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

It is on!

We are back from the first week of renovations and I am amazed at the progress so far. The crew arrived at 8:AM and by 10:00 we had deconstructed and removed everything from under the house, laid out the grid for the new columns, did all the measuring, and began digging the holes for the columns. Then it got hot and things slowed down. The next three days things continued at a predictable pace; heavy in the morning and methodical for the rest of the day with frequent conversation breaks. Or maybe they were safety meetings; no one works, no one gets hurt right?. It is not quite the way things are done in the west, but no one is making western wages here either. I think the extra guys the builder brought in are making about five bucks a day. We expect that by the time we return on Wednesday, we will see that some cement has already been poured and that is good enough for us.

We are not concerned about the pace because we have been given a price for the completed work. So it is up to them to be efficient with their time. We have about ten weeks before we head to Canada, and we will be happy if the place is walled in and secure before we leave. I think we will be at that stage (what we call phase one) by early August.

Anchalee and I find the builders are very easy to work with and our communication is going well. One reason for the clarity is the whole house is already laid out in Google Sketchup and any time we want to discuss something specific, we just go to the laptop and check out the 3D version, complete with measurements. This is the first time these guys have been able to work from a computer and they appreciate it. Sketchup also helps for estimating materials because the program works it out by the square meter.

There have been a few snags however. When we made the plan there were some things we couldn't price out before we had discussed them with the builder. It turns out we were optimistic about how far our budget would go, so now we are trimming some fat from the project. We had underestimated the amount of re-bar that was needed, and also the cost of wood. So now we are working on alternatives like second hand wood and non wood items like cement board for siding.

The hardest part so far has been leaving the kids at home with Ying, Pat, and the extra helpers. We aren't used to being without them and I was surprised at how badly I missed having them around. Hopefully we can make the building site a little safer and then we can have Genesis and Gideon join us for a few days. Shiloh we could bring any time because she is world's most sleepingest non-crying baby ever, and if she is wrapped up tight, she is happy anywhere.

That's all for now, look for our next blog which will be in a couple of weeks. Please visit our site

We Have a Deal

Well we met with the builder and spent quite a while going over the plans. Some of this was difficult because of the translation of technical terms, and the fact that we build things different in Canada. But in the end we came up with a price to finish the first phase of the house. This will include the ground floor pad, the walls, windows, doors, and stairs. Also the upstairs bathroom. The deal included Anchalee and I being part of the crew, so it will be a five person team, minimum, and it should take about a month for phase one.

When the builders are finished there will still be a lot to do and I will have to do a lot of it on my own. There are some new floorboards to add, new outer walls on the second floor, the kitchen needs to be built, and there is all that floor tile to put down. And, we haven't even thought about paint and ceiling tile.

It is probably a much bigger job than I imagine but we are very excited to get going. Today we found a floor tile that we liked and it seemed like a really big deal. We have been so patient, waiting to get some forward momentum with our vision. Now it is all coming at us like it is the easiest thing in the world. We should not forget that we have been working towards this for nearly three years and there has been a lot of prayers from us and our partners. We have such good people behind us that we find ourselves wishing for ways to adequately show our gratitude. And thank you Lord for guiding our steps.

More evidence of great partners is the fact that we are also getting some help to buy that truck. I don't want to mention details, but we are nearly 30 percent of the way to buying a good second hand truck.

Thank you everyone. I will try to make another update before we begin the build. After that I can't guarantee I will be around much as we will spend a month or so working on the house.

PS: Sorry to add this after I posted, but some of you may want to know what happened to the kids who stole all the frogs and fruit from our place. I hear that they were all brought before the village headman and were soundly spanked.  Hopefully this immediate justice will have some bearing on these 11 year olds.Can you imagine if this penalty was part of the western legal system?

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Toilets and Frog Snatchers

Well we still haven't met with the builders, I guess it will be a few more days. We are quite anxious to get rolling. In fact we went to a big home depot type store and bought some things for the house. We bought three windows, a front door, and a couple of western style, sit down, toilets. We felt that if any of our western friends came to visit us some day they would appreciate that simple touch of home.

Actually we bought these things so we could get the measurements. The lower walls will be going up right after we pour a floor, and we needed to know about plumbing too. At least it feels like the project is underway.

We received a bit of bad news today; some kids came to our place in the village while no one was around. They stole everything of value they could haul away and sell at the market. This included all of our mature frogs, fruit on the trees, pineapples, and assorted other edible things. Anchalee's dad managed to catch one of the boys and he will be brought before the village headman. I have no idea how they handle stuff like that in the village, but it is a reminder that there will be new challenges for us moving up there. Especially because I will be the only westerner for many miles. But given time they will notice that not all westerners are rich.

I will report back here after we consult with the builders, it should be soon.

Visit our site here:   Glowing Hearts

The Shed

Well I am back from the village, it turns out I can get there from Chiang Mai by motorcycle in just under three hours. This was the first long run for my bike and it performed quite well. No need to downshift on the mountain slopes.

The purpose of this trip was to have a good look at the old granary/shed  to see if it can be modified to be something useful. You can see by the picture it is pretty rough, so I think I will have to just make something better just in front of it and then perhaps, some time in the future, we can make the old part better too.

We have a pretty solid plan but now we are waiting for some builders to become available so we can get started. Unfortunately we won't be meeting with them until the 20^th, so we will busy ourselves with other things.

This week we are trying to connect with some people that grow vanilla here in Thailand. I think this would be a great crop for us to get involved with. It is complicated and requires extra care, but vanilla is popular and has a high value. It is also easy to ship. Did you know that vanilla is an orchid? Hopefully this week we will make some progress towards  getting some plants.

Other than that, we are busy with the kids of course. See you next week.
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Welcome To Our Blog

Some of you already know that Anchalee and I have made the decision to move to the village where she was born. I am intending to use this blog to talk about the experience. So far we have made plans to renovate Anchalee's house from a a small wooden house on stilts (600 square feet), to a much larger 2200 square foot house with four bedrooms and modern features such as a kitchen and indoor plumbing. So follow along as we, in faith, attempt to do this big job on a tiny budget.

In order to move into the house, we need to use the entire lower area of the house. This area is currently being used as dry storage by Anchalee's father. He keeps his plow there and the corn he harvests. He also uses this area to fix motorcycles, which is a sideline for him. And the under part of the house is where people go to get out of the sun. if we take all that away we will have to make something else in return. So the very first part of this project is to make another sheltered multipurpose area.

On the property there is a half building where he stores his rice. It is made up with rough lumber and it is quite a mess, but I think we can make it into something much better. Tomorrow I will go up there with my bike, take some photos and make up a plan. It will also mark the first long drive (3 hours) I have made with my Chinese enduro motorcycle. I have been looking for an opportunity to give it a good test.

If all goes well I will back in a few days with an update, and maybe some photos too, if I can figure out how to add pictures to this blog. See you soon.