Final Thailand Pictures

We spent one extra week in New Zealand driving around the south island in a campervan before returning to the US. It's the tail end of winter there, so we were bundled up most days. And we had to plug in at camp sites to get heat. We had thought we could park anywhere overnight out in the boonies, but the cold forbid it. Twice we roughed it without heat. Overall, it was a fun time. Good to decompress a bit after an intense six months. We needed to process still some of the harder aspects of our time in Thailand. The top picture is taken at Moeraki Boulders relatively near Dunedin. The remaining photos are of Thailand

Then there's our Thailand outreach team. Us in front of a buddhist temple stairs, Doi Saket I think. Team policy was not to enter any buddhist temples, but this one we got to see the outside of it. Notice the 7 dragon heads with 7 crowns at the base of the stairs. Kind of like Revelations, but where did they get their idea? Next photo is the almost finished mud library project from ChiangMai that BearHunter worked on for over a month. And the last is Calalily at the primary orphanage where she volunteered during those same weeks.

Finally some pictures

Got rice? Imagine feeding almost 500 kids plus adult volunteers three meals a day. We spent one week here doing work projects and evening songs/skits/devotions. The brick wall is a project BearHunter worked on at an Akha boarding school. When we left we found the Akha kids love getting their picture taken. I've also included the mosquito net room, referred to in a previous post.

Alaska

I had wanted to be posting entries more often than we have. So many interesting and exciting events have transpired. Once we are home I hope to get some pictures of Thailand up here and more of our stories. For now, we’re in Alaska! With our New Zealand school completed, we were wanting to join YWAM staff. Before making any commitments, we chose to visit our preferred school location, to make sure it we could felt at home there with the community, staff, and facilities. So we’ve been in Alaska for a week testing the waters. The YWAM base is in Homer, which is the southernmost tip of the Kenai Peninsula. This week has been amazing. All of our potential concerns with joining a new base have turned out to be of no concern. The current staff are great and took so much effort to get to know us personally. They will be a wonderful team of people to join. The only unmet desire was for a house to live in, rather than the typical dorm situation. As the base is very new and expanding rapidly, they are looking for more housing options. So who knows, we may yet get a private residence. While here, we “just happened” to run into one of our long-distance supporters at the airport. One that Calalily had never met before, so that was a blessing. And we took in the Alaska state fair while staying with one of BearHunter’s college friends. Her two month old baby was the sweetest to hold. Then, another God moment; we dropped by a realtor’s office to get a map and ended up getting to know the agent personally; she asked to become one of our monthly supporters!

Chiangkham

When we chose Thailand as our outreach country, we had just a fleeting thought that we might get to visit BearHunter's retired missionary aunt. As the time to go to Thailand got closer, we learned that we'd be in cities relatively near her in the north. We really wanted to visit for a weekend, to get to know her and learn of her lifelong work there. With a turn of events, our team decided to spend a week of ourteach at her compound in Chiangkham. So not only did we visit, but we got to serve her, hear her preach in Thai, and stay at her houe. She's an incredible woman, very similar to her brother that we know, BearHunter's grandpa in the states. Our work there was mostly grounds' maintenance and improvement for the Mong Leadership Training Center facilities. Our team also spoke and sang at various churches. Calalily's job for the week was to be a guest speaker for the public high school's English classes. I attended 9 classes and spoke to perhaps 360 students. I didn't really get to teach. I just shared my stories, drawing pictures on the chalkboard and acting things out so they could understand and laugh at me. The teachers were very welcoming and the students rather timid with foreigners.

Lice and Mosquito Nets

We arrived safely back to New Zealand yesterday. Two more teams from our school arrived as well, so we all travelled back to Oak Ridge on a chartered bus. I can hear the screaming outside now of the Argentina team arriving to the base! Everyone that we haven't seen in two months looks different. Some girls chopped off their hair because they got lice in Vanuatu. That's how one of the children's homes that we stayed at dealt with lice, too. One girl on our team got lice but kept her hair and treated it with chemicals. The next girl who got lice was my roommate.

This particular week, BearHunter and I were in separate rooms. I was on the floor with all the girls and our wall to wall mattressees and mosquito nets. So I was concerned to learn that lice were living two feet from my head. But actually I had set up my head at the oppositie end of the bed, so I didn't freak out. And I never got lice! It's common among the children that come to the children's home to have skin problems, lice, etc. At the home they get these problems treated and get well fed. Visting doctors can tell the difference between the children who have been there awhile and the new ones.

We were awakened every morning around 5 or 5:30am to hear hundreds of kids singing at morning devotions. Then they scurry off to do chores before breakfast. Some kids came to sweep and do medical clinic for their chore. Teenage girls have been trained by visiting nurses and doctors to take care of the other kids. So there's a line up outside the "clinic" around 5:30am. The clinic is also the bunkroom for extra guests like us. The married couples and single guy were put here in bunks. This clinic adjoins the guests' shower/toilet stalls. So there's always traffic coming through, besides curious eyes of children peering in the windows and doors. There didn't seem to be any reason to stay there, so I, Calalily, decided to room with the single girls for a change. I left BearHunter with the other guy and married couple. That was fun. The girls stayed up late at night, shaking our mosquito nets with laughter.