A New Year Begins

David 

Happy New Year - to all our friends, from Anchalee, all the kids and myself. 2012 was a good year and we have had many things to be grateful for. We have a good house, and we are making progress with our agricultural projects that will help us become self-supporting. And most of all we have a good family network here that has enabled us to have the kids well attended at all times. Thank you to everyone who prayed for and supported us in 2012. Thank you to everyone who responded to our November newsletter that listed our projects and needs for 2013. May all your good works be returned to you in Grace. We will now be able to purchase some of the items we mentioned.

In October we brought home a new boy we named David. We think he was about 3 weeks old at the time and premature (about 2.2kg). He had been abandoned and left to die in the jungle, but he was saved by a caring neighbor and taken to a pastor friend who then contacted us.

David was so weak form his hard beginning that we did not realize that he had other medical issues. We brought him to the hospital in November because of his difficulty breathing. At that point we learned that he had Pneumonia and a collapsed lung. He was then brought to a larger hospital where it was determined that he also had a heart condition. He has a hole between his left and right ventricles which causes the blood to be pumped inefficiently and forces his heart to work much harder.

David has been in the hospital ever since. And because Thailand’s government hospitals do not provide full care like western hospitals; someone has had to be by his side the entire time to give him oxygen, medicine, milk, and provide basic care while he recovers. Anchalee has done 90% of this care, and for this reason she has become my biggest hero, even more so than before. She sleeps on a cement bench on a balcony just outside the room and has to cope with, up to 30, very sick children crying on a continual basis. It is a sad place to be at, but she has continued to be positive and helpful; being there for the other moms who are also facing dire situations. You can see that the other moms look up to her, and there is a family atmosphere in the section around David’s bed.

David is going to need open heart surgery to fix the hole in his heart, but the doctors are waiting for him to get a little older so that he will be better able to undergo the procedure. He could come home with us, except that he still has pneumonia and they won’t let him come home until that is cleared up. The good news is that today they have taken him off oxygen, which is a good sign, and they will test to see if he can be off oxygen entirely.

David smiled at Anchalee today - for the first time. He has come so far in the last few weeks. Please pray that his lungs will fully recover, so we can work towards fixing up that leaky heart too. 

To our friends we say, shine on you crazy diamonds!

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.

Wonderful trip to Canada

Crossing the Rockies on the way back to Asia

It has been a long time since my last blog entry. We went back to Canada for a while, to catch up with friends and family. It was a great trip and we got some much needed R and R as well. Even the flying portions were restful because we had a free layover at the Hyatt Regency in Seoul for both legs of the journey. We ate a lot of free 5-star buffet and had a generally posh time in Korea. Thank you Korean Airlines.

Anchalee and Genesis watching an exercise program in the hotel in Seoul 

Part of the reason we travel is for fund raising purposes. And we were very blessed with the response we had from supporters. Thank you very much for everything. We raised enough support to finish building the house, and we were also able to put a hefty down payment on a truck that we desperately needed. Halleluiah!

Sweet

We now drive a 2010 Ford Ranger Hi-Rider extra-cab. We were given a very good deal from a fellow missionary here in Thailand and this is a double blessing because since the floods in Thailand there are no cars to be found at the dealers unless you are willing to wait for months. Our truck is very new (only 12,000 km's) and it was quite a bit cheaper than buying a new one. The savings will be put towards the Kingdom through other projects of our ministry.

So now it is time to load up our pretty new truck with building supplies and head back up to the not-so-posh village to share our witness and finish the house. Hopefully we will be moved in in a couple of months.

On behalf of the kids, thank you Jesus, and thank you friends of Glowing Hearts

Thank you everyone, we love you all, and we will be back again in about a year. We will do all we can to represent you generosity and love you have shown to us by paying it forward here in Thailand. Be blessed.

Find more info at our website www.leastandlast.com

Walls up, toilet flushes, and a glimpse of the future

I believe I am a master of underestimation: Especially in the sense of how long jobs take to finish in my mind as compared to the real world. So every week I proclaim what I can get done, and every week I am out by a day or two. But, there is light somewhere at the end of the tunnel and I estimate I will see it next week.

As slow as it may be, we are making progress with the renovation. All the second floor stud walls are done and all but one of them have been set into place. We had our doubts when we realized about 35% of the wood we ordered was basically useless and that which remained needed a lot of planing. And then my planer went dull and it is not the kind you can sharpen easily and new blades take two weeks on special order. So we went scrounging for wood and we redeemed some of the rejected wood, and somehow we made it to the end of structural part of the build. Yeah!

In fact, we even found time to put up some of the cement fiberboard siding, and it looks like it is going to work out pretty well. But I found out you need a few extra pairs of hands to hang that stuff. In my head I can get that job done in the next couple of days.

On the last post you might remember that we dug a septic tank. This week we are pleased to report that we now have one fully operational toilet. We even have enough downslope water pressure to make it function. This week we hope to get the remaining bathroom tile done so we can have our first indoor showers. It doesn't get any better than that eh?

The new throne

Last week Anchalee found me a helper, a young guy named Som Yoht. I guess he is in his mid twenties. It doesn't seem like he has had much school; he says his head doesn't work too well. But he like to practice English with me and I can speak to him in my terrible Thai. He shows up at 8:00 each day, and no matter when we quit for the day, he sticks around for a few hours more. I thought he was just mooching food, but it turns out that he is hiding from his own home.

Som Yoht and me putting up some cement fiberboard

 Som Yoht is nice guy and he is doing his best to stay out of trouble, but when he goes home the village wasters show up and force him to take their drugs and drink their whiskey. He really doesn't want to do it any more but when he refuses they beat him up. The poor guy is barely 120 pounds. I don't think he can put up much of a struggle. So we let him hang around our place as long as he likes.

It seems to me that although the village is quite poor, poverty is not the biggest problem. What is bringing them down is the total lack of hope for a different future. In Thailand drugs are cheap and plentiful and you don't really have to work hard to stay alive. There really isn't much in the natural world to get people out of the destructive cycle of drugs, alcohol, and violence. We are not sure what form the outreach part of our ministry will take, once we are settled in here, but one thing is clear. Apathy, drugs, lack of education, and an inconsistent Christian presence has got this village bound up and off of the Kingdom radar. It is going to be interesting for us to be part of God's answer for this village.

Thanks for following the blog, I might post again next week. Please visit our site.

Be Blessed

Real friends help you install a septic tank, in a monsoon, before breakfast

We finally returned to the village after a long break. I had to go to a certain city in Laos for a specific visa, and the trip took five days to complete. But we jumped back to the task with pertinacity.

The builders we hired have gone now, they were there to do the concrete work and they did a really good job. I regret not being there for some of it; I was hoping to pick up some new skills. But there are other projects coming up.

As for my part of the build, it is really just beginning. We got one upper floor room floored and studded, and another one will be done shortly. After that we need to get some infrastructure running. Remember we are living in this house while we are working on it. Currently we have no plumbing and electrical in only a few places. But we did bring in a gas stove this week which looks a little out of place in the kitchen with no counters and half a cable spool for a table top.

The ceiling above the kitchen is open but there is a roof further up. The open area will be my office some day. This step has been moved back because we have decided it would be nice to shower indoors. To this end, Anchalee ordered the components for a septic tank to be delivered. She also hired a guy to dig the hole, which needed to be 2.5 meters deep. It's OK he didn't do it by himself, Anchalee had her turns in the hole. Also I bought new shovels so I think it should have been easy – right? 

Anyhow it took Boy (that's really his name) all day, so we decided to assemble the tank another day when it was more convenient. Wrong. At 5:30 AM another torrential downpour moved in and we realized that the plastic tarp was failing and if the hole filled with water it would collapse back in.

The way village septic tanks are made is a series of 1 x .5 meter cement rings that are stacked up in a hole. But you can't just drop them in, they are heavy and have to be placed precisely. At 6:00 AM we set out to find three more guys to man the lowering ropes. Impossible you would think; in the pouring rain at the crack of dawn. Actually, we found 4 guys and it only took about 15 minutes (villagers know they need to help each other out).

So there we were shuffling in the muck around a deep hole when I caught a mental image of myself – soaking wet and muddy, doing an Asian squat in my Superman blue rubber boots, waiting for them to sort out the ropes. And I wondered if the village wasn't changing me too much or too fast. But then it was time to drop in the rings and my introspective bubble popped. The rings were placed with skill and everyone went on with their day.

That is all for now, Thanks for following along, and thanks everyone for the comments, sorry if I don't get back to all of you. I don't have internet in the village so I don't have much time to for email these days. I will post again in a couple of weeks.

Please visit our site www.leastandlast.com

Plane Truth

How the house looked on Saturday

Despite the fact that Thailand is having a record year for rainfall, and this is currently the peak of rainy season; we have had a very successful week building the house. The concrete work is nearly done, all the first floor walls are up, the floors are poured, and I even got to start on the second floor, putting up all the joists for the addition. But getting into the woodwork, I soon learned that things here are done 'old school'.

A bug I found in one of the boards

The timber, when it comes, is cut to sizes thicker than what you asked for because then you can plane it down to the size you want. Sounds simple right? Well to begin with, this is hardwood and it is wet and massively heavy, like concrete. I had to mentally prepare before I could hoist those 3 meter 2x6's (more like 3x8's) over my head to set them on the next level. But before I could cut them and put them in place I had to get the power planer and make them all the same size. This took as long as 40 minutes for some planks. That is quite a time investment when you add it all up. I was daydreaming about the luxury of going to Home Depot and loading up a truck with pine boards that only needed to be cut and nailed into place. Would you believe there are places in the world where you can do just that?

The 2x6's are nearly done but I have something like 80 2x4's waiting for my return - each one of them a unique shape and dimension and some of them are 5 meter boards. But you know what? I am loving every minute of this. Is it taking too long? Yes. Is it a tremendous challenge? You bet. But this is bricks and mortar evidence of our dream. For nearly three years we have been building up to this point; casting the vision, praying, building up partners and support. For three years Anchalee and I have nodded off to sleep at night, imagining our destiny talking endlessly of what could be. Now we have a house full of kids, and a home of our own on the horizon. These days we are consumed with gratitude. Gratitude to God for lighting up this path, and gratitude to all those who each play their part, big or small, in helping us make this children's home a reality.

I will return to the village in about a week. Currently I have to make a trip into Laos to get a new visa. It is an inconvenience and an expense that you just learn to live with when you are over here. Part of our vision is to also have a foundation, so things like visas would come a little easier.

I would like to thank the world famous and Very Reverend, Dr. Al Purvis for visiting us this week. It had been way too long, but once we were back together, it seemed like no time had passed at all. You can catch all of the action from his ministry at www.continuummedia.com and please drop by our website as well www.leastandlast.com

That is all for now, pray for us as we pray for you.

Keep love in your heart, the Word on your lips, and the atmosphere of heaven in your midst.

Also keep your head up and your stick on the ice.

Monsoon, Termites, but Progress Still

We are up in the village more than we are in Chiang Mai, these days. But there is a lot going on up there. The workers have been making up for lost time and their part of the project is nearly done.

Anchalee and I have been putting many kilometers on borrowed vehicles, last week we hauled another 2000kg of materials up the mountain. Much of it coming from 3 hours away in Chiang Mai. And when we are back in town we spend a lot of time searching for deals and alternatives to keep the cost down. I have become a regular at the weekend flea market and second hand shops.

Most of the first floor walls are up now, with a little concrete work to be done on the front side. And I anticipate the lumber will arrive some time today. Now I need to rip out some of the second floor's outer walls, put down floors on the new areas, and make new exterior walls. I hope to do all of that this week. I don't want to have the walls open for any longer than necessary. We prefer to keep out thieves, rain, and the majority of critters.

Speaking of rain, we have gotten our share of it up there; it is rainy season after all. This is a bit of a problem because to ensure a comfortable ceiling height on the lower floor we needed to dig down about a foot lower than ground level. To keep the water out, what I need to do is a little landscaping, but the workers have made their gravel and sand pile in such a way that it funnels all the water directly into the house and there is no landscaping possible until the piles are gone. So we do get flooded occasionally.

We had a particularly large storm a couple of days ago. The wind knocked over a cart onto the truck we borrowed. The cart had been carelessly stood on end; resting on a bush near the truck. When it came down it punched a hole in the driver side door. We will have to pay for that. It is Anchalee's sister's truck and we already spent a bunch of money replacing that truck's suspension so it could handle hauling stuff up the mountain. Fortunately auto body work is very inexpensive here. But we dream of a truck of our own.

Because we have been tearing out the wooden pillars that hold up the front of the house, we discovered this building was in some serious trouble. The termites have been busy and only one of the posts was strong enough to survive a firm kick. Now everything will be concrete on the ground level, but we will be treating all the new wood with anti termite preservative as an extra precaution.

Anyhow the amount of progress so far is amazing, and we are thrilled with the quality of work. The cinder block walls are so straight they could have been cut by laser. I really have a lot more to say but right now I need to load up the truck again for what should be a really big week. Thanks for following our blog, check out our website here