Missive 4 – 2015

Life changes a bit when the building team go home – Malcolm, Peter and the Brisbane people all left over a week ago now.  I was left with a fistful of notes from Malcolm about what to do next.  I was left as the expert on where to put the purlins and how to put the valleys in the roof – fortunately Malcolm explained it all clearly and the Thai boys have pretty good idea of what to do, although I had to ask Deo to do one of the valleys again.  We had another church team from Brisbane turn up and one bloke in particular is keen to pitch in with the building so he has helped me set up the boxing to build a retaining wall on which we will pour the verandah.

We poured the concrete for the retaining walls and the verandah support posts late last week.  I was saved an embarrassing mistake that day when I calculated the amount of concrete.  I measured all the holes and boxing, and one 6 metre length of the walls was 300m wide and 300mm deep.  On my scrap of paper I wrote down .3 x .3 = .9 (I wouldn’t be happy if my Year 6 Maths kids made that mistake!).  That made 5.5 cubic metres of concrete rather than about .5 – a truckful!  When we were nearing the end of the second truck load and the job was nearly finished, I was starting to panic and wonder what we would do with all that concrete (about $300 worth).  We were fortunately able to cancel the third truck and avoid an expensive disaster. I couldn’t work out how my estimate could be so far out and a couple of days later I found the scrap of paper - and the mistake.

I need to introduce you to some international members of the building tam.  For a number of years a group of Dutch peoplehave joined us.  They are usually reasonably elderly but that is no reflection on their doggedness in working out in the sun and doing some of the less glamorous building jobs like washing and painting the steel, weaving the mesh for the floor, painting the welds and so on.  This year there were only two, Adelbert Hesseling and Annette Doorn.  Adelbert had had a pacemaker put in last year so he wasn’t in peak condition but he did a great job.  They have raised large amounts of euro in the Netherlands by doing all sorts of fundraising activities including cracking the ice off the river in their town and being sponsored for going swimming (I would have thought that would do the job of a pacemaker!).  They left a couple of days ago and they went away with the challenge of raising 20,000 or so euros to renovate the big girls’ house and put on a second storey.  That may be our job in 2016 – book your holidays now!

It’s this time of the year when I usually pack away my building clothes, resort to shorts and a t-shirt and work in the office on some admin stuff.  That’s not going to happen completely although I have some things I am doing for Rob that I am fitting in between building jobs.  He is being awarded an honorary degree from Phetchabun University for his contribution to Thailand and this province in particular.  I have been putting together an acceptance speech supported by photographs of his and House of Mercy’s impact on the area.  And the Rotary Club at Khon Kaen is keen to support us to develop a TAFE-like skills training centre here and at KK so another job will be helping to prepare a proposal to present to the Rotary Club in a couple of weeks.

On top of that I have preached at worship here for the last 2 weeks so a bit of time has gone into preparing for that.  I usually try to use something visual and today I talked about branding cattle in Australia to show ownership.  I had Boonsilit weld me a branding iron with JC on it to illustrate, and then I explained that Jesus doesn’t use a branding iron but we have the “mark of a Christian” on us to show that we belong to Jesus – fruits of the Spirit, loving one another (John 5:34, 35) and loving our enemies (Matt 5:44).  After that I conducted communion and that was a special time.

Last week I was invited to a meal at Mum Whun’s grandma’s house.  Grandma is 84 and hasn’t been well for a while so that day she had been to the doctor.  She had a few tablets and was told to drink and eat more.  Probably good advice as she is such a tiny sparrow of a lady.  I have shared in past missives of the rather idyllic, quintessentially Thai backdrop at her house.  When we got there and Whun went off to help with the meal, I was assigned to talk to Grandma who firstly wanted to know where Colleen was.  We then conversed for a while, her in fluent Thai and me in fluent English but I think we agreed on most things.  Whun’s Dad eventually came home from work on his all-purpose tractor/cultivator/pump/family transport and set about preparing the meal along with Whun’s brother (a truck driver).  A few aunties turned up as well to make a goodly number for the meal.  We had laap, finely chopped meat with herbs and spices, sticky rice and a plate of herbs and weeds on the side.  The meat was pig intestines and pig liver.  The sticky rice was cooked outside in a well-used basket over a boiling pot of water on a fire.  A couple of chicks, appreciating the extra warmth (not sure why, it was pretty warm any way) were snuggling in a hole under the stones holding the fire.  We ate of course on the floor (there are no chairs in the house) and I was rather ashamed of my inability to sit crosslegged through the meal and then be able to stand straight up afterwards.  The meal was delicious although there was plenty of pizzaz from the chili.

We acquired two more children tonight in rather heartrending circumstances.  The father of 3 of our children by a variety of wives had a Cambodian lady as his next wife.  She has twin boys about 4 years old.  The father died in a motorcycle accident last year and the Cambodian wife is not wanted by the rest of the family and has no citizenship papers.  She brought the twins to us tonight and she will either return to Cambodia (with a consequent problem for the children) or get “lost” in Thailand to try and survive (with the consequent problem of looking after the children).  It was heartwrenchingto see her hand them over, she was in tears and remained in that state while Mum Whun drove her back to her village.  One of the boys is particularly upset and I could hear him crying inconsolably in his house later this evening.  Your prayers for these two kids would be appreciated.

Speaking of accidents we have had stories of some near misses in recent days.  There seems to be no requisite for a brain when they give out licences to drive a tuk-tuk here. On the weekend Rob and Jean drove around a blind corner to find a tuk-tuk parked in the middle of the road.  A four wheel lock up stop had them finishing centimetres from the vehicle.  Last week Glom narrowly missed an unlit tuk-tuk at night on the nearby Ban Klang road.  It too was stopped in the middle of the road.  A 20 year old uni student returning home was not so lucky.  Blinded by oncoming headlights he ran into it and was killed.  The funeral procession passed Ban Meata yesterday on the way to the burning house at the local temple.

Less than two weeks to go and plenty still to do.  Your ongoing prayers are really much appreciated.  Please pray for Colleen too who has to endure these long stays of mine and is struggling with considerable back pain at the moment.

God bless

Ron

Missive 3 – 2015

I don’t want to rub it in, but the weather here has been magnificent for the last three weeks. While Adelaide sweltered in an over 40 degree heatwave we enjoyed days of sub-30 degrees and nights that were down in the teens. The mornings have been so cold that the Thais are getting around in parkas and coming up for hugs just to keep warm. To fill you with envy let me describe morning tea on the building site. Two of the Thai women come to the site bearing plates of watermelon, sliced pineapple so sweet you eat it last so all the other stuff tastes OK by comparison, cubes of papaya and refreshing pomelo. Jugs of cordial and iced water complete the table. As the girls appear the cry of “smoko!” goes up across the site and we all sit under the trees, enjoying the refreshments and the cool breeze which has prevailed during our stay. This is then repeated in the middle of the afternoon. At 12 noon “khin khow” is shouted (lunch, or literally, “eat rice”) and we all troop off to the dining room where we sit down to a beautiful range of Thai food each day, deliberately “mai phet” (not spicy) to suit the tastes of the “ferengues” (foreigners). Now that should make our building team bigger in 2016!! The work is going ahead quickly and well. As I begin to write this we have topped the walls around the outside and the trusses go up this week. Over 3,500 blocks have been laid in this time. After 7 days of block-laying I have lost the fingerprints on my left hand (I’ve taken to wearing a glove on my right) and the cement dries out the skin to the point of cracking. I asked Ben (see Missive 2) jokingly if he knew anything about safe-cracking that he could teach me now I didn’t have fingerprints. He said that would be no problem, he’d done a few in his time!! Isn’t the grace of God good?!! And now to introduce another couple of team members. Marty Kuhlevein comes from Queensland and owns a large fleet of school buses, a fleet of skip collecting trucks, and a fleet of liquid waste trucks. He is a bit over 30, became a Christian a few short years ago, celebrated by having “RIGHTEOUS” tattooed across his chest, and has taken up boxing in the middleweight division to keep fit. Becoming a Christian didn’t go down well with his second wife and he is praying for a restoration in that relationship. David Hill is an older bloke from Maleny in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. He came out of the army as an alcoholic and with two broken marriages behind him. Becoming a Christian healed him of his addiction and he is rejoicing in what God has done in his life, including meeting his third wife at church. He is an electrician and has been put to good use preparing for the wiring through the house and this week will install switchboards and wiring. He has worked mainly with Ben and it has been great to see the mentoring that is happening. He offered Ben 1000baht if he didn’t swear for a whole day – and then said if you can choose to do it for one day, you can do it for the rest of your life. I spent some time with Ben today explaining the freedom that comes from choosing righteousness. It’s great to see God’s grace at work! Whun rang the other night to say she has bought her motorbike and had quite an adventure on the first day she rode it into work. She leaves Ban Meata about 8am and has to ride about 25km into the city of Phrae. She doesn’t finish work until about 7pm so she has to ride home in the dark. On that first day she found that her headlight wasn’t working so with some ingenuity she put the light on her mobile phone at the front and rode home very slowly. Sharon and John (Managers at Ban Meata Phrae) told her where to get it fixed the next day so she duly took it in for repair. To her great embarrassment she discovered that it works perfectly but she hadn’t turned it on!! A couple of Sundays ago a few of us went up into the mountains near Ban Meata to a place called Khao Kho where there is a new Buddhist temple with the most amazing and extravagant mosaic decorations and where their signature statues of Buddha are made up of five Buddhas sitting in decreasing size in front of another. The complex, including its surrounding gardens is spectacular so we went to visit. It was the coldest day we have experienced in Thailand and the mountain on which the temple sits was in dense cloud – we were able to see the mosaics but couldn’t see the top of the temple and couldn’t see the 40 metre high Buddhas. A bit disappointing for those who hadn’t seen it and fits into the “next time” category. All of this is to a god made of stone and I was reminded of the asherah poles and the Baal worship on the high places in Israel mentioned so often in Kings and Chronicles. And reminded also that South Australia is now the proud owner of a Buddhist temple on one of the high places south of Adelaide, with a giant Buddha due to be constructed! As I write there are 3 days of work before the building team leaves – the trusses are up on top of the walls (much heavy lifting), the ceiling joists are being welded underneath the trusses (more heavy lifting because they are welded into 24 metre lengths) and I am currently laying the last row of blocks so the walls reach the ceiling. That’s it for this week – until next time ……….. God bless Ron

Missive 2 – 2015

The building work continues apace.  We are working on the walls and hoped to have them nearly topped by the time this is posted.  I have turned my hand to block laying and am finding it a satisfying job.  We are building in hebel blocks which are fairly light and of uniform shape even though they are 600mm x 200mm x 75mm.  We use a cement based glue rather than mortar.  I was doing really well up to a certain height and then my skills and dodgy spirit level let me down.  Malcolm checked one of my walls and it was 20mm off vertical at the top, so he pulled it down – much mirth about strong winds overnight and I set about rebuilding.  It took about half a day to get back to where I was the night before but now it’s a great wall – professional standard!!

Let me introduce some of our team.  After Malcolm there is Peter Lawrie, his brother, who is also a friend of ours from Lucindale days.  Then there is Richard Wray, from Bracken Ridge Baptist in Brisbane, who has been on the team for several years now.  He brought with him a young man, Ben, who was converted at his church several weeks ago.  His is an amazing testimony.  He comes from a family of alcoholics which at times was abusive and he learned to use violence as a solution to a problem.  He was also seriously misusing drugs and alcohol.  He had a son from a relationship with a girl who shared his drug and alcohol problem.  A couple of years ago his ex-girlfriend had an accident while drunk and the little boy was killed.  Ben went around to her place and in his own drunken rage beat up and severely injured her boyfriend.  He spent some time in gaol over that incident.  Armed robbery put him in there again and aggravated violence a third time.  Anyway, the saving grace of Jesus has turned his life around.  Richard practically demanded that he come to Thailand and Ben says it’s been the best thing for him.  Pray for him as the Spirit makes changes to his temper and his addictions and other aspects of his life that need to come under the Lordship of Christ. 

Whun and Why have both returned to Phrae and Khon Kaenrespectively.  Whun has started her new job in the city of Phrae and is still resolved to do it for 2 months.  She was encouraged back at the orphanage by the children she was teaching saying that they wanted her back.  Keep praying for her – in fact redouble prayer for her!  The day she went back she was on the back of a motor-bike driven by her friend Waen who didn’t heed warnings to slow down so off they came.  Whun hopped off at the last minute but Waen lost a fair bit of skin on hands, arms and leg.  Then on Saturday she was going in to her job  in Phrae on the back of a bike which another friend, Far, was driving.  A tuk-tuk turned unexpectedly in front of them and off they came.  This time Far was unhurt but Whun hurt her knee and hand, thankfully not seriously.  She rang me with this news and said that she will drive from now on because she drives slower and more carefully.  Pray that this is so!

STOP PRESS: Whun rang to say that a relative of the lady in the office there has a motor-bike for sale and Whun is very keen to buy it.  It is 10,000baht (about $400).  A mixed blessing!

FINAL BUILDING REPORT for this missive – most of the walls are up to the tops of the windows and we have begun to put up the concrete lintels.  We have made the lintels on-site and they weigh about 200kgs each.  We winch them up with an endless chain suspended from 6m ladders.

Apologies for the lack of photos but I can’t upload them onto my email website and I haven’t got Outlook working yet.

 

Missive 1 - 2015

Missive 1 – 2015 We’ve been doing this every year since 2005 (bit different last year because of health issues) but it never seems to get old. The same enthusiastic welcome, the same hundred hugs a day, the same gratefulness for what we come to do. Our flights went well and our plan for the parts of the team from Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth to meet at a preordained spot at Suvarabhumi airport nearly went well. Eric, an older bloke (87 – doesn’t do any work on the jackhammer but has been very generous to House of Mercy) from Perth got his wires crossed and after searching all three levels of the airport amongst about a million people we finally found him waiting outside. We had a mini-bus waiting for us and set off on the 5 hour journey to Phetchabun with just a couple of comfort stops and to stock up on Coke and other health foods. We arrived at 2.30am and that’s where a minor problem began for me. Our house, creatively called “Ron’s Place”, is used spasmodically when Colleen and I aren’t here so we suggested it might be a good to use it for girls who are attending university and need to develop independence by not living under the direct control of one of the “Mums”. To make this possible and still be available for our use they have been working hard for a couple of months modifying the house with an extra room and making the bathroom facilities suitable for joint use. I knew all this, but not what the modifications looked like. We received a text message the evening before saying which rooms the other blokes were sleeping in in the guest house, and that my door would be left unlocked. So I dragged my luggage down to “Ron’s Place” (gravel path), tried the door and found it locked, and noted that there were girls’ shoes on the front verandah. Unperturbed I took out the key which I carry with me and went in. Presuming our room was still our room I went in and turned the light on – two of the girls were sleeping there! More cautious this time, I looked into our second bedroom and found the third girl sleeping there. So I went out the back and found a new room, finally found the door – and it was locked! So I dragged all my luggage back to the guest house, found a bed a grabbed a few hours’ sleep. I was let in the next morning and the room really is lovely with a new bathroom independent of the rest of the house. All credit to Chris Stolte, an old building team member who is now married to one of the Thai girls. Our body clocks had us up reasonably early and although the plan for day one was to take it easy we were on site, and I was on the jackhammer, by 10am. Our task this year is to build another accommodation building on a slab that has been unused for 12-15 years because of a mistake that made one end 200mm higher than the other. In the ensuing days we have jackhammered through the concrete to put in the plumbing, completed the plumbing, boxed up around the slab 250mm out, barrowed in 20 cubic metres of sand to save concrete on one end, dug a trench 80m long and 600mm deep for the power, woven 10m by 10m squares of mesh for reinforcing the floor, and washed and painted the steel for the trusses and door frames. It is the New Year school break at the moment so Glom (manager) has been very keen to have the kids come out and help us. For some of the above jobs that has been very helpful. I had a group of the older girls and some of the boys to do the weaving. We lay out 10m lengths of 6mm steel rod 200mm apart, then weave other 10m lengths through it – much coordination and teamwork required. We then shift the resultant square of mesh onto the slab – a great sight with about 40 kids and workers holding it above their heads carrying it to the slab. On New Year’s Eve we had a big party on the quadrangle with each house set up with their bucket barbecues and a supply of charcoal. We were just about to get started when we got a phone call from Why who had bussed across from Khon Kaen. I went into Lomsak to get her and to enjoy a warm reunion. When we were driving out of the bus station Why received a call from an upset Whun who had gone into the Phrae bus station to try and get down to see me but all the buses were full. She had to get back to Ban Meata (Phrae) and try again the next day – this time she was successful and another great reunion occurred the next evening. It was so good to see her again. Why is doing much better at her studies this year although I want to talk to her about good study habits before she goes back after the New Year break. Please keep praying for her, that her dedication will see her begin to excel again. Whun is not in a good place. She is finding it very hard doing the teaching that is required of her as well as the other duties that go along with teaching 3 year olds as well as some 2 year olds – this includes changing nappies and toilet training. “Why can’t they sit and listen like they do in Gemma’s class?” she asked. When in Australia she spent a day observing a JP class at St Michael’s where our grandchildren go. I have spent some hours with her talking through a few problems and re-setting some goals. She has become so disenchanted she has gotten a job in Phrae (25kms away) selling phones. The road in and out is notorious for drug deals by the roadside so please pray for her protection and for her future. She has agreed to do this job for 2 months and then go back for a fresh start and enrol at Uni for some study. As expected Glom asked if I could preach on the first Sunday we were here. Thanks to Ps Mark Schulz for his idea of wrapped gifts to explain the gifts that come with Christmas – love (a heart), the Cross (a Cross!) and new life (egg). It was well received in Thailand as well as at Glenunga UC! A final building update – the slab has been repoured, the boxing has come off, the walls have been marked out on the slab, the corner blocks have been laid, and half the door frames are standing in place. More news next week.

Missive 6 – 2013

Life takes on a different shape as we are back “home” at Phetchabun. We are in our house, “Ron’s Place”, and enjoying the growth of the plants around it. The frangipani has grown and a bush/tree with beautiful red flowers that Colleen nurtured through a few setbacks with whipper-snippers is now huge. Another agave type of plant that had a slow start is now monstrous and we’ll have to cut some of it back to walk past it. We usually eat with the kids but on a couple of occasions we have cooked in our house and there-in lies a funny story. We were having pork chops and some stir-fried vegetables and Colleen poured some oil from a jar on the sink cupboard into the frying pan. It bubbled up straight away and we wondered if it was fresh so we used more oil from a new bottle. We sat down to a huge pork chop each and a beautiful pile of vegetables, but the first mouthful was absolutely awful. We had to leave the vegetables and persevere with the pork because although it was not good it was at least bearable. We concluded that the oil must have been rancid so before throwing it out Colleen put some on her fingers and then under water. It frothed up beautifully – just like the detergent it was!! For the Jews pork is unclean, but these couple of Gentiles had ensured that theirs wasn’t! Colleen had a great birthday made even better by Mum Whun, who was having her day off at her parents’ place in a nearby village, inviting us to lunch there. We love going there because it is a piece of genuine Thailand with traditional wooden housing set amongst coconut palms and “fair-dinkum jungle”. They, and mainly Whun’s Dad, had prepared a beautiful meal of soups, lap (spicy minced pork) and sticky rice. We sat outside on a wooden platform with the food in bowls amongst us, although Colleen was given a chair to sit in. A couple of dogs were in attendance as were a number of chickens who scratched around blissfully ignorant of the feet of one of their number sticking over the edge of one of the soup bowls. Whun’s Grandma, all of 84 years old, was eating with us and she chatted on endlessly telling us about various recent incidents, including falling over and hurting her arm. Much of this was obvious but Whun chipped in with a bit of translation here and there. We talked tobacco farming with Whun’s Dad in the shadow of drying tobacco from the recent crop, and her Mum shared a few health woes as well. They love to have us come and the language difference doesn’t seem to matter. It was such a special time and one of the reasons we love Thailand – don’t you wish you were here? That night we took our Whun and Why, Joop Jang (another girl from their house), Mum Whun and her sister Tip (who is now a carer at Ban Meata) into Phetchabun (40kms) for a birthday tea at the Pizza Company. The meal for 7 cost us about $50, pretty good by our standards but nearly a week’s wages for Tip. One of our reasons for being here is to attend the graduation ceremony for Why and 5 other of our Year 12 students attending the Kanchanar School in Lomsak. It is one of about a dozen of the “King’s Schools” and although there is a cost to attending this has been made possible through each student having a generous sponsor. Somchai and Cheewar had their sponsors here for the ceremony and of course we have an interest in Why. We were so proud of all them. The ceremony is held in a large elevated hall with fans all way round which have jets of water making a cooling mist in the hot conditions. Up the front there was a row of Buddhist monks and a podium lavishly decorated with flowers for the Headmaster to sit in. The school orchestra entertained the waiting parents with many tunes recognisable to Westerners. The students, about 150 of them marched in, spectacular in their dress uniforms and were seated in rows in alphabetic order. The top few students were seated in the front row, including our Why who was equal second. They began with a short Buddhist ceremony and while everybody held their hands in the wei position our 6 students stood with their hands by their sides declaring that they are Christians. It is good that the school, and the Buddhist society generally, is tolerant of other beliefs. In a highly regimented fashion and row by row the students made their way to the front and received their graduation certificates in a special blue folder. The Thais love photographs and it took about an hour after that to get the whole school photo as well as the little groups that gathered in front of the i-pads, the mobiles, and the more conventional cameras. After processing out of the hall they all made their way up to the quadrangle in front of the multi-storey school and marched in military fashion in front of the staff and dignitaries, all of whom were dressed in what looked like naval officer uniforms bedecked with medals and other regalia. The marching style is reminiscent of what we see on TV when the North Koreans parade although the leg does not go as high at the front. Eyes right and the salute happen as the parade passes the teachers on the steps of the school – very spectacular but maybe a bit over the top in our Western eyes. We took the kids out to lunch at a restaurant afterwards and we feasted regally on fish, tom yum soup, rice, and a variety of tasty pork, chicken and vegetable dishes in lovely sauces. The kids were very pleased to get out of their formal jackets, buttoned to the neck for the boys and worn with a tie for the girls. Each of the 6 kids is currently sitting what seems like an endless stream of exams, mostly entrance exams for university. I still haven’t come to grips with the complexity of the university entrance system here although every conversation I have reveals another nuance which makes it a bit clearer. Why is my best bet in this – she takes the time to patiently explain how it works with a dictionary in one hand to sort out the technical stuff. She is a marvel and we love her dearly. The very next day we prepared again for feasting at a gathering of Mercy International leaders and sponsors where we looked back over and celebrated the enormous changes and achievements of the 3 orphanages over the last 5 years. Colleen and I were charged with the table decorations so we went into Lomsak with our Whun to negotiate for 10 floral table arrangements and 2 large sheafs of flowers. We needed to pick them up on Saturday morning so we waited with some trepidation to see if that part of the negotiations had been understood. We needn’t have worried, they were beautifully done, looked stunning and the whole lot cost $60 – similar stuff in Australia we estimate would cost over $300. Colleen ended up supervising some of the food preparation to match the menu - the concept of separate courses is a bit lost on the Thais. It was a good night though, interrupted by a blackout because there was a rainstorm happening so for a while we ate by “mobile phone light” – torchlight is much easier to say! We started with some traditional Thai dancing by some girls from our school – their dance teacher is a man, well, at this stage he is but I understand he has other intentions and certainly his eyebrows and make-up indicated that he plans to bat for the other side! We then heard the stories of how each orphanage is going and how the farm, the community outreach programmes, the English language school at Sisaket, our own school, and the recently begun uniform sewing project is progressing. Unfortunately our time here is drawing to a close. We will be home in less than 2 weeks. Our Whun will graduate next year and she is eagerly looking forward to us coming for that. “If you do not come I cry, if you come I smile”, she is saying. We are so proud of her and her English – everyone in her house and in her class at school look to her when they are struggling with their English. So that looks like it as far as blogs go for 2013. If you have kept up, thanks for travelling the journey with me. I have appreciated and valued your thoughts and prayers. God bless Ron Colleen's birthday at Mum Whun's Colleen's birthday at Pizza Company the 6 graduates with one of their teachers We are so proud of them! The headgear of one of the Thai dancers

Missive 5 - 2013

One thing that is slowing us down and is frustrating the life out of Malcolm is the Thai contractor for block laying, rendering and tiling who doesn’t pay his workers so they don’t turn up on site. Pawinee has therefore arranged for a team to come from Phetchabun to render and tile the dining room/kitchen/laundry and they are making progress. There is something quintessentially Thai about them and it is interesting to see how they live. They camp on the site in little tents and seem to live off the land as well. They have nets in which they catch small fish from the dam and they cook their meals over a fire behind the building they are working on. One of the women has already levelled a small patch near the dam and planted a few things which are no doubt destined for the cooking pot in a few weeks’ time. There are at least two families living there including a couple of children, one maybe four and the other only one. The one year old has a sleep in a hammock strung between two posts on the building and Mum, who mixes mortar for the tiling, dashes over every now and then to give the hammock a swing. There is no day-care for working Mums in Thailand! It was a delight to watch the father, as fathers do everywhere, take the kids for a ride around the site in a wheelbarrow and to hear the squeals of delight as he went through mud, over some bumpy bits and up onto the building slab. As we walk the streets around the site we come across a range of homes from the obviously wealthy to the obviously poor. Just down the street there is a family that owns a couple of cows and they are housed at night in the most ramshackle shed you can imagine with a drinking trough, straw on the floor, and a number of ducks bedded down with the cows. I reckon you could plonk the baby Jesus in there and have a pretty genuine nativity scene. Last Sunday I visited an Australian Dutch bloke and his Thai partner in a neat little house in a back street behind the site. I met Ben (75 years old) and Rut (in her 40’s) last year when I was out walking. I took Alan Baker with me and we were welcomed like old friends, given a cup of tea, and we spent an hour and a half chatting with them. As a result of my visit last year they came over to the site a few months ago, made themselves known to the small team that was here at the time (some Queenslanders with Richard) and cooked them a meal. Ben migrated to Australia in the 50’s, lived in Perth and trained race horses so we had a long conversation about drugs in sport! He is also an acquaintance of Brian Cousins, Ben Cousins’ dad, so that was more grist for the mill in our conversation. Just a little sideline here. We worked a bit late one night this week and there was a beautiful red and purple sunset and overhead were thousands upon thousands of white cranes flying in V-formations and taking several minutes to complete their “flypast”. It was a wonderful sight not to be missed. Now where are we up to with the building? – and this is pretty much the final report as we all pack up by the middle of next week. We have poured more square metres of concrete this year than last when we poured the four building slabs. We have poured verandahs front, back and sides on the 3 houses, verandahs on the front and side of the dining room, a basketball court size play area, a road through the middle of the site, and a path along the front of the buildings. The big pours, 4 and 5 truck loads, are proving quite difficult as the concrete goes off quite quickly in the heat and we struggle with our numbers to get it floated off while it is still workable. Without the helicopter we would have no hope. We have put ceilings in the dining room and bottom storey of the 2 storey house, flushed and painted them. The electrical work has been done in the 2 storey house, and a huge amount of plumbing has been completed – there are blue PVC pipes everywhere. A local Rotary Club has offered to put in a water filtration system so we have been working frantically (mostly Richard) to get another few hundred metres of pipe in under the paths before we poured so we could get the filtered water to each of the houses. All in all we have made a huge difference to the site in 6 weeks notwithstanding the comment at the head of this missive about the hold-ups. Our bodies are showing signs of weariness and there will be a certain pleasure next week in not having to get up and go to work shovelling dirt in the sun in 37 degree heat. But the sense of satisfaction is enormous and there is a real sense amongst the team of serving God as we give these special kids “Life, hope and a future” as Mercy International’s vision statement says. Colleen arrived in Thailand yesterday and today (Friday) she travelled to Phetchabun by bus and was met by Mum Whun, our Whun, and all the girls from the big girls’ house. On Sunday I travel there in time for her birthday – it will only be the third time I have been with her on her birthday in the last 9 years! The next missive will be of a different flavour as I change gears and spend 4 weeks at the Phetchabun Ban Meata and get involved in some admin work – as yet undefined! Until then God bless Ron The difference we've made in 6 weeks Manger scene The ramshackle cow shed The 3rd house going up Ben & Rut

Missive 4 – 2013

I thought a word picture of a typical day might give you some of the flavour of our stay here. I wrote earlier that the day seemed to start at 5.15am when Jai starts rattling the pans, but I must confess that it is 7.45am before I, and all the others appear for breakfast. Most of us live in the “yellow house” (very creatively named as you will see from the photo). It is a rented property to cater for teams on the site just 50 metres down the narrow street. It has several bedrooms upstairs and a large living area downstairs which has beds for 3 people. This is where I sleep with my mosquito net (my princess bed according to the others) and Trevor, my travelling bear in pride of place on the pillow. There is a lounge area where we sit and eat or read at nights, and over a serving bench there is a fridge, cupboards and a sink. The kitchen is attached at the back and is typically Thai with slatted walls – Thais hate cooking smells in their houses. Back to breakfast. I usually have a bowl of cornflakes and toast with vegemite and cheese. The toaster is a high-tech looking thing but makes the slowest toast in the world – it’s hard to tell whether it’s cooked or just went stale waiting. Actually Thai bread never goes stale because there are enough additives to keep it going for weeks. Before 8am it’s on with the work boots and over to the site to continue with a job or get a new one from Malc. This week I have been relieved of channelling conduit and spent the time boxing up for concrete. We have large steel frames with a timber face which we use and re-use for boxing and these have to be manoeuvred into place, pegged or fixed to a verandah post for example, the dirt levelled inside, steel mesh laid inside, steel pegs drilled into the walls to tie the slab to the building if it’s a verandah, trenches dug at the edges for a thicker edge, and level pegs put in with a laser so the screeding can be done accurately. At 10am we take 30 minutes off for “smoko” back at the yellow house where we are served with cordial, pineapple, watermelon, papaya and some uniquely Thai little jam filled biscuits. We are then back on the job for another two hours before repairing to the yellow house for lunch. This is a highlight and we have been served some wonderful Thai dishes, prepared with minimum or no chilli. The Thai workers sit down in the kitchen and I usually go out there to get some chilli or to try out some of their spicy dishes. The two afternoon sessions, split by afternoon smoko, are only one and a half hours which is great because the afternoons can get pretty hot. As I write this we have finished a day’s work in 37 degree heat and everyone drinks copious amounts of water to replace the copious amounts lost through sweat. We have actually been blessed with some pretty mild weather with a few weeks of temperatures in the high twenties. We knock off at 5pm and head for the showers to wash off the grime of the day. You wouldn’t believe how nice a cold bottle of Coke Zero is at the end of the day. We then organise ourselves for our evening meal. Sometimes we go to the little local eatery for the world’s best pad thai, sometimes we drive to the steakhouse, sometimes we get food from a local market, and sometimes we go to Central Plaza, a huge shopping complex with a whole floor of food outlets like KFC, Sizzler, Maccas (expensive) and a food court (cheap). The evening at the yellow house is made up of sitting in front of laptops (emails and writing blogs!), and in my case working through my crossword book, doing my Bible reading and devouring a number of novels. Everyone wanders off to bed at various times (they are nearly all old people here!!) and I am usually the last go at about 10.30pm unless the novel is very gripping. Well, that’s the shape of the day for 6 days and we have Sunday off, going to church with kids at the Ban Meata centre in the morning and then lazing around for the afternoon. We have just about exhausted the tourist potential of Khon Kaen – that took up the first Sunday afternoon! We received some sad news this past week. Some of you would remember Tim and Steph, the Irish couple, who worked with us last year and who received news while they were here that their son had contracted leukaemia. After all the usual treatment over the last 12 months he died a few days ago. There was some good news in that he had been estranged from his parents for a number of years and that situation was resolved. He also went to church with his parents in the last days and heard the gospel clearly which Tim and Steph believe had an impact on his life. As I conclude this missive the Dutch people are leaving us so we are a much depleted workforce and our chances of finishing some things in the original plan are fading. The last event for the Dutch was to bring all the kids out from the Ban Meata centre to witness the unveiling of the marble plaque announcing that the first completed house (well, almost) is designated the “Dutch House”. I have mentioned before that they raise enormous amounts of money doing lots of normal things (eg, Thai dinners) and a few bizarre things (eg, breaking the ice and swimming in the river, 24 hour stationary bike rides). As I conclude this missive it is a lazy Sunday afternoon and getting very warm again. The last few days have been over 35 degrees so working out in the sun getting ready for concreting tomorrow has been a hot business. A few of us went over to Tescos (large shopping centre) for lunch at their food court today and tonight we will wander over to the market on the local school grounds and pick up a few items for tea. For me that will be some chicken pieces, maybe some chopped pork, a spicy salad in a plastic bag, and some sticky rice, also in a plastic bag. Don’t you wish you were here?! One more blog next week before I head back to Phetchabun to meet up with Colleen who is leaving Australia this Thursday and arriving at Ban Meata on Friday. God bless Ron

The Yellow House

My bed

Yellow house kitchen

Dining room before the next round of concreting