Yesterday we went and visited a poor lady (60 yrs old) in a near by village. About 2 weeks ago her 2 grandchildren (aged 5 & 8) died after drowning in a dam. Her grandchildren lived with her, as they were abandoned by their mother, and so the grandmother was very close to the children and is greatly grieving their loss. She lives by a hillside on a nice property on which she has lived for the last 40 years, but despite having a reasonably nice house (for rural Thai standards), she has little income and is very poor. She is given regular food parcels from Mercy to assist her. She has a small corn crop which she was harvesting with her sister and son, as we arrived. She was generous enough to boil some corn for us to eat in her house, but I felt hesitant to take some as I knew she doesn’t really earn much money. Both her and her sister asked if Isaac and Jed wanted to stay overnight, as I think they would really like to have children around again. There is a Buddhist temple just a few meters away, where they keep about 200 stray dogs, which we could here howling. They howl every time they bang their drums at the temple. The dogs get fed meat each day, and are fed better than many of the poor locals, who just scrape by. The ladies expressed their resentment at this.
On a separate note, the "cold" season has started to arrive. The shops are loaded with winter clothing, beanies, scarfes and jumpers. I hear some Thai people talk about how cold the mornings are. But for me, it has been pleasant outside, but its not what I would actually call cold. Im still in shorts and t-shirt and typing this with the airconditioner on. I just googled the local weather and its still about 30 degrees. I guess compared to the 40 degrees day in day out, when we first arrived this is awesome.
Little Freddie broke his arm the other day on the trampoline, I think someone landed on him. They thought it was a sprain, but was still sore after a couple days, so they took him to the Docs, and xrays showed it was broken. But he's still smiling and eager to get back on, though it took a couple days to get used to the cast. In the meantime we have been making more arm breakers for the kids, with new play equipment (see photos), most of it is still under construction, as like a lot of things here, projects get partly completed then we move onto something else. I find that a bit frustrating as I like to see a job fully completed.
By the way the rice plants now have rice seeds on the plants. I guess it wont be too long until harvest. Though I also hear, rats tend to become a bit more plentiful around harvest time. Pleeease, no rats for dinner!
Each week I drive Mercy's cook into town, and help her do the grocery shopping for the centre's staff and children. I thought you may want to experience the sights and sounds (fortunately not the smells), of the Phrae morning market.
Tik received a phone call from a lady who had been in hospital and was ready to be taken back home. This lady, Jeab, is HIV+, has been blind for 8 years (because she failed to tell a doctor she was HIV+ , they gave her some medication for her eyes and instead of having a special type for HIV+ it ended up making her blind) and to top it all off her legs are so weak she cannot walk or even stand up. She’s about 40.
She was in the public hospital here in Phrae. It was awful. Like nothing us been updated or replaced for 50 years. Packed with people. We were trying to get her into a wheelchair to take her out to the car. The orderly was terrible, rough handling her as if she was worthless. We finally managed to get her into the car. She was happy to be going home. We arrived at her home and the first thing I see is a house on a slope (when I say house, look at the photos on the blog and you’ll see we would call it a shed) with about 12 steps up to it. My first thoughts were "How are we going to carry her up that". I asked Tik if that was Jeab’s house, she said no, it was the tiny wooden room behind this one. We borrowed a plastic chair and with Jeab’s daughter’s help, we lifted her onto the chair and the 3 of us carried her to her house through the mud and rubbish on the ground. Her house had about 3 steps, a platform and another step to the entry. The steps are are homemade rickety things with nails sticking out. We lifted her on to the platform and she dragged herself using her arms into the house. Her daughter lives next door with some relatives. The only help Jeab receives is from her daughter (she’s 20) when she is not at school and Tik. She received 500 baht per month from the government to live on - that’s about $20 per month.
Jeab’s daughter then left to go back to school. Tik and I stayed for about 2 hours talking with Jeab. She is full of life and loves to talk. Very lonely most of the time. She spend day and night in her dark world without anyone else.
She explained that the night prior at the hospital there was an old lady that said she’d seen an evil spirit and was crying, disturbing everyone else’s sleep. The old lady wouldn’t get into bed. Then Jeab asked me if I believed in evil spirits. I explained to her that I did believe they existed and but I believe there is a God who is more powerful than the evil spirits and that I am protected because I belong to Him. I asked her if she believed that there is God that is more powerful than evil spirits. She said she did.
She told me that she would like to come back reincarnated as someone like me (why anyone would want that, I don’t know!). She thinks that I have less problems, which compared to her I do. I also explained that everyone has problems in their life. Life on earth for everyone is imperfect but I have a hope that when I die, I will go to be with God, receive a new body, no more sickness, sadness. It will be a perfect life with God forever.
On another note, she also explained to me how to make coconut oil from the coconut milk. So I’ll give that a go.
I will visit her again soon and hopefully have a further opportunity to explain the hope we can have in God through Jesus Christ.
After seeing her house and how she lives, I never want to complain about having a small space to live in.
Today I (Lisa) had a few new experiences. It was “Police Day” today here in Thailand. It’s basically a Buddhist making merit ceremony. Monks come & pray for the police, people take food to the monks, give donations to the police. Anyhow, I was asked to go with Tik to represent Ban Meata (House of Mercy). Neither of us had been to a ceremony like this before and didn’t know exactly what to expect. When we got to the local police station, there were monks chanting and people “praying”. It was interesting for Tik & I as we are Christians and don’t have the same beliefs and were not taking part in the actual ceremony but just going to thank the police for their work as they regularly visit Ban Meata. We sat at the back, but the police officers insisted we take seats of greater honour towards the front - we both thought great, just what we didn’t want. We just spent the time praying to our God .
Jed has just turned the big 5 yesterday (Tuesday). He was very excited and enjoyed a visit to the games arcade and to swensens icecream shop, and of course his presents. His party continues tommorrow as we had a couple people absent from the centre the last few days so we are having another cake tommorrow for him and for Fook who also turned 5 on Sunday.
The boys are over their swine flu, except Jed has still had a bit of a cough (mostly at night). They slept in our room during their illness, but Lisa and I seemed to avoid catching it, other than a very mild sore throat and felt more tired than normal (but that is probably more lack of sleep).
Sorry I have been slack on putting updates on the blog as of late, its partly due to slackness, partly being too busy, part tiredness (and kids being sick), Ive havent been taking as many photos and also we've been in a bit of routine here, and I didnt want to make the blog posts mundane but a bit more interesting for you readers.
We had another Aussie team this week, who did some great work around the property. But best of all they cooked a BBQ, which tasted like the BBQ's back in Aus. We had hamburgers and shazliks, Mmmm.
Our boys have got swine flu at the moment, we think from another boy they played with at a ballpit they have in the towns toy library. Isaac was the first down (on Tuesday), and had a very high fever and a sore throat, but thanks to God his fever has gone, and is on the improve. Jed then got it, and was pretty crook last night, but today seems better in himself. Lisa and I did get a very very mild sore throat, but that came and went, and we are fine (just a bit tired from lack of sleep). We have been keeping ourselves in isolation from all the other kids here, so hopefully no one else gets it. Keep praying for our good health.
Yesterday we had a team from Australia come for a night, they had just come from the Mercy Centre in Petchabun, and brought 25 of the children with them, they were heading to Chiang Mai to give them a little holiday. About 8 years ago Lisa and I stayed in Petchabun for 6 months. Some of the children they brought we knew from then, but then they were only about 4-6 years old, and now they are teenagers. It was amazing to see these children again, not that they really remember us. One of the girls we remember was brought to Petchabun during our stay there, and now we see here a teenager. I actually felt a bit sad, I felt I missed them, and wanted to give the lot of them a big group hug. They seemed like a great bunch of kids.
We finally found a food we eat that freaked the Thai's out when Lisa ate it. Raw Tomato! Yes thats right, the humble tomato that we find so common, made them stop and look at Lisa in disgust. Now they do eat some cooked tomatos, but when she grabbed an uncooked one in the kitchen, and bit into it, thinking nothing of it, as it looked red and nice to eat, she saw their faces and wondered what she had done wrong. I bet they were thinking "Those crazy Aussies eating raw tomatos, why not eat bugs like normal people".
She was in the public hospital here in Phrae. It was awful. Like nothing us been updated or replaced for 50 years. Packed with people. We were trying to get her into a wheelchair to take her out to the car. The orderly was terrible, rough handling her as if she was worthless. We finally managed to get her into the car. She was happy to be going home. We arrived at her home and the first thing I see is a house on a slope (when I say house, look at the photos on the blog and you’ll see we would call it a shed) with about 12 steps up to it. My first thoughts were "How are we going to carry her up that". I asked Tik if that was Jeab’s house, she said no, it was the tiny wooden room behind this one. We borrowed a plastic chair and with Jeab’s daughter’s help, we lifted her onto the chair and the 3 of us carried her to her house through the mud and rubbish on the ground. Her house had about 3 steps, a platform and another step to the entry. The steps are are homemade rickety things with nails sticking out. We lifted her on to the platform and she dragged herself using her arms into the house. Her daughter lives next door with some relatives. The only help Jeab receives is from her daughter (she’s 20) when she is not at school and Tik. She received 500 baht per month from the government to live on - that’s about $20 per month. 
Jed has just turned the big 5 yesterday (Tuesday). He was very excited and enjoyed a visit to the games arcade and to swensens icecream shop, and of course his presents. His party continues tommorrow as we had a couple people absent from the centre the last few days so we are having another cake tommorrow for him and for Fook who also turned 5 on Sunday.