off.

Art (PCCC staff) met the pastor of a church in this village while he was in the city, and has been building a relationship with him.  They believe that if they can get the school back into a state that the kids can study again, that will help some normalcy to return.  This is another classroom.

They had been given one tent to save the few school materials that were left, including these books.

This is a temporary room that they have put up, to start back to school for now.

Getting to and from this village was one of our most interesting experiences on the trip.  It was an hour out of the city on very rough and remote roads that were in bad shape.  The jeepney that we hired for the day was a bit reluctant to go down some of the roads.  On the way back, (real far from civilization) as it was starting to get dark, the jeepney broke down twice.

Mike and the jeepney driver worked on it together.  Mike says it is definitely a total miracle that it made it back in to the city. (We were all praying a lot) All 6 of the axle nuts had broken off.  He had extra wheel nuts, but since they had broken, they could not be attached.  They ended up tying wires in and out of the axle, which broke off once but got us back to town after the second  temporary repair job.  It's one of those experiences that you feel God's hand of protection and love to tell and remember over and over.

We are continuing to pray for teams to come assist from anywhere in the world to help these needy people in the rebuilding of their homes and lives.