Long time, no blog

It has been way too long since our last blog. We got a bit smothered in all the activity here, and I guess this blog was left on a shelf too long. But no worries, we're back and there is lots of good stuff happening here.

Visitors:

First of all, I would like to thank all of the visitors that have come by to see us lately.

Tazza helped me with cabinetry and other stuff, thanks for that, sorry you and I got sick. But we got lots done on the good days. The house was still quite rough when you got here (no hot water in cold season,etc) but you were a real trooper, tougher than many missionaries I know.

Installing stairs with Dad

My mom and dad came here for 7 weeks. I was very impressed with their ability to adjust to the third world and they seemed to enjoy life on the mountain. We worked too hard, and I hope we can do more leisure stuff next time they come. It was great to work with dad again and I have never eaten so well in Thailand, thanks to mom.

Peggy and Terry came up from Chiang Mai and we had a good time chatting with Terry while Peggy got some of her university research done by interviewing tribal girls.

Terry Wharf came up from Sriracha with all of the El Shaddai kids. They caught lots of fish and had some fun. It was good to catch up. The kids are all so much bigger now.

And our friend Rudyard came up from Australia for a couple of weeks. Rudyard is a construction machine, and we got lots done and more stuff figured out. Thank you so much for all of that. We now have filtered water and  the foundations for the workshop got done while he was here. Plus much much more.

New To Our Home: Jessica

All The Kids: Jessica is on the far left, followed by Genesis Gideon, Asia and Shiloh.

In December our family grew again, we welcomed Jessica to Glowing Hearts. She is 8 and she has come from another children's home. We have known her since she was 4 days old, so I think that was helpful for her to adjust to new surroundings. She is becoming a great babysitter and that is a huge blessing for us. It is good for the toddlers to have a big sister around. She also going to school in the village and she has made some new friends.

The Renovations: The rebuild is moving along. At first I was getting major things done to the point of being functional, and then I just moved on to the next. Now I am at the stage where I can begin to finish some things like the cabinets, the electrical (yes I am doing electrical myself, I learned it on the internet) Anyhow I hesitate to show many detail pics now because much of it is so close to being done. My main focus this week has been the workshop/shed, which I added on to the old barn building. I wrote about the old barn earlier (link) http://kimanch.blogspot.com/2011/06/shed.html.

My work shop; almost done

 Anyhow after Rudyard and I got the the corner posts up and the foundation in. I had to learn how to weld so I could make the roof structure. I gave welding a try and I learned as I went. It was a big first welding project, it took me three days of work with a couple of days lost due to flash burned eyeballs (don't worry I got an auto dark helmet since then) .

I had a friend finish the cinder-block walls, and this week I got the rolling  door on. Anchalee is very happy about this because currently all my tools and supplies are in the pantry, and she really really wants me and my stuff out of there.

Church in the Village:

This is our church, room for about 50 and we have chairs.

Something is happening in the church these days. When we moved to this village we were hoping we would find some way to help bring the local church back to life. God's timing is perfect and shortly after we arrived, Anchalee's cousin was ordained pastor of the church, and shortly after that Anchalee became assistant pastor. Talk about an open door.

Before we arrived the church  was essentially dead. On some Sundays no one would show up. Now the church is full at least once on a Sunday and there is a youth group (led by Anchalee). There is worship and or cell group on Saturday nights too. We have been truly blessed by this, and we take the responsibility for this revived group seriously. The relationship between Anchalee and her cousin is excellent and their kids often  spend as much time at our place as they do at their own. We see a great future working together with them for this church.

Anchalee's Sweet Shoppe:

Sno Cones and bubble tea, Anchalee makes them the best.

Anchalee has also become an entrepreneur. An opportunity came up for her to sell snow cone type drinks, bubble tea, and fruit at the village school. It has been going very well despite the school being small. She makes a bit of profit every day and she seems to love running her first business. Jessica helps too.

Farming

2nd Year coffee plant, next year it will have some fruit.

 It is rainy season now, and we are doing what we can to get some agricultural projects running. The coffee is doing well, almost everything survived the dry season so we have more than 1000 coffee plants, some of which will produce fruit next year already. I am hoping to get time soon to alter the frog farm into a fish farm, we still have some frogs, but we are going to try Tilapia (fish) this year to compare the difference. We also have a field of pumpkins which are doing well (pumpkins are a popular food here).  And we have corn on the hillsides and soon we will put rice in the paddies. The rice we eat and the corn belongs to Anchalee's mom and dad.

Coming up:

We have a list of other projects and things we need to accomplish them, but I am going to leave that for the next blog so we can give more detail. For now, I hope you all are doing well. We hear very little these days from our friends, of course life makes us all quite busy. God bless you all, and we will be back soon.