Taw Saeng News!!

Group photo: Orawun, P'Bua, Ahna, Ning, Matt, Angkhana, Seal, Larry, me, Chelsey

Infamous jumping picture

At the beginning of December, we went as a staff up to the Mae Saa waterfall and then to the very tip top of the mountain, where there is a Royal project of flowers and veggies growing. You can even camp up there. We tried to do a bunch of jumping pics as a group, and some were more successful jumpers than others. J It was a nice time to get to spend the day together and say goodbye to Matt and Chelsey before they headed back to the US. We ate a ton of food, and then hiked all the way to the very top of the waterfall before we went to the top of the mountain. This waterfall has 10 levels. Matt was adventurous enough to even go swimming. It was too cold for me this year, but last year on New Year’s Eve, we went swimming and jumped through a waterfall with my friend Jenny. At the top of the mountain, they have wooden go carts you can rent and drive down the hill at a terrifying speed. I did not try that, as I was so carsick by the time we hit the top of the mountain, that I could barely stand up. The fresh mountain air was invigorating though, and soon made me feel better, so I got to take a bunch of pictures and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. Next time, I would like to camp up there, I think it would be a lot of fun.

Me and my Thai teacher, Ning (not to be confused with Ning who has been helping with Sophie's citizenship)

Matt, Chelsey, me and Ahna

P'Bua and me

with Ahna

Beautiful day!

On December 15, a group of 10 of us went to see The Hobbit in 3-D. Fun bonding over Middle Earth. We all decided that the taxi service would be much improved in this city if they started using giant eagles that could be summoned by speaking with butterflies. Also, Ning wants to move to Rivendale.

We had a staff Christmas party on Dec 17 and ate some delicious Thai food and had a lottery for Christmas presents. I won a barbecue, which I was very excited about. I look forward to using it!

me with Nuey at our Christmas party

Dec 21, Ahna and I went with our friend Keith and Lauren to be Santa and his angels (?) to give out Christmas gifts to kids at the Starfish foundation where our friend Field works now. She was on staff at Taw Saeng for a long time, and now is a teacher at the country home for tribal kids. They have 5 homes around northern Thailand, so all the kids came to celebrate Christmas together. Here is a shot of us dressed up. Lauren had the idea to do the Charlie's Angels pose (I know, shocking, right? Usually, *I* am the one who thinks of it.)

Our big news for the new year is: WE ARE MOVING! I am so excited about this new development in our ministry and look forward to seeing what doors God opens for us in 2013 to help even more children. In our building now, we have one townhouse that is connected on both sides to other businesses. To put it mildly, they are less than happy with the level of noise the kids make on a daily basis. We currently are packed to the max with 32 kids, but in the new location, we will have enough space for 50 kids. Now we just need to get increased funding to hire the staff to go with that increase and some long term volunteers to commit to being with us for English teaching. We are very short staffed with only me and Ahna entering the new year.

This is totally a God thing. When we went to speak to the owner, she said that they built this building two years ago but have been unable to rent it. She normally tells people that the rent is 20,000 baht per side, but she told Orawun it was only 15,000 a side when she called, and didn’t know why she instinctively lowered the price. When she found out what we do, she was so excited. Her son works in San Diego, and has been telling her for over a year to rent to someone doing good in the community and not to worry about the profit. She is into horoscopes and the day we called to come see it, she had just read her horoscope and it was an auspicious day to rent their building. She and her husband have been very helpful and accommodating and are allowing us to start remodeling before we have even given them the full deposit!

Exciting benefits of the new location:

Two townhouses not connected to any other building. We are knocking out the wall in between the two sides to create one large room on the first floor and a large kitchen for P’Bua to work in.

There is much more storage space than in our current location

It is closer to all the kids’ houses but one

There are EIGHT bathrooms! (we currently have only 2)

It is naturally cooler so we can use the air conditioners at a lower setting and save a bit on electricity (we hope)

There is a huge parking lot across the street where kids can play soccer and run around after school. It is owned by the bank, which closes at 3:30, so when the kids come at 4, there will be no cars there.

We will have larger classrooms

The rent is lower for the larger space than our current rent

We will be able to continue operating and providing food, education and a safe place for kids to be through our child sponsorship program and individual donations. Sponsor a child for only $35 a month. Sign up online by clicking the link below, selecting monthly donor and picking "The Garden of Hope" in our drop down menu (that is still our legal operating name). Indicate in the notes that your support is for a child sponsorship and I will contact you with details about your sponsor child. You can also email me to tell me you have signed up to be a monthly donor and I will match you with a child.

Sponsor a child or donate to our building fund.

December, Part II

• -       Dec 13 we had a send off for our fantastic volunteers Chelsey and Matt who have been with us for nearly a year. It was pretty emotional and the kids all made cards for them and each one said goodbye individually.

• -       Dec 14 was our Taw Saeng Christmas party! It had been a long, stressful week of preparation because Ahna and I were the only ones who had motorbikes to do the endless number of running around errands. However, it was fun nonetheless, despite all the things that went wrong and the miscommunications we had. Amelie and Molly played their piano solos beautifully, the Dolphins actually remembered the dance and song, the Tigers performed skits showing the life of Jesus from birth to crucifixion, the Eagles performed three songs as a band, and the Penguins did a cute dance to Silent Night segueing into Jingle Bell Rock. Then, we gave out presents to families and kids and they all had a great time opening them. However, despite our best efforts of getting right sizes and measurements ahead of time, we still had to return 3 sets of clothes and 4 pairs of shoes. Still, a relative success overall. I slept like a baby that night to make up for the two weeks of sleeplessness and dreams of everything going horribly wrong. Methinks I may invest too much in these little pageants of ours.

For presents this year, we let the kids pick whether they wanted clothes, shoes or school supplies, and we gave the families large ice chests filled with household supplies like dish soap, rice and cooking oil. 

Molly playing Ode to Joy

Tigers performing scenes from life of Jesus

Wise me on the way to see Jesus

Penguins dancing

Dolphins dancing

The Eagles band: please no requests for Hotel California. They prefer worship songs. ;)

• Dec 17 was Sophie’s 6 month checkup xray for TB. We went in to get the xray done early in the morning, then went up to wait for the doctors to come. They showed us the newest xray and then the original one. I still thought the new xray did not look completely healthy, but they said there are no traces of TB. One of her lungs is 100% healed, but the other is about half filled with scar tissue. The doctor said that she was sick for so long before they started treatment that the scar tissue could take up to 5 years to heal completely. As long as there are no indications of TB recurrence, I am happy. The scar tissue being there still makes it hard for her to do extended exercise and strengthen her lungs, but I guess she will slowly get better and they will keep an eye on it over the next couple years. She has completed a year of outpatient treatment now, so we will shift from checkups every 2 months to every 3 months. My friend Jane is a doctor here and said that we need to get copies of the xrays to show the US when we are trying to get her visa, so we got a note from the doctor to get the xrays from radiology, and they ended up giving us the huge original in an envelope. I was like “uh…..can we just get a copy?” They said, “Oh, would you rather have a cd?” So, we ended up getting all the xrays on a cd to show the visa consular people when we get to that point.

Sophie and Winnie playing musical chairs for prizes

•         Dec 21, I left Taw Saeng early and went with Sophie and Winnie out to their house in SanSai. It is part of a housing development created by the Jimmy and Rosalind Carter foundation, so a few of the Taw Saeng kids’ families got houses a few years ago. They are pretty well built and nice with indoor plumbing and everything, but they are about 30 minutes outside the city, so it’s not very easy for people to live out there and drive their kids into school every day. That is why they live in the slums in the city so their kids can go to school, but sometimes spend their weekends out at the houses. Anyway, there was a big celebration there for Christmas and we slept at the house, which was fun. 

 

•       Dec 24 we had a party at our house. Winnie’s family came (her mom, brother and cousin included), the people who bought Sophie’s house, Billy and his mom, and Lucy came with Fiona, Annie and Lucy’s boyfriend. Plus, Ying and Nuey (one of our interns at Taw Saeng), so in all it was 18 people! Nuey came over in the afternoon to help me make Christmas sugar cookies, so that was a ton of fun. She had never made cookies before in her life! We spent hours making and decorating and then she stayed for the party too. We had pizza because Sophie requested it and we got it from a place that has 26” pizzas! Luckily, they deliver. J We had a great time and opened presents together and just laughed. I have been wanting to have our Thai friends over to the house for so long, but it never works out that everyone is free on the same day, so I was really excited to get this opportunity to host them. 

•        Christmas Day was less than exciting because Sophie had school all week, preparing for finals on the 26-28. So, it was getting up at 6am, opening stockings, sending her to school, watching tv and resting all day because I was fighting to keep my cold from turning into bronchitis, then picking her up, and opening our other presents, and then helping her study for her English final the next day. We had KFC for dinner because we rarely eat it, so it is a special treat that Sophie requested. Quite the tradition, eh? Pizza and KFC for our “special” dinners. Sophie got a bunch of stuff that I have been acquiring over the year, some clothes, school stuff, candy (of course), and a care bear. Her two biggest presents that she was most excited about were a bicycle from my parents and me, and a book called Jesus Calling that just came out in Thai. I have a copy in English, given to me by Vicky Johnson, so I bought Sophie the Thai version and we are going to read through it together in the New Year. She was really excited about it and wanted to start reading it right away, but we decided to wait until January 1 to start it, since it is a daily devotional. 

Advent candles

Happy bike rider

•          Dec 29 was the Chiang Mai Akha church Christmas celebration, so we went to that and saw a lot of the kids’ families and some of Sophie’s friends we hadn’t seen in a while. Several groups of people did dances, both kids and adults, and the teenagers sang some Akha songs. I always like going to Akha church because if they sing songs that I know, I can sing in Akha. Their language uses English letters, so it’s easier to read than Thai. I love being able to sing in a different language, but I’m not very good at keeping up with Thai, so singing in Akha is more fun. It was a fun day, with everyone dressed up in their Akha traditional clothing, even me! Everyone was so excited to see me dressed up like that, random people kept coming up and saying I looked so pretty, so I kept telling them it was all thanks to P’Beauw because she gave me the clothes and dressed me. It was actually pretty funny because I didn’t have any clothes when I got there, so Winnie brought them from home and then all the moms from Taw Saeng shuffled me off into another room and just started dressing me and lacing up all the pieces while a bunch of kids gathered around to watch. Then, the church gave presents to all the people visiting, and they called my name, so I had to walk up in front of the whole church (about 75 people by that point) and get the present, wearing my Akha clothes. They were all like, “today you are not farang (foreigner) anymore; today you are all Akha!”  It was really fun. Then, after service, we all sat together and ate delicious Akha food for lunch. 

 

In addition to the jacket, note the leggings and belt, all hand sewn by members of P'Beauw's family

•         For New Year’s Eve, Sophie had said she wanted to go to her friend’s church for a sleepover, but at the last minute she changed her mind and decided to go with Ying and Winnie to Thapae Gate. I was a little worried because of the creep who was stalking us last year (read last year’s entry for that horror story), so I told her to be really careful and stay away from all foreign men, and stay with Winnie’s mom the whole night. I ended up going to Bob and Grace Shim’s house for a party there with a bunch of other missionaries. A lot of them I had never met before, but the Bevises and Palleschis were there too, so I had some familiar faces. I was with the Dave and Jeanne Palleschi for a camera scavenger hunt in the neighborhood and it was a lot of fun doing creative photography with them. I am going to be teaching English and working on the camp project in Mae Taeng with them in the new year, so it has been good to get to know them in the past couple of months since they came back to Chiang Mai from the US. At midnight, we set off fireworks in the neighborhood and then I headed home. Sophie and I both got back about 1am and collapsed into bed.

December, Part I

December was jam packed with stuff from end to end! I tend to be quite a prolific writer, if you haven’t figured that out, so I will try to just hit the highlights so as not to put you all to sleep.

• I am going to cheat and start at the end of November, actually. We celebrated the one year anniversary of Sophie’s release from the TB hospital on November 21. The following Saturday, I took Sophie, Winnie and Ying to the Yee Pang lantern festival in Mae Jo, about a 30 minute drive from Chiang Mai. Last year, this festival happened earlier, so Sophie was in the hospital and couldn’t come. When I found out she had never been, I thought it was the perfect way to celebrate her one year TB free anniversary. Well, we met up with some of my other friends and all caravanned up to the Mae Jo University campus for the lighting. I was hoping to go early and have time to get a seat and lanterns, etc, but Ying had dance practice til 5pm, so we got there just in time for the lantern send off. By the time we got there, all of us were starving, so I sent the girls off to get some food for themselves and hoped that we would reconnect in time to see all the lanterns sent off. For those of you who have seen the movie Tangled, this festival is EXACTLY like that lantern festival, only insert a lot of monotone Buddhist chanting in Sanskrit. We didn’t buy any lanterns, but my friend Rae and I made our way into the mass of people setting them off, so we got some cool pictures. Sophie and her friends had come back from getting food in time to see the big sendoff, but it was not as exciting as last year. Last year, they did a great job of reminding people not to send their lanterns off til they told you to, so we saw about 3000 lanterns float away at once. This year, it was more like a few at a time for a longer period of time. It was still pretty though. After I found Sophie and her friends, we were pushing our way out through the crowd, and Sophie was like “P’Heather, this was cool, but can we NOT come next year? There are too many people and I can’t breathe.” Parenting fail. L On our way home, this crazy strong wind came up, and torrential rains started, which is highly unusual for this time of year, so we almost got knocked off our bikes and just as we entered the city, all the lights went out everywhere. It was really eerie driving home through knee deep water with all the lights out and very few cars. Thankfully, we all got home safely, but it was not how I planned for things to go.

 

• December 8, I got all dressed up and went with Ahna and Sacha to see Handel’s Messiah performed by the Payap University choirs and orchestra. We took Faith and her older sister with us and they had a good time, but were super tired, so I think they may have napped a bit. It was a good opportunity to dress fancy and get some culture in. :)

 

• Dec 12 was our court date. We had been waiting for this for over a year, and it finally arrived. We picked up Ning from her house and then went to the court to meet Sophie’s teacher. Our hearing was scheduled for 9am, but our lawyer didn’t show up until almost 10:30. If you took a drink for every time you read about our lawyer being late, everyone would have gone through a bottle of liquor by now. I am so over this guy. Thank goodness this is the last thing we need to do with him. He tried to “prep” me, but since he had written this history that had all kinds of inconsistencies, that I had tried several times to get him to correct, I was getting really frustrated. He was just telling me to say yes to everything, but I wasn’t understanding his questions because he was using high language, which I don’t know, and was refusing to translate into English, even though he speaks English perfectly. I had not been stressed out, but at this point, I was practically crying because he was like “Just say yes to everything or else you will lose the case.” Finally, the clerk was like “OK, the judges are literally going to leave if you do not go in there,” so we went in. Interesting fact, they have different oaths depending on your religion, so I read the one for Christians. As I was copying the clerk, I was thinking “will I be held legally responsible if I lie on the stand, since I don’t actually understand a word I am saying right now?” Anyway, I think I did ok, but I did correct the inconsistencies in the story as they arose, because there was documentation that things were wrong. I.E., “did you meet Sophie’s dad?” This is after they just read that he died in May 2010, and they had asked me when I arrived in Thailand, and I said November 2010. Had I just said “yes” they would have known I was lying and why do I need to lie about that? So, I corrected the record. Finally, after a nerve-wracking half hour, they were done and the judges all signed the final record, and then so did I. Then they brought in Sophie and asked her a bunch of questions, including whether I met her dad, and, good girl, she backed up my story, instead of listening to the lawyer. Then they talked to her teacher, but never actually called Ning to testify, don’t know why. Finally, they said, OK we are granting your a court order to be able to adopt her, but you are not eligible for guardianship, so we are not giving you that. (Yeah, makes no sense to me either). So, according to the judge, this court order will list me as her mother and allow me to get her a passport, a visa to the US, and citizenship. We shall see how true that turns out to be.  

Loy Kratong Parade

This is just photos of Sophie's band performing in the parade this year. They led off the entire thing from the very front. It was fun to walk along with them on the parade route, and then we set off fireworks from the bridge with Jasmine, Ahna and Sacha before heading home. 

These lite brite elephants are for you Rosa!

Akha Thanksgiving 2012

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November 27, 2012

For Thanksgiving this year, we celebrated at Ning’s village again. Last year, Sophie was in the hospital hooked up to an IV, so she didn’t get to come, but this year, it was Ahna, Jasmine me and Ahngun. We drove up in Jasmine’s new (to her) car and got to see the famous Bua Tong flowers that are everywhere at this time of year. I love the drive to Ning’s village because it’s so picturesque and just really peaceful and beautiful. Definitely a fan of the new road, too. Last year, the car almost got swallowed by potholes. We got to the village and headed up to meet everyone at the church. Somehow we ended up in the 2^nd row (why does that always happen to us? I always feel like the foreigners are being put on display and then because we are in the front of the room, it’s impossible to slip out without seeming rude, even though we don’t speak the language at all, so it’s hard to stay awake and pay attention.)

They had a variety of singers and dancers from all age groups, including the kids from the children’s home run by Ning and her sister Faa. They were so cute! After the performances, which took about an hour, there was a sermon in Akha, for about an hour and a half, during which most of the church emptied out to go cook food for Thanksgiving dinner. THEN, there was a big auction of the rice, fruits and veggies (and fowl) that had been grown that year. The money benefits the church, so it was fun to hear people wagering and the prices going up. We got a bag of rice for Taw Saeng and Jasmine bought a whole pack of stuff, including a live chicken! They killed and cooked it for her there, and turned it into soup. She also got rice, pumpkins, papayas, a variety of veggies we do not have the US and a nice bamboo basket to take it all home in. And it only cost $20 for the whole thing.

After the auction, it was time to eat! So much yummy food and so many people hanging out and celebrating together. It was a fun time, and I ate SO much food. It is so much fun taking Sophie to these things because she is like a totally different kid. She chatters away in Akha and is so sweet, no trace of the moody teenager she can easily be in the city.

Jasmine needed to get some interviews from some villagers for a research project she is doing, so Ahna, Sophie and I walked around the village and went down to the lake to work off some of the calories from dinner. On the way back up the hill, Sophie challenged us to a race up the hill. I won of course, because Ahna was in flip flops, so she fell out early, and Sophie is just weak and has no endurance, so I passed them both up pretty easily. I didn’t have to run fast, just outlast the two of them! We headed back to the car, packed up our spoils and said goodbye to the generous families. Jasmine stayed to continue her interviews and we took the car back to the city. Best way to spend Thanksgiving, in my opinion.