Eh...I might as well post my newsletters

Happy New Year! 

Here in the land of smiles I find myself in my third New Year yet this year.  Thailand celebrates the calendar change New Year, Chinese New Year in February and now, in April, they have their own New Year that is celebrated in grand fashion.  The whole country turns out in mass to have a water fight! Trucks are turned into super soakers on wheals, rubbish bins are filled with water and dippers, normally used for bathing, are now used for flinging!  This is probably the biggest holiday of the year for a Thai.   Every year we try to give all of our Thai staff off for this festival and the foreigners take the reigns of the ministry for a whole week.  It has been very fun but also a bit tiring. 

One great advantage to having multiple New Years is that you can make multiple resolutions and have second and third chances at actually keeping them!  Unfortunately, this is my last chance to keep the resolution to write more often.  There has been so much that has happened in the last four months.  Instead of writing it all in one massive newsletter I will try to do it in installments giving the general overview now and some more personal news in later letters.  Feel free to just browse through the pictures and get the highlights or read them all at your leisure.  There has been a lot going on with the ministry and with me personally, I’ve experienced a new baby, miracles, earthquakes, and a range of emotions from really hard to good. The last 8 months has been a season of rapid and frequent change. 

Earthquake

I’ll start with the earthquake although is more recent history because I know I’ve been asked about it quite a bit.  About three weeks ago there was a 6.8 Magnitude Earthquake about 70 miles north of Chiang Rai where I’m currently living and working.  We had a good shaking and felt aftershocks and smaller earthquakes for several days afterward.  Luckily most of the girls are very hard sleepers and slept through most of it.  It was quite unnerving being the house alone with every tremor that hit I had this instinct of going and getting the girls and had to remind myself that it was only a tremor and a very silly reason to wake up 6 sleeping children!  We sustained no more then a couple of cracks but the damage in Burma (Myanmar) was quite extensive.  The village where the epicenter was located was hit very hard as it is a rather poor village.  Burma is in my opinion one of the most difficult countries to get aid to and so recovery is slow and difficult.  We as a region continue to try to get medical supplies and other simpler aid into the country as we can but have found it difficult.

    

New Baby

In January, we received our latest addition to our family here at Baan Nam Jai (Home of the Open Heart), a baby boy, named Non.  Non was born to a single, teenage, HIV+ mom who lives in a village near Chiang Rai.  The mom is currently taking care of her grandparents and is unable to take care of a child in addition to her grandparents and so she made the hard choice to give the child up.  We were asked to take in the child and brought him home a day after he was born in the local general hospital.  It has been a bit of a challenge as new borns generally are but it he has been a lovely addition to our family. 

Penny

Many of you will recall that Penny had to leave abruptly at the end of August to go get some more traditional treatments for her cancer.  Her tumor which originally was the size of a tennis ball had grown to the size of a football.  I’m very happy to report that Penny will be back in Thailand May 8^th!  Her tumor has shrunk to the size of an orange and is cancer free!  The Doctors are a bit baffled by this as they said that they have never seen someone recover from a tumor that large. We are very excited that Penny will be coming back after such a long time.  

Girl's House

When Penny left for Australia I agreed to stay on in the house while she was gone.  I have now been in the house for eight months.  It has been an adventure and I’ll be writing more about that in subsequent letters.  We are all doing fairly well.  When Penny returns she will not be able to do quite as much as she was able to before she left as she needs to first and foremost look after her health.  I have agreed to continue to live and manage the girl's house for the duration of my commitment here at Baan Nam Jai or until we get House Parents. 

Australia

At the end of February I went to Australia to renew my visa.  It was a great trip and I just wanted to say thank you everyone for making it possible for me to go.  I was able to renew my visa without any problems.  I also was able to go to Adelaide and catch up with the base in which I did my DTS.  It was great to see people there and catch up.  I was so encouraged and it was such a blessing to be able to go and spend time in a place I love so much, albeit, hard to leave.