Bai Tiaow! (Going traveling!)

Tomorrow I'll be heading out to another province in the northeast part of Thailand to visit my friends from the slum and see the church that they've been helping to start up there. I'm really looking forward to seeing the family again and seeing the new life they have up in the northeast. I'm sure it's going to be quite different than when they were living in the slums. I'm real happy for them to be up there, but sad that I don't get to see them that often. I hope we'll be able to communicate with each other this weekend really well. I'll definitely let you know how everything goes. I know that there's something about me and their church and prayer but I haven't yet figured out what he keeps trying to tell me so parts of it should be a bit interesting as well!
Yesturday we took some guys to KFC for some dinner and then for some ice cream afterwards. They loved it! The guy in the had is 20 years old and doesn't get to go out often at all. It was the first time he'd had KFC. Odd is in the back of the picture...he's from Norway and volunteers at the boys home with me. Noom is sitting in front of Odd, he's the guy that calls everyone Jeffy. He was a riot to take out. He's got a great smile and was real happy wherever we went. The guy in the front of the picture is Even who came with Odd from Norway. He works with the kids younger than 7 and brought It with us. It is short for something that I couldn't pronounce. That kid loved being out with us and making a mess wherever we went! It's funny watching the guys pick the ice cream that they want from the big menu they gave us. The two in the back got whatever the special is...I think because they were overwhelmed with having to make a choice and chose the first thing on the menu. It however, proudly chose the biggest thing he could find! I wasn't sure he'd be able to finish it, but he's got a lot of fight in him when it comes to ice cream. Plus I think half of it ended up on his chin which helped him to be able to finish. I almost think Noom was there for the water more than the ice cream. He drank four glasses of water and barely finished the ice cream. I hate to think of how many times they had to take him to the bathroom after we dropped him off. It was a whole lot of fun for them though. A couple times they would start laughing histerically while they were eating. We turned a lot of heads that day!

Tomorrow we're going to a villiage nearby in the morning to open up the second Community Based Rehabilitation center that CCD is starting. It should be a good time, though I'm not sure how the time frame will work out since I have to be back in Bangkok at three to meet P Charlee to go to Burilam. They said we'd be back around two, which means nothing in Thailand. We didn't even find out we were going until three O'clock this afternoon. Tomorrow was going to be a big party for Odd as friday is his last day. There's already a sports day or something planned for friday, so the guys were working hard this week making him paintings and cards to give him at the party. After finding out about the day that was already planned for the volunteers at three o'clock today (in typical thai fashion where noone really knows what's going on until the last minute, and then, still really don't know what's going on) we had to cancell the party for tomorrow and just do a short one on friday. But, as they say in Thailand...mai bpen rai (no worries!)

Makka Bucha!

Happy Makka Bucha day everyone! This must one of the bigger holidays here in Thailand. It's to celebrate a whole bunch of monks spontaneously showing up to hear the Buddha's teaching one day. Since my memory of reading about this is a little faded I'll leave my summarization of what is actually being celebrated to that. Thursday there was no work for a lot of people to honor that day. Since I work at the government wards we had that day off as well. It was a bit wierd having the thursday off and not the friday. Probably half of the volunteers here took friday off to go visit friends and families down further south in Thailand. The kind of trip that requires more than just the travel you can do on the weekend. Friday it was only me and one of the staff with the guys, then the staff had to go in the afternoon for a meeting, which just left me with the guys.

We did have a pretty fun day though I thought. It was nice and relaxed on friday. On wednseday one of the guys asked if I could bring in an action film for them to watch for friday. I went down to the market and bought a couple films..."Hitman" and "Beowolf". In the morning we brought a bunch of the guys over and they watched "Hitman". It looked like a pretty good movie and they enjoyed it, but I didn't understand a whole lot of it because it was in Thai. Generally the English subtitles on these dvd's do more harm than good so I was quite happy to watch it without. For some reason, the words get translated from English to Thai for the dubbing, then back into English for the subtitling. This translates to a bunch of words that don't make any sense at all. For instance, in one movie I had seen the actor said "you're being an asshole". Thai's don't really have a word for this so when it was translated back into English it was "you're being fecisious in the anus abundantly". Personally I enjoy the second phrase better, but it sure doesn't do any help in trying to understand a film.

After lunch I had to option of going home or staying since it was only me. I wanted to stay though because a few of the guys couldn't come in the morning and one of the smarter ones (smarter in the sense that he can understand the movies and really enjoyes seeing them) wanted to come back and see the other one. Since it was only me I only grabbed three guys total to watch Beowolf. Taking more than three would eat up a bunch of time since I have to run back and forth between the ward and the daycare center bringing them one at a time. It was a relaxing day, and I think the guys enjoyed feeling like they had a place that we could all just hang out and watch a movie. It definitely breaks up their normal routine.

The rest of the week went pretty normal as far as the work here goes. Today me and another lady took a couple guys to church and then out to look around at the shopping mall. They were really excited this morning when I got there and I think they were pretty tired by the time we got back to the government wards. It took most of the day to go around with them but it's a great blessing to be able to take them. I just wish there was enough people to take all the guys that wanted to go every sunday.

Thursday night I'm meeting with the family I stayed with wben I was in the slums a few years back. I spent a lot of time with them and the other people in the slums last time I was here, but since then they have moved up to the Northeast section of Thailand to help start a church there. I'm really excited to go and see them again and see the church they have there. It in a small villiage I believe, but it's hard getting all the details over the phone since they don't speak any English. I'll be staying with them till the sunday and then coming back to Bangkok for work Monday morning. I'm cautiously excited about spending four days without speaking English. Cautiously excited because I know how exhausted my brain feels after just one afternoon speaking only in Thai. Keep me in prayer for the time there if you will, I am really excited about going.

Couple things to be thankful about...my wrist has healed most of the way. I stopped going to see the doctor and my medicine is gone so hopefully it'll be completely healed in no time. It's looking a lot better now. I also after about three weeks of searching was able to find a pair of sandals that were big enough to fit my feet. Odd how hard it is to find anything in size eleven here! If you can also pray that my ankle heals up quick. I was rear ended by a wheelchair today taking the guys to church and it cut my ankle pretty good. I'm not overly concerned about it, but I know how fast infections spread in open wounds when working around these guys and with the trip up north later this week I'm just hoping its no problem at all by then. Thanks for sticking with this one till the end! I'll try to post more frequently so that they don't have to be so long.

What a week

Well, things have been jammed packed since my last entry it seems, and everything seems either to be good or bad this week. I'll try to keep this one from getting too long. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures for this entry because everytime we went to do something this week I never seemed to have my camera with me for one reason or another.

The week started off with an upset stomach that lasted a couple days. All of the volunteers seemed to have it, along with just about every one of the guys from the ward. Then I had some kind of infection on my wrist that's been giving me grief for the last week or so. I thought it was a mesquito bite at first, but then the Thai staff told me that other volunteers and staff seem to get it from time to time when handling the guys. In one of the government wards that we take kids from, most all of them had scabbies and skin infections this week just like the one I seem to have, so I'm pretty sure that's where it came from. At least I can identify with their pain, though I have a hole in my wrist now and have to go to the doctor everyday for my daily dose of pain that they seem to enjoy giving me. I got some meds from them and its getting better, I just hope it heals up soon.

Thursday we had a valentines day party for the guys where we made a giant card and brought some snacks and ice cream to the disabled girls at CCD on the other side of the wards. They had a ton of fun with it. Friday we were supposed to go on an outing, but it was cancelled so I paid for some movie tickets so that we could take a bunch of guys to see a movie at the theatre. They loved it, and don't get to go often at all so they were real excited when we got to take them out. There was a total of twelve of us that went that day. Saturday I went out to lunch with another lady that works around the government wards with the guys and Bok. Bok used to be one of the guys that came to CCD but now he goes to study instead. He was so excited when I came back to Thailand to work here and has been wanting to go out one day and get lunch with me. So we took him to a friends house to eat lunch and then shopping at the market for a watch for him. It's his birthday sometime around now, noone really knows exactly when, so we celebrated it with some cake and a day of going around town. He was real excited and I was exhausted by the time we got back to the wards to drop him off.

A couple from England came to visit CCD this weekend which was great. We had a worship and dance session at the foster home CCD has on friday night. I worked with the couple the first time I was out here and since then they have been a huge blessing to CCD by working in England to earn some money for them and get some awareness out about the work that CCD is doing. They're legends around CCD. I hadn't seen them in four years so it was great to be here when they came and catch up with them. It was so interesting to think back to four years ago when I was working here and see all the things God has done in my life since then. After all, when I was working alongside Henry and Lydia four years ago I had never planned to even come back to Thailand. Praise God for all He's done since then!

Typical Tuesday

It was Tuesday today which means that we take some of the guys to the adventure room and throw balls at them. First thing first though, we burried Sen (on the right) and Nin (left) in the balls before we tossed them all out and hurled them across the room. Every week on Tuesday we come here and we grab some different guys to go with us so most of the guys only come here every couple months or so. It was a good time today. I was able to use Nin as a shield against the balls flying at me. He turned out to be good at blocking for me. Sen on the other hand, tackled me at a couple points in time and held me down while I was being pelted by everyone else. Nin? Yeah, he tried to get away when Sen pinned me down. Some blocker he turned out to be.

This afternoon we took some kids out and played some games with them. A lot of the guys in one of the wards now are sick with stomach promlems so a lot of them couldn't come out today. In the other ward most of the guys have skin problems, like scabbies so only two of them could come. I hope that the problems go away soon. It's no fun having to see the kids suffer like that and the days are slower when we can't take as many out with us.

On Valentines day we're supposed to help the guys make some cards and then bring them over to the girls daycare center to pass them out. It would be nice to hang out with them for a change. It should be a nice party Thursday. I'm also looking forward to Saturday when I get to go to lunch with one of the guys from the wards. He doesn't come to CCD anymore but he used to the first time I was here. His name is Bok and he does some paintings using his feet. He remembers me each time I come back and he always looks forward to spending time with me. He wanted to go on an outing with me, so as long as Saturday works out for the staff in the ward, I"ll be taking him along with a Canadien lady here who has been doing a lot of work among the boys, especially Bok, for a while now. I'm hoping it all goes well this week though and that the overall health of the guys on the wards gets better soon!

Dirt moving and what-have-you

Well, we're home from Laos. It took 12 hours to get home by the bus that we took, which was a long time and got us back around 5:30 in the morning. I slept in that morning and went to work in the afternoon. The guys were glad to see I hadn't died in Laos or anything.

On Wednesday we went to work in a villiage that CCD will set up a remote location to teach the parents from the area nearby about disabled children and help to give physio and training to those in the community. We got to the building that CCD has been given and there was a large pile of dirt in front of it that had been sitting there for about a year. We dug and picked at the dirt all day trying to move it so as to backfill around the building and keep it from flooding. I'm pretty sure we got at least 23 percent of it moved. I believe this picture above is an accurate representation of what we looked like working. It was very hot and we were covered in sweat and, in my case, dirt. The digging was a nice change of pace and I was actually glad to do it. Today however, I have been very sore from all the work as well as the others. I was happy to realize that it was movie day for the guys which didn't involve a ton of running around for me. The rest was nice. I look forward to sticking around Bangkok this weekend and visiting friends. It should be a nice change of pace after the last couple of weeks.

Greetings from Laos

Well, I'm stuck in Laos for a couple days so it's time to make the best of it. I'm in the tourist part of the capital city, which isn't much, but it's much better than nothing. The embassy is closed until monday so I have to wait till then to go pick up my passport before I can make the journey home to Bangkok. The people here are friendly (except the ones that keep trying to rip me of, which is only about half of them) and I'm able to try to meet some other travelers while I'm out here. The weather was cold yesturday, and today it's rainy. Hasn't rained in two months here, but I show up and bring the rain. Oh well, I'm getting to try some different foods here which is fun. Today I ate something called "Devil with rice". Tasted pretty good actually, despite the sound of it. I might try to take a week or so and travel around Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam right before I leave Thailand. Since I'm already out here and I think it would be great to see some of the land, I might try to squeeze that in before I return back to America. But that's still a few months away so I think I'll wait to see how this Laos trip goes first. Hope all is well back home, I'll write more when I make my way back to Bangkok.