Missive 6 - November 2008

Cliché I know, but it’s hard to believe we have nearly completed our first 6 months here at Ban Meata. As we promised ourselves when we began, we are “reviewing … our situation”, but unlike Fagin’s tortuous indecision we have decided to continue here for the 2 years we first envisaged. We will be home for Christmas if the political crisis in Thailand resolves itself sufficiently to re-open the airport. I will return in January (if the airport is still open!) with the building team and Colleen will stay for the birth of our 5th grandchild in early February.

Colleen was intending to avoid the hottest part of the year in Thailand by staying another couple of months and she now has the perfect excuse. We have received the wonderful news that Michelle is engaged and will be married in early May so I will be back in Adelaide to hand over my beautiful daughter.

Meanwhile our life goes on and a pretty good life it is – although we are facing a few crises in House of Mercy, more of which I will write later. We recently had a wonderful afternoon with the girls form the big girl’s house. Whun is the house Mum and we went to her parents’ place in a nearby village which is typical Thailand with coconut palms, ramshackle houses on stilts, chooks and chickens running around under your feet and beautiful hospitality.

Thais eat lots of stuff from the surrounding environment and one of the girls tore off a branch from a bush which was covered with little green berry-like fruit. We peeled off a few layers of husk and ate the tiny green centre – not much reward for the labour involved but it tasted OK. Whun’s father grows tobacco as a cash crop so we sat down and threaded dry tobacco leaves onto a long skewer so it can be hung on racks underneath the house. After this contribution to the tobacco industry we went fishing. We walked back down a track through the jungle, past a number of rice paddies ready for harvesting to a small creek. The girls had large nets on bamboo frames with a long handle and they set these up in the creek to trap tiny fish. For their efforts they caught perhaps half a kilogram with the biggest fish being about 4cms long. They cooked them whole in a fair bit of salt and brought them home to eat with their tea.

After their time fishing the girls got themselves thoroughly wet in a deeper hole in the creek and had a glorious time. The scene was idyllic and I was reminded of times when kids would muck around in a creek and get their clothes all wet and muddy. It may still happen a bit but we have signs on our creeks saying it’s not safe, no play without supervision because it’s not safe, and no going out on your own because it’s not safe. We walked past a weir where a group of 5 boys turned up on their bikes. They stripped to their undies and spent an hour jumping 5 metres into the water, doing back flips, pushing each other in and having a ball. Not a scrap of technology in sight and lots of kids having lots of fun – our souls were restored that afternoon!

It’s the time of rice harvest in Thailand and there are mechanical harvesters everywhere. Some travel on crawler tracks through the paddies dropping the trash behind them, others are stationary with crowds of workers feeding it and a rooster tail of chaff being shot into huge heaps later to be used for cattle feed. There are still lots of people bent over all day harvesting by hand and tying bundles into stooks waiting to be winnowed. All along the roads there are tarpaulins spread out with drying rice and bags of rice can be seen stacked up on tuk-tuks heading for the rice depot. We have a few rai (maybe an acre) of rice at the farm which is waiting for a harvester to be in vicinity. We hope to get few tonnes of rice which we will keep to feed our kids.

Feeding the kids has become a problem at Phetchabun over recent months. The economic downturn has not been kind to us in several ways. The growth of people taking up sponsorship is insufficient to take care of the cost of care, and the drastic drop in the Australian dollar against the baht has seriously affected us. When we came it was over 30baht and after bottoming out at 20.5 it has been hovering at 22 for weeks. Already insufficient funds lost over 30% of their value and after distributing funds to the other sites Phetchabun has had insufficient to meet the food bills. God has been good to us though and 2 significant donations have enabled us to survive over the last 2 months. We’ve also been greatly assisted by produce from the farm. We have been blessed by an abundance of paw-paw (papaya) which is also eaten green, shredded into a salad. Bananas have been plentiful, as have pumpkins and we have eaten a huge amount of fish from our dams.

We haven’t taken to eating the snakes yet but there are a few of them around. We have a young woman here at the moment who is helping at the school and on one of her first days here she watched a snake stalk a bird in a low shrub and with amazing speed captured it. On the way in to Phetchabun last week we drove up to a huge snake at least 2 metres long. He put his head up in the air, sensed us coming and did a very prompt U-turn (looked more like a pretzel turn actually) and narrowly avoided becoming two one metre snakes.

We have been enjoying our weekly worship here even though it is all in Thai. If Glom preaches we don’t find out what she is talking about although they will often give us an idea of what the testimonies are about. A few weeks ago one of the teachers got up to thank God for keeping her safe after her husband had lost her off the back of his motorbike and didn’t realise for quite some distance. She didn’t share how safe her husband was when he came back for her. (This is the couple who had the 2 killings at their wedding reception – I related this story in one of the epistles from a previous visit). We had another testimony last Sunday concerning Parnit, Glom’s husband, who was travelling back through the mountains from Khon Kaen with a friend. They had 4 motorcyclists form up next to them on the road trying to force them off. His friend got down on the floor fearing they may have had guns. They kept travelling and one of the motorcyclists yelled out “Now!” to one on the other side but he shook his head and dropped back, so the rest did too. When he related this to Glom they discovered that she was praying for Parnit at the time of the incident!

We have been delighted that two of the cooks, the lady who looks after the guest house, and the young son of one of the laundry ladies have given their lives to Jesus in the last month. God is blessing us in many ways.

Our house is nearing completion and we should move in before we leave. The floors are nearly all tiled and the blokes are swinging the doors today and tomorrow. The windows will go in in the next couple of weeks although the quote for them set us back on our heels a bit. Pawinee beat them down a bit, but 95 000 baht was a bit more than we were expecting. Let’s hope the dollar goes up before that bill comes in!! Colleen has been busy getting furniture and we have stores all over the place holding stuff for us and waiting for a phone call to deliver. Rob has been most generous giving us his unit for all this time and it will be good for him to get back “home” too.

The big event before we go back is the Christmas party. Preparations have been going on for weeks and the kids have been learning lines for plays and choreography for songs. 2000 people come from the surrounding villages to watch the kids, share a meal and listen to the Christmas story. The event will take place on Sunday 14th December. There is no such thing as Christmas of course in the Thai culture so on Christmas Day all the kids will be at school as normal.

After that we will pack our bags and catch a bus to Bangkok and hopefully board a plane at the airport. We can’t wait to see our family and catch up with our friends. We hope to see you soon.

God bless
Ron

Missive 5 October 2008

So much has been happening these last few weeks that I am getting behind in my blog and because so much is happening I have more to catch up. We have just returned from a wonderful few days in Bangkok with our Whun and her sister Why. We stayed in a hotel in the heart of Bangkok and visited several places with the goal of giving the girls a bit of Thai history and culture. Very educational and Colleen reckons I was itching to give out some worksheets for the girls to fill in. Not true, but I did make them read a fair bit of the information boards and tried get them to tell me in English what it was about!

We visited the aquarium, the planetarium, the science and technology centre, the national museum and the Grand Palace. Another volunteer couple, Alvin and Linda, had their sponsored child, along with big Whun the girls’ carer, in Bangkok so we did a lot of stuff together. We did a few fun things as well, like bowling, ice-cream at Swensons, a trip up the river and shopping. The girls were a delight and it was so good to walk down the streets hand in hand with them chatting away in improving English and trying to get some improving Thai out of us.

It’s an indication of how well Colleen is adjusting that each night we trawled the stalls and barrows in the streets to buy pork and chicken on a stick, bags of sticky rice, and barbecued sweetcorn for tea which we ate it in our room. Each night we played a game of Tantrix which Why picked up in a flash and thenceforth manipulated Whun to make moves that would enable her, Why, to win. And each night I told them a story in English like The 3 Little Pigs, and Goldilocks which they loved.

It was a bit of shock to the system to get back home and drag out the computer again and start work preparing for the next executive meeting and writing position descriptions and writing up reports for several projects for which I am responsible. Looking back over the last missives I realise that I have said very little about what I actually do. I also realise that it will be particularly boring to tell you so I won’t be offended if you skip the next paragraph or two.

I told everybody before I left that I would be responsible for financial management and asset management. That hasn’t been strictly true. I am also responsible for human resource management, information management, communications, marketing the organisation in Thailand, executive support, and finding a site manager for Ban Meata Phetchabun. As well as that I supervise the construction of our house, support Pawinee in some of her roles, do the disbursement of funds to the other sites, try not to get too involved in the agriculture project, preach occasionally on Sundays, and try to spend some time with the kids. Those who are praying for me may see fit to double their efforts!!

I’m fortunate to have Mark, the business management consultant volunteering his services to House of Mercy, to point me in the right direction. And hopefully, if I am successful, we will be able to employ people to run these projects when they are established. In the meantime it is position descriptions, project schedules, project reports, project scoping briefs, performance management policies, document translation and so on. But it’s all to make this a better place for the kids and it’s all worthwhile. We continue to be firm in the belief that God has put us here and we see daily evidence of the way He leads us.

Some of you have heard of our visa debacle. You will be aware that a 12 month visa requires you to leave the country every 90 days so most people travel to the nearest border, enter the country, do some shopping in the stalls and then re-enter Thailand, paying fees each step of the way.

As an aside, the stalls are a bargain hunter’s delight. Lots of cheap mobiles and the like, bottles of whiskey with unhappy looking cobras inside, untold mountains of clothes and pirate DVD’s. We were watching one of these the other night, a bit critical about the quality of the sound and picture, when on the screen somebody got up in front of the movie and walked across. A few minutes later, toilet break obviously concluded, the same shadow walked back to his seat. That’s how you can get a latest release movie for $4-5 in Burma before it appears in the theatres in Australia.

Anyway, we decided to go to the Laos border north of Khon Kaen because we had a meeting at KK the next day. Our timing was critical because we had just less than 90 days before we return to Australia for Christmas. So, with the warnings of another volunteer ringing in our ears to check every stamp in our passport, we ventured into the process. We even hired a lady to walk us through, do the paperwork, give us the right fees in the right currency, do our photographs and talk to the officials. We exited the Thai side all stamped up, crossed the Mekong River over the Aussie built Friendship Bridge (a real thrill), entered the Laos side all stamped up, walked around the building, exited the Laos side all stamped up, and checking all the way. We got back in the lady’s car (she drove all the way with her chest on the steering wheel, her elbows up, and never got out of second gear!), back over the bridge to the Thai side and to the entry point where we all got out to go to immigration. Then back into her car where she gave us our passports and with a sigh of relief we pocketed them. The whole process took 3 hours and lots of waiting in long queues and lots of poking our papers through small windows, and lots of handing over money – 5000 baht’s worth.

By now you’ve probably guessed it. When we arrived back at Ban Meata, our friend, the pessimistic volunteer asked to have a look at our passports. Pretty smug we handed them over. “You’ve been dudded!” he said, “They’ve only stamped you back in for one month!” And sure enough, the one step we didn’t check, the last one, was where the mistake was. Phone calls to government departments by Pawinee made no difference – no-one can do anything about an official stamp even if it’s wrong. There was nothing else to do except go to the border again.

Our trip back from KK was marred by another incident which really frightened Colleen. We were travelling on the 4 lane freeway when we overtook a police car – very carefully I might add. A few minutes later he drove up alongside and waved me over. I was wondering what I could possibly have done wrong. He appeared at the window, very aggro and told me what I had done wrong in Thai – which wasn’t all that informative. Fortunately we had Pawinee in the back who translated. I had overtaken but had not returned to the left hand lane. On Pawinee’s instructions (and Colleen’s and I still have the bruises on my leg to prove it) I apologised profusely for such a heinous crime, and after giving Pawinee a lecture about not reminding this particular ferengue of Thai road rules, he left with very poor grace indeed. If Pawinee were not there I would have been up for an on the spot fine that would not have been recorded in any official documentation. He was not even close to your friendly neighbourhood cop and Colleen took days to get over the incident.

The visa saga was concluded a week or so ago when we went down to Sisiket in the south-east of Thailand again. From there it is only an hour’s drive to the Cambodian border so this time we went with our friend, the “human warning system”, Peter Hooper who teaches at Mercy’s English school there. The experience couldn’t have been more different. Rather than the huge buildings and queues at Nong Khai, we travelled down an ever-worsening road until the bitumen stopped and we bumped along a sand track to the border. There were numerous bamboo shelters with a few police sleeping or smoking, a couple of dilapidated transportables, and a lift up barrier that might have lifted up but everyone walked or drove around it anyway. It was reminiscent of a spot in the scrub near Pinnaroo or similar. We left Thailand, duly stamped, walked 30 metres into Cambodia and paid 1000 baht each to say we wanted to visit. I wanted to walk to the nearby village, but after our last experience Colleen put on her form that she was visiting for 1 hour and would have put 15 minutes if she thought she could! We then crossed the track to the “out” side, refused to pay the 300 baht bribe the official asked for, and Peter warned us about, got stamped again and walked back in to Thailand. The Thai official scratched his head for ages over our one month stamp, thinking perhaps that we were undesirable aliens (must have been talking to that policeman!) but stamped it correctly (under Peter’s watchful eye) and we were on our way.

One of my reasons for wanting to see the village is that Pol Pot is buried in a graveyard there. He had asylum in Thailand (goodness knows why they gave it to him) in a village near Sisiket during the years before he died. I guess they just took him to the nearest border and gave him back. We couldn’t work out why if everyone else knew where he was, the CIA didn’t!!

Another thing I would like to have seen was the view into Cambodia from the escarpment. The entire border between the 2 countries is defined by this escarpment and by walking a few hundred metres you can look out over Cambodia stretching to the south as far as the eye can see. You may have read that Thailand is in bitter dispute (sometimes armed) with Cambodia about a few square kilometres where the border inexplicably goes up the escarpment, into Thailand, around a temple and out again. Somebody apparently signed something a few years ago and quite a few baht may have changed hands. The argument continues and has spoilt it as a tourist spot.





I had my first experience of a full Thai massage (not as full as you can get I hasten to add!) the other night. Wolfgang, the volunteer here with his wife Diane to work on the agricultural projects, had a bad back so Pawinee was going to take him in and go to a massage shop (notice how I avoided using the word “parlour”?). Pawinee needed her back done too so I decided to go along as well, as did Neepar, one of the carers. We were ushered upstairs to a row of mattresses on the floor in a room, asked to put on some pyjama things and a girl got to work on each of us.

My girl started by dislocating all my toes and then set about stretching and pummelling every muscle in my legs for the first half an hour. She seemed to think that my joints worked in different directions to the way God made them. She leant on me, sat on me, stuck her feet into me, elbows into me and thumbs into me. She put her hands on my hips (very carefully and I was a bit nervous!!) and then leant on me to see if my pelvis would collapse. The last half hour was spent on my back, arms, fingers (dislocated them all and then tried the Mafia thing to see if they would break!), shoulders, neck and face. I have played footy matches with less body contact than that.

I have exaggerated just a smidgin and I felt pretty good afterwards so she did her job well. It cost me 100baht and you give the girl a tip. Pawinee said afterwards that if you ask for VIP massage it’s a bit fuller than what we got, costs a lot more (as it would) and you get a private room (as you would). I might have another massage sometime but meanwhile I think I’ll give my fingers and toes a break (before she does!!).

I’ll stop or that book I was always going to write will be written.

God bless till next time.
Ron

Missive 4 September 2008

We are back from a wonderful week of travelling the country. Mercy runs an English language school in Sisiket in the south east of Thailand near the Cambodian border. Kerry, one of the teachers there who was spending time at Phetchabun, needed to go back and we had a standing invitation to visit, so off we went. On the way we dropped off Sand, one of the carers, with one of her boys who needed to visit the hospital in Khon Kaen. The trip to Sisiket from there, about 260km, was a delight. Millions of eucalypts have been planted in this area and there are forests of large old native trees so it was reminiscent of the country from Naracoorte to Keith in many ways. The rice fields were quite tall and looked like a good wheat crop.

The school is in a three storey building in the heart of Sisiket. It is owned by a Chinese Thai businessman who generously allows the school to operate free of rent. The top floor is the living quarters where the 3 Australians live as well as a lovely Thai lady called Gadt who does much of the administrative work. Four other English speaking Thais also teach. The day starts at 4.30pm and finishes at 7.30pm with 3 classes of 6 to 10 students in that time. Any teachers out there who would like to enjoy the Thai lifestyle and do a bit of English teaching?

Colleen took advantage of Thai prices by going to an optician and getting some new glasses, as well as going to a dentist and having two crowns on some back teeth. We go back there in October for the fitting of the crowns – about $350 for what would cost over $2000 in Australia. Anyone out there who would like to come and enjoy the Thai lifestyle and get their teeth done?

We had an interesting experience with the weather while in Sisiket. Colleen had spent a couple of hours in the dentist’s chair and I was due to pick her up at 6.30pm. During this time we had the mother of all thunderstorms and every street flooded up to the tops of the gutters and beyond and was just like a river. As I drove the water was lapping at the door sills of the car and the bow waves from other vehicles threatened to get in. I had to get out barefoot to wade in to the dentist.

We also had the opportunity to visit a reserve where there is a monkey colony and we were able to get up close and personal with them and get a few photos – particularly when a bloke drove in with a bunch of bananas and fed them. There are large numbers of water buffalo in this area and at the same place we saw a number of them being taken home via a large dam where they swam and dived very much like hippos. Water buffalo are invariably as fat as mud whereas the cows on the same country look skinny and underfed. We wonder why buffalo are not farmed to the extent cows are but the Thais have a very negative attitude toward them – you insult somebody by calling them a buffalo and there is much more prestige and social status in owning cows.

I may have mentioned in an earlier epistle that a similar attitude affects the value of a cow. For some reason or other Thais believe that a cow must have a black tip to its tail. If it doesn’t then it is practically worthless. Once the cow is on the plate I am sure you can’t tell but it nevertheless affects the value.

After Sisiket we returned to Khon Kaen where we were conducting a needs analysis for setting up the new financial system. Work didn’t stop us enjoying a visit to the big shopping centre affectionately known to us as “Fairyland” where we enjoyed a meal at the Pizza Hut followed by icecream at Swensons. A trip to Khon Kaen would not be complete without a night at the steakhouse where the price is now 109 baht ($3.75) for as many steaks as you can eat with salads and vegetables and icecream to finish off. Wendy wanted to take about 15 of the kids so we helped transport them around there. It was a wonderful night with little Sujaree (a girl seriously ill with HIV on some of our earlier trips) taking a shine to Colleen and keeping her on the hop all night.

We have enjoyed the company of a delightful young man called Damien. He works in a bank in Brisbane and is helping me work through the financial management issues. He is so good with the boys at Ban Meata and they just love him. The carers also think he is wonderful and when he helps out with Colleen’s English class attendance is guaranteed to be 100%. He came with us to Khon Kean and stayed at the hotel. On our last morning the waitress approached us at breakfast and asked if Damien had checked out. We said yes he was around at Ban Meata. She dashed off and brought back a note and said she finished work at 2pm. Damien was embarrassed to read that she was expressing a good deal of interest in cultivating a friendship. We thought that by 2.15pm she could be walking up the driveway so Damien resolved right away to help us be ready to leave by two o’clock! She was actually a lovely girl and trying really hard with her English but we couldn’t convince him to go back and say goodbye!

So now it’s back to Phetchabun and our normal routine. While we were away the blokes prepared our house for a concrete pour. I ordered 17 cubic metres of concrete and we started in steady rain – fortunately we were on the bottom floor but we still had the paths to do and we were pleased to see the rain stop after the first truck load. The blokes did a really good job but didn’t put enough fill in the floors so my estimate was way out and I had to get 7 more cubic metres! We have enough concrete in the floor to put a couple more storeys on. We finished about 5pm and while I was having a shower the heavens opened and it bucketed down. I quickly dried off (for the life of me I can’t think why!) and rushed down to put plastic on the paths. Because the roof is mostly on and there are no gutters the water comes down in a torrent. I was a bit late so we will have the non-slip look on some of our paths.

Next week we have to go to a border and exit the country to get our visas stamped. This has to happen every 90 days although there doesn’t seem to be much logic in it. It does however put a few thousand baht into government coffers – presuming of course that it does get into the coffers and doesn’t detour into someone’s pocket. The Thais are generally very honest and you can leave your car unlocked with more confidence here than in Australia. The country does struggle though with corruption and it is a blight on the nation which is very difficult to eradicate.

When we were in Phuket one of the pastors at the missions conference came face to face with corruption to his financial detriment. During one of the free afternoons he went for a jet ski ride and went to a hire operator that he had used the day before for a paragliding experience. He hired a ski, inspected it, and after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing got on board. After his half hour he brought it in and the operator pointed out a bit of damage and demanded 30 000 baht ($1000). He was certain he hadn’t hit anything and presumed that his ski had been switched – and the amount was hugely excessive so he said he would go to the police. When he arrived at the police station, they knew he was coming, and told him that if he didn’t pay he could end up with a criminal record and wouldn’t be allowed back in the country. No prizes for guessing where some of the 30000 baht ended up in that little scam.

Interestingly, that same afternoon I had resolved to have a jet ski ride but Colleen decided to have a sleep at the hotel and it got a bit late to do anything about it. I had reason to repent of my agitation at Colleen oversleeping and my missing out on a ride!

Another aspect of the Thai character which can be frustrating is “saving face”. The House of Mercy Foundation is having a very difficult time assuming official ownership of land because a local bureaucrat has lost face and is blocking approval. When Pawinee and Rob presented all the papers for a land transfer he thought he had found a problem in the Foundation constitution, but Pawinee took him through the paperwork and corrected him. He therefore lost face by being proved wrong – and to make things worse, by a woman. We are now in a bind over this situation. His superiors in Bangkok have offered to come and give him a rocket about it, but Pawinee and Rob are reluctant to make an enemy of the man because future transactions may be jeopardised.

A minor irritation we are learning to live with in Thailand is the ants. They are absolutely everywhere, including in your house, and come in several varieties. There are large black ants which tend to be lone rangers, wandering through your place usually on their own. If they bite you know all about it and you can see the two puncture marks where they have got their mandibles into you. More common are the big red ants that make nests in trees but come down to hunt humans. They hunt in packs and would sooner have a fight than a feed. They are the cause of some fairly wild and creative dances which sometimes include disrobing in mixed company. Their bite is very discomfiting but fortunately it doesn’t seem to itch and burn for long afterwards. It’s amusing (if you’re game) to stamp on the ground next to a mob of them. To a man (ant?) they stop, face you and stand up on their hind legs. If you look closely you can see their fists up!

Numerically the most common is a tiny brown ant about a millimetre long. They are a fact of life in the house and get into everything. They are so small I think they can walk through plastic – certainly a screw top lid won’t keep them out. They don’t seem to bite – probably too small. They also seem to be too small to taste. They get into my muesli and one morning when I got down to the milk there were dozens of the little blighters floating belly up. I thought what the heck – and ate the rest anyway.

Healthwise we are keeping pretty well. Thank you for praying for us. Colleen has had one bout of an upset stomach and has endured a couple of migraines for which we have not had to resort to an injection. Recently she has suffered some hive-like irritation which she thinks may be caused by eating pineapple. I have enjoyed amazingly good health, and an amazingly good appetite – I can eat chilli with the best of the Thais (maybe a slight exaggeration!) and perhaps this helps keep the bugs away. A good dose of chilli brings the sweat out so much that a hot day doesn’t feel so bad!

So, as Peter Cundall would say, that’s your blooming lot for the week, but tune in next time because it will be a fantastic missive.

God bless
Ron

Missive 3 August 2008

After the flurry of the first few weeks things have settled down to more or less routine. My day starts at 6.30am when I head out for my morning run which I have reinstituted to keep up a bit of fitness and to keep the sugar levels down. For those who have been here, I run past the new school building to the road behind the school, around to the road at the front of Ban Meata, up to the farm past the new tank stand, past the dams and around the top fish dam and then back home – about 4kms all up. The minimum temperature each night is about 27 degrees, absolutely no wind, and very high humidity so when I get back I am dripping wet just like stepping out of a shower. This is really doing me some good – isn’t it?!

An interesting sidelight to this is my encounter with the swimming chooks. The chooks here are rangy looking birds with the biggest drumsticks in the world and nothing much else except a beak. They can run like hares and fly pretty well too. The farm caretaker has a batch of them near the top dam and when I run up there they all panic and flee around the dam. About half way round they reckon they are cornered so they fly into the middle of dam and then flap and paddle furiously to get out. The first morning this happened I thought I had drowned all this bloke’s chooks, but they must all make it back to shore because they are all there ready to try again the next time.

After my cornflakes and muesli and a cup of tea I head over to the office in the visitors’ centre where I sit in a corner with my computer next to Nhoom the accountant. We have an urgent need for new office space and this may involve moving the dining room and converting the present one into offices. At 9 o’clock we meet for prayer where a priority is finance, needed not only to support the many projects but also to pay for normal running costs. Every Tuesday they shop for food at the markets and they have to take 30 000 baht ($1000). For the last few weeks Pawinee has not had enough money to hand to the shoppers.

Our Executive meeting last week has kept me busy helping to prepare the agenda and afterwards sitting with big Whun helping her translate the meeting summary into Thai. In the midst of this I take several trips down to our house to check on the workers who at the time of writing are putting in the plumbing before pouring the slab. Our friends Peter and Liz King are contributing to the top storey as are another long-term volunteer couple, Wolfgang and Dianne. Hopefully in a couple of months it will be ready.

Colleen’s day starts with some administrative work to do with sponsorship. Straight after lunch she has a class of 3 or 4 staff and she teaches them conversational English - under a tree outside the visitors’ centre. Later in the afternoon she has another group of 2 or 3. She has recently been asked by Pawinee, who saw her working with another volunteer’s child, to teach the Thai staff how to use books and read stories to children. The Thais are not great readers and certainly not used to making reading exciting for kids. Colleen had immediate success when a carer came to her in great excitement after reading her children a story, saying they had started sitting on the floor but were soon crowding around her they were so involved and wanting to see the pictures.

Usually late in the afternoon when the kids are home from school Colleen sends out a list of kids and carers who are to meet her to receive sponsors’ birthday presents and other gifts and have their photo taken. With 90 kids at Ban Meata there is a fairly constant stream of them and each one is given a card for the carer to help them write a thank you note. These all then need to be posted and that is one of Colleen’s most frustrating tasks. The postal system in Thailand doesn’t have a simple postage rate for letters and parcels, but a different rate for many different weights. Every letter has to be weighed at the post office and the appropriate stamp put on it. We take buying a book of stamps for granted in Australia – not so here. We hope it keeps lots of people employed because it sure takes a long time to post a bundle of letters.

One of the weekly routines we are learning to appreciate is the Saturday trip into the town of Phetchabun where we do our weekly shopping. There are 2 large new shopping complexes that have sprung up next to each other – Tescos and BigC – where the shopping experience is as far removed from that in a market as east is from west (get the double entendre?!). We conclude our shopping trip with a visit to Swensons, a heavenly icecream parlour (another reason for taking up running). The 3 scoop chocolate “Ring-a-ding” takes a bit of beating I reckon. We have taken a succession of other volunteers there and it has become a bit of a Saturday institution. We took our Whun there for her birthday and although she loved it she shivered through the whole experience because the air-conditioning and the icecream together were a bit much. Then again, giving a kid icecream and at the same time lots of hugs to warm her up has got to be good for her.

To change the subject completely I must tell you about the toilets in Thailand. Those at big new shopping centres are really good although they have unique design features. The one at Tescos is beautifully clean, mainly because there are women in there cleaning them all the time. If you prefer a little privacy at the urinals, too bad! They also have glass windows in the doors so you are in full view of anyone walking past. From one of the toilets in Tescos you can stand where one normally has to stand and see the laundry detergent in aisle 8. Quite good for a bit of early planning for your trip down aisle 8.

The toilets at the service stations aren’t quite up to that standard. The urinals are never inside – they are all at the back of the building, often with good views over a rice paddy and of course the obligatory cleaning lady keeping her eyes firmly fixed on her mop. Usually they are OK but on our way to Chiang Mai we stopped at one that had to be seen to be believed. That famous quote from the movie “Kenny” came to mind – “There is a smell in here that will outlast religion”. The taps all spun around (they nearly all do in Thailand) and we couldn’t turn them on to wash our hands. There was a hose lying on the ground outside so we used that.

The ablutionary coup de grace though belongs to the toilets at most outdoor restaurants, and service stations not accompanied by a 7Eleven. They are usually concrete structures, squat toilets (which way do you face on one of those things?) and a concrete cistern with a saucepan floating in it. The saucepan is for flushing the toilet. There are never lights inside so it’s pretty dark and you can’t see what you are doing(!). There is never any paper in there so you never drive your car anywhere without a roll of toilet paper in the glovebox. If you are not eating a doughnut with a cup of coffee while reading this you may be interested to know that the other dish that may be there is to put the used toilet paper in because the septic can’t handle paper. And the good news? There is never a cleaning lady in there that I’ve noticed. Most of the homes of poorer people in a village have toilets like this as well.

The preceding descriptions are all from a male perspective. The women have it worse because the squat toilets are fairly universal – a distinct disadvantage as the years creep up on you. Western style toilets are becoming more common in new places and in more recent brick constructed homes. Colleen tells me that a sign on the back of a toilet door shows a picture of a person sitting conventionally on a toilet. One can only presume that this is for those who are confused by this new-fangled technology and perch up on the rim.

Enough about toilets. Let me finish with a delightful story of the miraculous healing of one of our kids at Khon Kaen. 7 year old Orm was very sick and Wendy took him to the hospital where he was diagnosed with active TB. He was hospitalised for 10 days of intravenous treatment and then faced 2 months of daily injections followed by 6 months of oral medication. There is also the huge risk of cross-infection in an HIV facility such as Khon Kaen. I’ll let Wendy’s words complete the story for you.

“As I sat with 7 year old Orm in hospital this morning - the pediatrician on duty came to me scratching his head and stammering "I don't understand, all the tests (chest x-rays and scratch tests) we completed last Wednesday provided a positive TB result but today's pathology results and x-rays show no sign of TB or in fact any lung scarring, infection or damage". My response of, "Praise God for He has healed Orm," brought more stammering and attempted explanations.

I was able to bring Orm home today with a promise to return on Tuesday so they can repeat the tests again to ensure there is no mistake. But I know there is no mistake, like so many times before when God has bought healing upon our kids’ physical complications.

As I left the Home this evening Orm was outside trying to fly a kite under the gentle guidance of our new gardener. It was at this site that I wept, overwhelmed by the blessings and mercy God pours on our lives, as it is in obedience to Him that we try and be His instruments in this hurting nation.

Our God is so great!
Lovingly, Wendy”

What better way to finish. That’s why we are here – to help make a difference in the life of a child – and we see every day God blessing the children here at Ban Meata. Please continue to pray for us and all the work here.

Till next time.
God bless
Ron

Missive 2 August 2008

Late again with this missive but my excuse is trips to Phuket and Chiang Mai – it’s a hard life! Our trip to Phuket was to attend a conference for all the mission work that the AOG is doing in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and China. Mercy International is not part of this but because of Rob’s links to the AOG movement we are permanent invitees to this annual event.

The speakers were excellent with some great Bible teaching and the reports from the different countries were amazing, inspiring and encouraging. The stories of one single bloke working in remote Laos villages amongst the most appalling poverty and conditions made him our number one hero for the week. A young girl in Cambodia who is also a pop singer is doing great work in media, has produced many CD’s, and has just released a major film. Cambodia has a communist government and it is government policy that Christians are not allowed to have public meetings, but they have developed a reputation for their media work and their welfare work amongst young people so when they wanted to hire a theatre for their film launch, they were greeted with, “Oh, you are the Christians, of course you can!”

We struck up a friendship with a lady who works in Thailand but near the Myanmar (Burma) border. She would be over 60 but makes regular trips into Myanmar helping and ministering to people in the hilltribe villages – not entirely legally because the government doesn’t allow it. We are aware of their attitude of course because of their response to international aid after the cyclone. We spoke last week with a pastor in Chiang Mai who has a bloke going into Myanmar planting churches in villages. He is a personae non gratia with the government so when they had talks with the Thai government in recent weeks, the Thai government arrested this bloke and his wife and put them in gaol. This saved face with everybody (except the bloke in gaol!) and when the Myanmar delegation went back the Thais released them. Stories like this abounded at the conference and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

And what of Phuket itself? Our final judgment was that it is over-rated. We stayed in a wonderful new hotel at Pattong Beach, right where the tsunami swept through in 2004. The hotel where the conference was held had its ground floor flooded and its outbuildings swept away. They are all back now and the palms and swimming pools are in place and there is not a lot of evidence of the tsunami except for signs showing which way to run if it happens again. Our hotel room only cost $30 a night but that was the only cheap thing there. Prices reflect the tourists who are there to pay them.

The streets were crowded and you have to fend off the people selling clothes, eateries, massages, taxis and so on. The beach itself is OK but not the pristine beauty of the postcards. There is a good deal of rubbish lying around and the smells wafting up from the drains under the street aren’t conducive to an appetite. We did however enjoy our time there and spent the equal of a neighbouring country’s GDP in Starbucks where I developed a deep and abiding love for mocha frappes.

We took a day off the conference and booked a boat tour amongst the islands off Phuket. Phi Phi island is the most famous of these but there are hundreds of others including James Bond Island which he blew up while destroying a base from which one of his baddies was planning world domination. Despite his efforts the island is still in remarkably good condition. Our tour took us to some islands where we disembarked into rubber canoes and were paddled into caves so low that we had to lie on our backs to get through. It was worth it though because we emerged into lagoons in the centre of the island which were stunningly beautiful. They had sheer sides up 40 to 50 metres covered with tropical vegetation. They served a superb Thai lunch on the boat and gave us the traditional green coconut with the top chopped out and a couple of straws to drink the very refreshing juice.

We drove to and from Phuket, which is about 900km from Bangkok, so we spent a fair bit of time on the road. Bangkok is an unbelievable place to drive in and unbelievably easy to get lost in even when you have a street directory in hand. The elevated freeway system is an absolute maze and after sweeping around all the entries and exits you don’t know which way is up let alone where true north is. And you guessed it, we got bushed coming into Bangkok on Friday night when all 20 million of them are going out for a meal. I was driving and Rob was “navigating” by trying to see a skyscraper in the distance that he recognised. He did and we found the entry to a freeway and we finally arrived back at his unit. Another crucial bit of information about the freeways in Bangkok – there are no toilet stops!

We were only in Phetchabun for a few days before heading north to Phrae for the opening of their new buildings, and then on to Chiang Mai. This time we were with Rob, Pawinee, and a young volunteer couple, Alvin and Linda. We again stayed in a hotel, not as new as that in Phuket but comfortable and with a magnificent foyer done in rich Thai timber. Rob had arranged to meet a couple of people to gain some advice about the agricultural projects and some other issues. We met with an expert in aquaculture and spent a fruitful couple of hours in the world of phytoplankton, optimum harvesting cycles and principles of aeration. We then met with another pastor (mentioned earlier) who told us remarkable stories of God’s provision in the growth of his ministry there. He also told us of his meeting with local government authorities where they explained the exponential growth in the Muslim community there. Muslims have told the Thai authorities that if they didn’t curb the activities of the Christians in the area they would move in with strategies (mainly economic) to increase influence and control. That is now happening.

Colleen and I arranged to meet with an old friend from our Tintinara days. Jeff Rowe lives within the walls of the old Chiang Mai city in a house which was once the American consulate. We spent an enjoyable couple of hours catching up with him, reminiscing about Tinti, and picking his brain about cattle husbandry because of his experience in setting up a dairying enterprise in Thailand. We hope to have him visit us at Phetchabun in the not too distant future.

We then travelled north of Chiang Mai to meet a Chinese entrepreneur who has had great success with tree farming and advises the UN in this field. He had given us 300 macadamia trees which are now planted at the farm at Phetchabun, and it was a real eye-opener to see his macadamia plantation. His hospitality was such that we couldn’t get away and we finally left at 4pm to make the 7 hour drive back to Phetchabun.

So, after all those adventures what’s been happening back home at Phetchabun? Colleen is deep into her work with sponsorship and English conversation and I am still coming to grips with the number of tasks my name is next to. The biggest one at the moment is taking over the restructuring process of Mercy International from the bloke who has driven it so far.

Our house is soon going to recommence. There is a huge backlog of projects waiting for much needed funds at the moment so we have decided to put in the $4500 we estimate is required to complete the ground floor. Another couple from Victoria is coming as long term volunteers this week so one of the rooms in the visitor’s centre is being set up to accommodate them. On top of that our friends Peter and Liz King will be volunteering for 6 weeks starting next week. There is a great need to manage the growing work but no place to put the managers!

We were stunned the other day to see our Whun sitting talking with a strange man who turned out to be her father. He disappeared 10 years ago after abandoning Whun and Why (and their brother Wi who we have just heard about) and their mother. He had given her AIDS from which she died and it was presumed that he had died too. Since then he has apparently been in gaol, remarried, has other children, abandoned the new wife, and now turned up at Phetchabun working in the building industry for a while. Why did the wise thing and refused to talk to him, but Whun was a bit starry eyed particularly when he handed out some money. Both girls have been really upset and struggling to come to grips with a father appearing when they thought he was dead.

Subsequently Whun contacted him on someone’s phone and told him she had a birthday coming up. He turned up at the school the next day with a new mobile phone and promises of building her (them) a house and them coming to live with him. Fortunately Pawinee caught up with him, returned the mobile phone, gave him an earful and sent him on his way. Why has continued to keep her distance from him and we’re not sure whether Whun is more upset about losing the mobile phone or the father!

We have sat down with both of them and explained the dangers young girls face in this situation (taken out of school to work to support the father, sold into prostitution) and encouraged them to trust those who will keep them safe and give them a future rather than someone who has not demonstrated that he cares for them. Please pray for them as they struggle with this new complication in their lives.

The weather here remains steamy and it rains every day – sometimes not as much as hoped for to fill the new dam. Colleen is slowly acclimatizing although she still complains that it is so sticky you can’t get your clothes on or off. One technique is to stand in front of a fan to get dressed. And there is no substitute for getting someone to help you pull your shirt off!

We continue to be amazed at the greenery. All our other trips to Thailand have been in the dry winter where the countryside has the appearance of the Australian bush. Now everything is so beautifully green – the mountains, the rice paddies, the corn fields, the roadsides, the jungle. Houses and villages just about disappear into the vegetation. Grass grows so fast that in a matter of days it covers the vegetable patches and the fruit trees on our farm. Workers are full time with whipper snippers, jungle knives and slashers keeping it down.

A real blessing is that the children, including those at the school, are now eating produce from the farm. Fish appear on the table every week, and bananas, snake beans and paw paws are also on the menu. We need to employ more workers to manage all this but again we are waiting for a big influx of money to be able to do that. Rob is praying for and expecting big things to happen and we are all adding, “Soon please Lord!”

There are a few more things I was going to write about but the distractions of Phuket and Chiang Mai mean that they will have to wait until next time.

Until then,

God bless,

Ron

Missive 1 July 2008

G’day to anyone who is listening! This is the first of the blogs for our stay in Thailand and to reserve the “epistles” for our building excursions, perhaps these can be called the “missives”. We’ve been here two weeks and have been plunged into the busyness of the place in such a way that it seems we have been here forever.

We had a good flight over from Oz and I particularly enjoyed my dietary meals (which come early) without copping a pillow behind the ear from Malcolm Lawrie on the other side of the plane. Stepping into the car park from the airport was like walking into an oven and I was watching Colleen out of the corner of my eye to see if she was going to march back into the airport and get a ticket home. We survived the first night in Rob and Jean Dunk’s lovely unit in Bangkok and the next morning headed for Phrae.

I was able to do the lion’s share of the driving and gave Rob a break and we had a pleasant trip north of some 500km. It was a real joy to go there because John and Sharon, Yu and Pawn, and the 5 babies have all moved out to the land – the new orphanage which our building team worked on a couple of years ago. And it was a special joy to spend some time holding and walking around with little Ploy whom we first encountered in February at 3 days old. (Her story is in one of the epistles if you can negotiate your way to it).

Our arrival at Phetchabun was very exciting. We couldn’t have felt more hugged if we had had an encounter with a boa constrictor. Staff and kids swamped us and it was so good to see our Whun again – and I think Why was just as pleased to see us.

Some of you know that Glom (manager of the orphanage) was having a baby, and she had a little boy the night we arrived. Glom and Parnit were told it was 95% a girl so they stocked up on a mountain of pink stuff. A couple of days before the birth the doctor said, “Oh, 100% boy!” We went in to the hospital the next day and it was strange to see this little bloke all dressed up in pink.

While we were at the hospital we had our (Colleen’s really) first experience of the Thai way of doing things. We needed to have rabies and Japanese encephalitis shots and fortunately we had big Whun with us to translate, but even then they thought we actually had rabies. After sorting out that little difficulty we were issued with little cards that gave us entry into the mysteries of the Thai health system, and told to sit in the waiting chairs. These are reasonably comfortable and need to be. There were 2 desks in front of us and both of them had 2 nurses sitting looking at us. After a while we were called to the desk where our blood pressure was taken, and then told to sit in the waiting chairs. Half an hour later we went into a room to see a doctor who wasn’t too bad with English and he sent off an order with the nurse to get the vaccine. We were then directed to the waiting chairs and we sat and stared at the nurses for another 15 minutes before one of them got up and said, “One moment”, before disappearing down a corridor. We figured she couldn’t count because 45 minutes later we were called into another room and given the injections. We then took a slip of paper to the payment desk and were directed to another set of waiting chairs. 15 minutes later we paid and it was all over. Interestingly, throughout the entire 2 hours, we were the only people there!

We went back for our second JE shot a week later and they gave us another rabies shot too. They want us to come back in a month for a third rabies shot. We hope they are right and are keeping an eye on each other in case we start foaming at the mouth.

Work for us started in earnest within a day or so. For the first time Mercy is presenting a formal written annual report – so guess who gets that to do. There is a volunteer here at the moment who is a marketing manager so I got him onto the fancy stuff of making it look good in Publisher. Those of you who have persevered this far into a boring Word document will understand the wisdom of this move. I’ve written pretty much all the rest including Pawinee’s director’s report and Rob’s founding director’s report – they are happy with them but I’m hoping the readers won’t notice a strange similarity in style.

That has kept me in the office for part of the day but with plenty of excursions outside to measure up for two huge dams being dug on the farm site, supervising the boxing up for paths at the new school building, a day in my work clothes pouring concrete, arranging with Pawinee and the windows man to have windows put in the school building, marking out silage pits for feed for the cows, and a few dozen other small jobs. I’ve barely started trying to get my head around how the finance of place works.

Colleen has been immersed in her work and has discovered a few things she hadn’t imagined at the beginning. Glom brought little Berm (said very short like “Bm”) home after a couple of days and on limited duties because of the “caesar”. Despite her age and role she also hasn’t much experience with babies so Colleen has been showing her how to bathe him and advising about feeding. The Thais tend to rug their babies up in several layers, and put hats and gloves on them despite the tropical heat. I reckon this is why they can eat so much chilli – it must be like eating cucumber compared with what they’ve been through as a baby. Colleen has been encouraging Glom to keep him a bit cooler but she is competing with Glom’s sister who is also here to help and as soon as her back is turned he is cocooned again.

She has also started on the sponsorship task and is busy with photos and letters and written profiles. She has also started conversational English classes with some of the staff and these have been going particularly well. The heat has been bothering her a bit although we have air-conditioners in the unit that Rob has kindly moved out of to give us some accommodation. I have been pleasantly surprised with the weather and it doesn’t seem a great deal hotter than when we are here building. Most days it is a bit over 30, very humid, but so far it’s not bothering me a bit. With the blessings of air-conditioning I think we will survive.

Today I have spent the whole day with Mark, the expert in corporate structure who is helping Mercy restructure to cope with the size of the organisation. I have been getting my head around the process he is using because I will also keep this going after he leaves in September. I am up to my ears in project scoping documents, role description proformas, strategic planning spreadsheets, mission statements, and site development plans. I’m thinking of taking Jargon 101 at the local university. Oh …., and all these have to be translated into Thai.

If it sounds like we are not enjoying it, it wouldn’t be true. We have time to do lots of crosswords together at night because the range of TV stations is limited. The only one in English is an American programme called “Russia Today” so Colleen has become the fount of all knowledge about Russian politics, sport and current events. There are several God.tv channels of fairly full on speakers so we stodgy evangelicals have to take them in smallish doses at the moment. We do have a DVD player so we will get into the habit of enjoying a few more movies. Last Saturday we did some shopping in Phetchabun and spent a most enjoyable hour in the icecream parlour (eat your heart out Malc!) at the new Tescos with another volunteer couple who are here at the moment.

We’ve only been here a couple of weeks but we are feeling that God has put us in the right place. Thank you to the many people who are praying for us and supporting us – we are very conscious that we need God’s power and presence to work effectively here.

My goal is to get one of these up every few weeks – keep an eye out for it.

God bless

Ron & Colleen

Fifth Epistle

G'day All

It is Sunday evening and we are all settling down to whatever we do at nights. Some of the blokes went into Lomsak shopping this afternoon with Pete and Ros, two Queenslanders who have been working with us for the last week and have enjoyed the experience so much they want to come back with us next year and have joined the team. We even gave them our t-shirt so it's official. They all came back from Lomsak with, of all things, a bell commonly used for cows, so relatives back in SA beware - they can very quickly drive you mad! Malc spent the afternoon drawing plans for the windows for the buildings we are working on, and I spent the afternoon swimming.

Big Whun, carer for the big girls' house asked if I would drive them all to a waterhole for a swim. I took them in what is now our (Colleen's and my) ute which I bought from Helen, one of the long term volunteers with MI in Thailand. We went to Whun's parents' place which is quite close to the spot where we bought cows a few weeks ago and is really quite beautiful. Her parents' place is quite typical of village houses, made of weathered old boards, galvanised iron, on stilts, open on three sides and with the usual paraphernalia under the house - an old tuk-tuk (motor on an old ute chassis), endless bits of bamboo, bits of bikes and the inevitable chooks with a flock of tiny chicks in tow. Suspended under the house are racks and racks of tobacco leaves in the process of drying. Behind the house is a river with a concrete weir where they go swimming. The water was sort of green until the girls got in and stirred up the mud, but it was quite cool. I was a little concerned about swimming and swallowing some of the water but decided I would take the plunge. When I got in I slowly sank to my calves in the mud at the bottom so it was quite a different experience to the local tiled pool!

The girls all wanted me to teach them how to swim which is a bit like asking me to teach them to do brain surgery but we had a lot of fun trying. Whun's mum brought out a number of old coconuts in their husks and these were the perfect floaties. Where the river was low there was an exposed gravel bed and the girls spent a creative hour collecting plants, stones, little shells, green slime, mud and gravel to make little gardens with lawn and trees. I marvelled at how these kids can make fun for themselves without having the quantity of material possessions that most of us enjoy. Afterwards they pulled some fruit of some surrounding trees and enjoyed afternoon tea. They had some locquats and another purple heart shaped fruit which grows in bunches a little like grapes.

Last weekend we visited Khon Kaen and this proved to be a most enjoyable time. As is our custom we met Wendy when we arrived on Friday night and went straight to the staekhouse where we introduced Gordon to the delights of unlimited steak, varieties of salad, Thai food, and self serve ice-cream for the princely sum of 109 baht (about $4). That night we booked into a hotel near the orphanage site and luxuriated in the comfortable beds and watched some television in English.

We had an interesting experience while we were booking in when some Thai popstars arrived. There was a bit of a media frenzy with several papparazzi and the obligatory groupies trying to get close. Several girls were hustled through the foyer and up to their rooms and then the young bloke of the moment came in. He had the grunge gear on, enough hair over his eyes to seriously impede his forward vision and his cap on with the perfect 30 degree twist to the right. He was so cool that the temperature in the foyer dropped 5 degrees! A few photos accompanied by some female squeals and he too disappeared into the lift. Five bemused foreigners finally booked in with no fanfare and not a photographer in sight!

We visited Ban Meata in the morning and what a delight it was to see some of our young friends. Dtom, the little boy who couldn't speak stood at the gate and when he recognised us his face lit up and he rushed over for a hug before taking my hand and refusing to let go. Some of you may remember Sujaree, who was so sick when we first met her and has cheated death on a couple of occasions. She is the picture of health and it was great to play basketball with her and hear the squeals of delight when we played tricks on her.

Wendy had a "little" job for us which we finished at 4 o'clock and she then invited us to join 12 of the older kids who were visiting the steakhouse that night. We didn't feel as though we could refuse (!) so off we went again. The kids enjoyed themselves immensely and were beautifully behaved the whole evening, even when Malcolm pinched their icecream when they weren't looking. He picked on one particularly lovely little girl called Maht who suffered the constant loss of her icecream with remarkable patience. When she had finally finished she went back for another bowl and very seriously went around to Malcolm and kindly gave it to him. I guess she figured that if he needed icecream that much she would have to get him some!

We enjoyed a great service of worship at the church the kids attend on Sunday mornings. It is situated in what looks like a shop in a nearby street and although 50 people would crowd it out they have the full complement of amplifiers, speakers, drums and guitars. It was great time of worship even though there were no words in English - some songs we could recognise the tunes and the others we could just make up our own words. The preacher was from a Bible College somewhere and a Singaporean lady who has a children's ministry in Thailand translated for us. Afterwards we went to Tescos where Gordon again confirmed his status as the king of shoppers. When we finally got him through the checkout we headed for "home".

The road from Lomsak to Khon Kaen is noted for the number of sugar cane trucks that have to be negotiated. There is a huge sugar factory about 50km from KK and there are large number of trucks of all shapes and sizes going either to or from. They have two things in common - they are interminably slow with big traffic buildups behind each one, and they are loaded up many metres above the height of the cab. This time we saw two lying on their sides on the road - they had simply fallen over!

Apart from shopping, weekends away and swimming we are also building. The school building has all the steel up and welded and is ready to have the tiles fitted. It looks massive and once again I apologise for not getting on top of the technology so you could see it "in the flesh". The most spectacular progress has been on "my place". We have put up the posts (cement pipes), put up the prefabricated beams, welded them together up there, and then dropped the whole thing into some slots cut into the top of the posts. Quite a feat and a credit to Malcolm's ingenuity and skills. We did the beams yesterday morning and in the afternoon the concrete planks for the second storey arrived and we have most of those in place. At this stage it looks huge and will put the Taj Mahal in the shade!

We have 6 working days to go and the plan is to have the roof tiles on the school, to put up the posts and beams on the second storey of my house and put the roof on that as well. They continue to be amazed at the amount of stuff we do while we are here. If we had a bigger team we would be able to do even more - so if any readers have any skills at all, and you can manage a few weeks from mid-January in 2009, put it in your diaries now!

Many thanks to those who have contacted us by emails or by phone - it is greatly appreciated and keeps our spirits up. Malcolm had a phone call from Ruth Stolte, Murray's wife, the other day while he was in the car, so he suggested that she ring back later when he got "home" to Ban Meata. The phone rang at about 9pm, Malcolm answered it, heard the voice and called out to Murray who grabbed the phone and rushed outside where the reception is better. At least 5 minutes later there is a shout for Malcolm to come - he had been talking to Kay all that time without realising it wasn't Ruth. And equally disturbing is that Kay didn't realise she wasn't talking to Malcolm!! No-one is revealing what that conversation was about so I guess we'll never know, but there might be some explaining to do between some parties next week!

With all we have to do this week this will probably be my last entry for this trip, so thanks to all who have made the effort to get onto the blog and persevere with the ramblings.

Till next year
God bless
Ron

Fourth Epistle

G'day Everybody
We seem to be flat out like a lizard drinking here and my blogs are getting later and later. We have had a bit of an extra load because they are short handed here at the moment with the work growing rapidly and the office girl who handles the finance being off to have a baby. Rob and Pawinee have had to do the office work and they are already overloaded so this has meant a couple of days off for some of us at various times but more of that later.

So what is happening at the building site. Seeing it come up out of the ground was quite spectacular, but the changes are a bit slower now. Chris, Murray and Gordon have spent a lot of time preparing for the first pour of the concrete floor. Malcolm has dictated extra underground beams and piers and lots of steel reinforcement because it is built on imported dirt which may compact later. At the moment the whole district could wash away but this building will still be standing there. I have spent several days with the Thai welders putting up rafters and purlins and clambering around (carefully I might add) several metres off the ground. Gordon has joined me in the last couple of days and has ventured up to the rarified air on several occasions.

Half the floor was poured last Monday and the rest will be poured next Monday so we have been furiously digging trenches for more of those strengthening beams. Fortunately the weather has been very kind to us and I would think it is not much over 30 degrees most days and on occasions cooler. Tomorrow we start putting up the trusses on top of the building - it's a long way up and we are wondering whether to wear oxygen tanks!!

Malc hopes to get a start on our second building project next week - quarters for Colleen and I when we come for an extended time in June. As usual, plans change quickly and we are now building a 2 storey place. Mercy wants more accommodation for long term volunteers and there is a possibility that friends of ours may come this year and take up residence in the top storey. There is little money available to build these units so if anyone feels led to further the work in Thailand in this way, contributions would be greatly appreciated.

Gordon and I had a bit of an unexpected adventure last week when a bloke from Queensland, looking to see what mission projects his new company might support, arrived here to have a look at the orphanage. Terry is a builder and has started a company to raise funds from the corporate sector for missions. He enjoyed his time with us and spent many hours talking building with Malcolm. He had a friend, Sunni, a Filipino doctor living in Bangkok with his wife and family who delighted us with his sense of humour and stories. We very much enjoyed the company of both of them.

Because there were no spare people to show them other Ban Meata sites I took them to Khon Kaen and Gordon came along as well. We spent a couple of hours with Wendy looking at the redevelopment plans for Khon Kaen and then Terry wanted to go further towards the Cambodian border where he knew of a little orphanage. Towards evening we arrived and were met by a Thai pastor and his wife who took us to their orphanage. They, Hannah and Neehami, were a delightful couple and she spoke very good English and the joy of the Lord just shone from her face. Their orphanage has just 12 children and they have 2 buildings and a church on their property. Serendipitously, or more likely a God-incident, a young Australian was working with them for a couple of weeks and it turned out that I had met him a couple of years ago at my brother's place in Melbourne when we spoke of Thailand and orphanages.

That night Hannah had booked us into a motel/resort - a series of separate buildings - nearby. We had 2 units, Gordon and I in one and Terry and Sunni in the other. The first surprise was that they just had double beds! We all looked at one another and decided that wasn't on so we demanded extra mattresses to sleep on the floor. My mattress was pretty thin and I think I could feel the grout between the tiles. Gordon slept on the bed and had his first experience of Thai hotel beds. Typically you could have used it for road surface so he woke up less rested than he expected. Otherwise the units were excellent - very clean, the shower was hot (at least ours was) and they ordered in breakfast of a hot dog and 2 fried eggs for us from a local restaurant for breakfast.

We made our way back to Phetchabun the following day under Sunni's expert navigation. He seems to have a great memory for maps and just calls out which way to go even though he's never been there before. At one large town he decided to take us around the town rather than through the main street, and the streets became smaller and smaller until we found ourselves bouncing along a dirt track through someone's backyard. We emerged on the main highway however so his reputation as an infallible navigator remained intact.

While this was happening Murray and Chris went with Rob and Pawinee on a visa run to the Laos border so Rob could get his visa stamped. Murray and Chris only had single entry visas so they had to stay in Thailand while Rob and Pawinee shopped in the markets of a Laos border town at one of the Friendship bridges (engineered and built by Australians over, I think, the Mekong River).

Malcolm had his adventure yesterday when another baby and a 2 year old turned up and had to be taken to Phrae for Sharon to look after. Again there was nobody spare to take them, and Malcolm has been nursing a strained knee, so he went. He had only ever travelled to Phrae in the back of the ute so I drew him a map of which turns to take and off he set with big Whun (as distinct from Colleen's and my Whun) and another carer looking after the kids. Whun is apparently not good with directions and she had him turn south down a highway that he should have gone north on. He didn't think it was right but thought he had better trust the locals. 60km down that road Whun made a phone call to check and was most embarrassed to have led Malc astray. They duly delivered the kids, albeit a little later than expected and then headed back "home", arriving about 8.30pm.

This weekend we all head off to Khon Kaen where we stay in a hotel (which we already know has good beds!) and some of the blokes are hanging out to do some serious shopping. More news of that in the next blog.

Today is Valentine's Day and is it ever big in Thailand. Sand, one of the carers, marched her kids on their way to school past the visitors' house while we were having breakfast, and gave us all chocolates and a big hug. All the kids we came across had sheets of little stickers and they put them on our shirts. Walking past the school buildings I had several kids (not from the orphanage) call out in their best English, "Happy Valentines Day - I love you"! If I had gone any further I could have had proposals of marriage!! The newspapers are full of government warnings about some of the more illicit forms of love on Valentine's Day.

I must apologise for the continuing lack of pictures. I tried tonight but they would not upload onto the blog for some reason and my deep and intimate knowledge of all things technological couldn't cope.

Our health is very good except for Malcolm's knee which nearly prevents him from climbing ladders and stuff. Keep praying for us that we will achieve what we plan to do and enjoy continued good health. For those interested (could be up to 3) my glucometer readings for diabetes have never been lower since being diagnosed. Even the fruits of Valentine's Day didn't make much difference!

Well, as always, till next time....

God bless
Ron