Monday, November 03, 2008

Dear Family and Friends:

Today was a great day. We worked hard.

We had breakfast at 7:00 AM, packed up our supplies, and headed back to Khwe Ka Loc Orphanage. For the next couple of days we are using a small pickup truck for team and supply transport. The advantage of this of course is that Tom, Alex, Jerry, and Jim get the chance to enjoy God’s air-conditioning riding in the truck bed.

We arrived in the orphanage by about 8:30. The sight of 200+ children of all ages – some shy, some bold, but all curious - watching our arrival was an emotive experience.

After a bit or organizing, agenda modifying, and negotiation (more on that in another letter) we jumped into our respective projects:

Jerry and Sylvia taught conflict resolution and basic counseling techniques for about 6 hours to a mixed group of adolescents and young adult men and women. Translations were a challenge; however they made it through the material like champs and most certainly planted some ‘mustard seeds’. Through God’s great providence we pray these will grow. We all find ourselves working to adapt to local styles of learning, communicating, and influencing.

Tom and Alex worked closely with younger children. Tom was thrown into the impromptu role of English teacher extraordinaire. Alex and Tom both became ‘corpsman’ using our team’s first aid kit to deliver some basic first aid for children with open cuts, scrapes, etc. Most of the young children run around barefoot in the muck – dung – sludge combination that covers some parts of the grounds. We used this as an opportunity to teach some basic first aid care for superficial wounds. We find no shortage of need and are working to prioritize our resources with the clear objective of teaching and empowering.

Jim led the well drilling effort using a team of teenage boys. These boys eagerly labored in the heat and a few of them showed potential as leaders/teachers. We were already getting water at a depth of 2 feet but continued down to about 19 feet. The effort was advancing in a good way until some of the boys dropped the drill head down into the bottom of the shaft. After a couple rather quiet moments and some tongue control, we cobbled together a grappling hook, fished around in the water, and retrieved the head. We are practicing improvisation and patience.

Alex connected with a two Catholic missionaries from the Philippines living in Mae Sot who joined us at the orphanage for lunch. These Filipina women work as teachers for the children at the God’s Love and Care Development Institute. They were very interested in our work and we have agreed to meet on Tuesday evening to share the CHE (Community Health evangelism) Program knowledge resources.

At dinner we met a missionary who graduated from Manhattan Christian College in Kansas, who knows Charles Cook and Loren Deckard. There was an immediate bond with Tom as they had both fought in Viet Nam,

Finally, we had a meeting with Somchai to understand the development and direction of his mission work here. We will share more about this when we get back.

It is only possible to report to you in this short letter a small fraction of:
Today’s sights – both uplifting and disturbing,
Today’s experiences – both joys and distresses, and
Today’s learning - some easy and some hard.

We ask you to pray for the children of Khwe Ka Loc Orphanage.

Working for the children of God’s kingdom,

Alex, Jerry, Sylvia, Tom and Jim


P.S. We missed mentioning an important highlight yesterday: When the team was separated into two groups yesterday at the Mae La Refugee Camp, Jerry got the “opportunity” to preach. While Alex was to deliver his sermon at one church (and with about five minutes notice) the local pastors delegated to Jerry to preach at another church. While caught completely off guard and filled with some trepidation, Jerry gallantly stepped up to the task. F L E X I B I L I T Y