Saturday, October 20, 2007
Field Day
Well, it was another beautiful day at the orphan home in Doi Saket. The kids were off school for the last two weeks, and they celebrated the end of their break with a field day. The staff organized round-robin volleyball, soccer (Chien scored a goal!), tug-of-war, musical chairs, ring-the-bottle and dozens of other games. The kids played for 8 hours, breaking only for lunch. We ran out of energy long before they did, and by the end, some of our team members were half asleep, and others were slumped in lawn chairs, praying for a speedy end to the festivities.
Our staff, by the way, is fantastic. I love them. They’re so energetic, so warm, so skilled. Thank God for them. They’re the reason our 72 kids here live in a home for kids, not an institution.
We had the chance to meet with some new potential ministry partners today, and we also had dinner with Norbert and Nancy Bauer, Vineyard missionaries working here in Chiang Mai. It’s been a full day, and I’m going to spend my remaining energy trying to get some pictures posted. Much love.
Our staff, by the way, is fantastic. I love them. They’re so energetic, so warm, so skilled. Thank God for them. They’re the reason our 72 kids here live in a home for kids, not an institution.
We had the chance to meet with some new potential ministry partners today, and we also had dinner with Norbert and Nancy Bauer, Vineyard missionaries working here in Chiang Mai. It’s been a full day, and I’m going to spend my remaining energy trying to get some pictures posted. Much love.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Many hands
Many hands make light work.
Well, technically, waves of electromagnetic radiation make light work, but you know what I’m saying. It’s 10am at the Asia’s Hope orphan home in Doi Saket, and the kids have all been cleaning for the last two hours. They’re off school this week, and I think that today is the work day.
It’s encouraging and inspiring seeing them all work together washing windows, scrubbing floors and picking up trash. For Chien, however, it’s mind-numbingly, eye-rollingly boring. No way he’s going to pick up trash, and no one to play with until the job is finished. So, he’s playing GameBoy. I can’t really blame him, though. I told him we’d go fishing with the kids this morning. Apparently that’s off the schedule, at least for now.
He was up late, so I’m cutting him some slack. We went to the night market again, and then caught a kickboxing match. We didn’t get back until about midnight. The boy is going to need some serious schedule readjustment when we return.
After lunch, we’re going to head up to the widow’s home we’re working on in Wiang Pa Pow, an hour or two north of here. Tomorrow is some sort of field day here with sack races and sports competitions. Should be fun. And then before long, we’ll be leaving. I hope to sort out some of my thoughts on the whole experience pretty soon.
Thank you all for leaving comments – they’ve been encouraging. We haven’t been responding to them specifically, but we’re reading them. I’m having trouble with Blogger over here, so I’m having to submit some posts via email, rather than to the site. My options are limited.
--
Well, my day is done. It’s 10pm, and we’ve had enough. We went up to visit our farm at Wiang Pa Pow, which will soon house widows with young children, and will provide produce and handicrafts to support the residents and the kids at our orphan home in Doi Saket. We’ve got corn, lychee, longan, fish and silkworms. Very cool stuff. All of James 1:27 in one 20 acre plot of land in Northern Thailand.
Northern Thailand is beautiful. We’re tired. Good night.
Well, technically, waves of electromagnetic radiation make light work, but you know what I’m saying. It’s 10am at the Asia’s Hope orphan home in Doi Saket, and the kids have all been cleaning for the last two hours. They’re off school this week, and I think that today is the work day.
It’s encouraging and inspiring seeing them all work together washing windows, scrubbing floors and picking up trash. For Chien, however, it’s mind-numbingly, eye-rollingly boring. No way he’s going to pick up trash, and no one to play with until the job is finished. So, he’s playing GameBoy. I can’t really blame him, though. I told him we’d go fishing with the kids this morning. Apparently that’s off the schedule, at least for now.
He was up late, so I’m cutting him some slack. We went to the night market again, and then caught a kickboxing match. We didn’t get back until about midnight. The boy is going to need some serious schedule readjustment when we return.
After lunch, we’re going to head up to the widow’s home we’re working on in Wiang Pa Pow, an hour or two north of here. Tomorrow is some sort of field day here with sack races and sports competitions. Should be fun. And then before long, we’ll be leaving. I hope to sort out some of my thoughts on the whole experience pretty soon.
Thank you all for leaving comments – they’ve been encouraging. We haven’t been responding to them specifically, but we’re reading them. I’m having trouble with Blogger over here, so I’m having to submit some posts via email, rather than to the site. My options are limited.
--
Well, my day is done. It’s 10pm, and we’ve had enough. We went up to visit our farm at Wiang Pa Pow, which will soon house widows with young children, and will provide produce and handicrafts to support the residents and the kids at our orphan home in Doi Saket. We’ve got corn, lychee, longan, fish and silkworms. Very cool stuff. All of James 1:27 in one 20 acre plot of land in Northern Thailand.
Northern Thailand is beautiful. We’re tired. Good night.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Hog Heaven
Warning: Grisly pictures of dead pig follow this post...
Well, the fat ol’ sow was no match for Bee, his spear and thousands of years of hilltribe pig-killin’ know-how. He stuck her once in the side, piercing her heart with one deft stroke. She squealed like a…well, you know, and fell over, snorting and flopping around in her own blood for about a minute and then she was gone. Off to hog heaven, if you will.
Her death was a bit grisly, and I think Chien was surprised to find himself disturbed by the distasteful act. The older boys poked and prodded her to confirm her demise, and when she was pronounced dead, the fascinating process of turning pig to pork got underway.
Most of the work was done by Bee and three of the oldest boys at the orphanage. They began by preparing the carcass, charring the skin with bundles of bamboo sticks and scraping the pig with large hunting knives. After much of the coarse hair had been removed, they covered the pig with thatching which they burned to loosen the rest of the hair. After about twenty minutes of meticulous scraping, the boys flipped the carcass and repeated the process. Eventually, the pig was completely smooth from snout to spout and ready to be butchered.
Bee and the boys hacked off the pig’s feet and turned the body belly-up. They removed the head and split the carcass lengthwise. With surgical precision, Bee removed all of the organs, careful to avoid spilling their contents. Before long, it was pork. Pork ribs, pork chops, pork tenderloins – pounds and pounds of pink pork, ready to cook and eat.
Some of the meat was grilled on skewers. Some on metal grates. Some was boiled, some turned into sausage. All of it was really, really delicious. It’s a pity we don’t get meat that fresh in the states; it’s quite a treat to enjoy it here every year.
Today we’re heading out to swim near a waterfall in the mountains. Sounds like fun to me. I’ll post more later!
Well, the fat ol’ sow was no match for Bee, his spear and thousands of years of hilltribe pig-killin’ know-how. He stuck her once in the side, piercing her heart with one deft stroke. She squealed like a…well, you know, and fell over, snorting and flopping around in her own blood for about a minute and then she was gone. Off to hog heaven, if you will.
Her death was a bit grisly, and I think Chien was surprised to find himself disturbed by the distasteful act. The older boys poked and prodded her to confirm her demise, and when she was pronounced dead, the fascinating process of turning pig to pork got underway.
Most of the work was done by Bee and three of the oldest boys at the orphanage. They began by preparing the carcass, charring the skin with bundles of bamboo sticks and scraping the pig with large hunting knives. After much of the coarse hair had been removed, they covered the pig with thatching which they burned to loosen the rest of the hair. After about twenty minutes of meticulous scraping, the boys flipped the carcass and repeated the process. Eventually, the pig was completely smooth from snout to spout and ready to be butchered.
Bee and the boys hacked off the pig’s feet and turned the body belly-up. They removed the head and split the carcass lengthwise. With surgical precision, Bee removed all of the organs, careful to avoid spilling their contents. Before long, it was pork. Pork ribs, pork chops, pork tenderloins – pounds and pounds of pink pork, ready to cook and eat.
Some of the meat was grilled on skewers. Some on metal grates. Some was boiled, some turned into sausage. All of it was really, really delicious. It’s a pity we don’t get meat that fresh in the states; it’s quite a treat to enjoy it here every year.
Today we’re heading out to swim near a waterfall in the mountains. Sounds like fun to me. I’ll post more later!
The lunch I cooked for some of the kids
Pork fried rice with basil, stirfried pork tenderloin with lemongrass, garlic, shallots and chili, spicy longbeans and dragonfruit. Yum!
Feely grass before touching
This stuff is amazing. You touch it and it folds up like a little fan or something. Weird and wonderful.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Doi Saket
It's 6:30 am her in Doi Saket, Thailand. That's pretty darn early, given our late bedtime, but the roosters outside my window have been crowing for the past hour, and I'm pretty sure I can't get back to sleep. Besides, I have no idea what time they eat breakfast around here, and if we miss it, we don't have any other easy options for food.
We're staying in a small cabin on the grounds of the Asia's Hope orphan home about 30 minutes north of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Our accommodations and setting are quite different from those we left in Cambodia. Three years ago the orphan home here consisted of a large, brush-and-thistle-covered field and three bamboo longhouses. Today, the brush has been cleared, grass is growing, there are two large dormitories for the kids, permanent bathroom and shower facilities, a multipurpose building and kitchen, playground equipment, a well-lit security wall and a beautiful sign out front.
There's also a guest house, a little log cabin with two bedrooms and a western-style bathroom. And that's where Chien and I are spending our last week in Asia. We could have gotten a hotel room in Chiang Mai or stayed at a house we rent a few miles south of here, but this place happened to be available, and it's where the action is. It feels like a posher version of a family camping trip. Perhaps this is what a vacation cottage is like. Whatever it's 'like,' it's nice. And it has wireless internet access. Very cool.
It's also a bit cooler (temperature) here than it was in Cambodia. We're up north, and we're in the foothills of the mountains. All of that makes for good weather and great scenery. And in a stroke of accidentally brilliant scheduling, all of the kids are out of school on a two week break, which means that we'll get to spend a lot of time with them.
Today, we'll probably go fishing with them, do some English classes and then do a barbeque. Up here, that means killing and butchering a large pig. The pig, which is at this hour snorting and wallowing happily in his squalid pen will soon meet a delicious, bacony demise, much to the delight of his pork-loving public.
We're staying in a small cabin on the grounds of the Asia's Hope orphan home about 30 minutes north of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Our accommodations and setting are quite different from those we left in Cambodia. Three years ago the orphan home here consisted of a large, brush-and-thistle-covered field and three bamboo longhouses. Today, the brush has been cleared, grass is growing, there are two large dormitories for the kids, permanent bathroom and shower facilities, a multipurpose building and kitchen, playground equipment, a well-lit security wall and a beautiful sign out front.
There's also a guest house, a little log cabin with two bedrooms and a western-style bathroom. And that's where Chien and I are spending our last week in Asia. We could have gotten a hotel room in Chiang Mai or stayed at a house we rent a few miles south of here, but this place happened to be available, and it's where the action is. It feels like a posher version of a family camping trip. Perhaps this is what a vacation cottage is like. Whatever it's 'like,' it's nice. And it has wireless internet access. Very cool.
It's also a bit cooler (temperature) here than it was in Cambodia. We're up north, and we're in the foothills of the mountains. All of that makes for good weather and great scenery. And in a stroke of accidentally brilliant scheduling, all of the kids are out of school on a two week break, which means that we'll get to spend a lot of time with them.
Today, we'll probably go fishing with them, do some English classes and then do a barbeque. Up here, that means killing and butchering a large pig. The pig, which is at this hour snorting and wallowing happily in his squalid pen will soon meet a delicious, bacony demise, much to the delight of his pork-loving public.
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