Another busy month in Asia

 Since my last post, we have been very busy.   After the trip to Laos with our visitors from Texas, we returned to the Udon Thani safe house and they continue doing the minor repairs to complete the house.   Curtain rods are being installed upstairs in the girls’ rooms.   Since the house was flooded many times, some walls had to be plastered, sanded, plastered again and sanded and painted again to make the walls smooth.   Tik, our sister worker, is repairing the damage to the walls so they look nice.  There are other small repairs being done as time permits.    

TG used the lawn mower and cut the grass in the back yard one day.   It is just too hot to work outside now.    We dismissed the expensive carpenter/jack-of-all-trades man.  The girls are trying to do the remaining projects.  But, they have been busy with other things and have not worked each day.

I had a rough week after the trip to Laos, dealing with vertigo.    I’ve had it off and on for more than 30 years but this was one of the worst times.   I was too unstable to even walk for a few days.   TG and Tik brought me some medicine and herbal tea.  TG gave me a neck and head massage each day.  I have some lingering episodes of spinning when I turn over in bed or get up in the morning, but it is much better.  

About a week ago, we woke up to rain about 5:30 a.m. and the drizzle increased to heavy rain for most of the day.  This is unusual for this time of the year.   Ron got to watch the drain systems and was happy to see they worked exactly as planned to take off the rainwater from the roof into the system and drain across the road into the field.   It was actually a very delightful day with the rain and moisture.    Hearing the rain on the tin roof was interesting.   

Unfortunately, after the rain, the heat arrived and for the past four or five days the temperature in the afternoon has reached 94-102.    It begins to cool down by 8 p.m. and we can usually go to sleep by 10 p.m.   I’ve awaken two nights at 1 a.m. because of the heat.    By 4 a.m. it begins to cool but when the sun comes up at 6:30 a.m., the day begins to be hot again.   I asked TG if it will be this hot all summer and she said it probably would be very similar.   The monsoon rain will come in May and June and the humidity will make it uncomfortable.    Ron will check on air conditioners this week as we anticipate it will be too hot upstairs for the girls to sleep.  

We went to visit the safe house in Mukdahan, Thailand this past week.    

Phet, our house mother in Vientiane, Laos, does the translating for reports and letters to the girls at all of the Thailand locations and for two of the Laos locations.    Her father drove her to Udon Thani and she spent one night with us so she could travel with us to Mukdahan.   She had never been there to meet the house parents.   

TG drove and it took us about 5 hours to reach Mukdahan, which is southeast of Udon Thani. 

They had lunch prepared for us when we arrived.    It consisted of bowls of rice, two flat egg frittatas (scrambled eggs cooked with onions and peppers) and a smooth green vegetable in a broth.     The green vegetable had small smooth leaves similar to cooked spinach.   TG looked it up on her phone to translate and it showed Ivy Gourd, but I’m not familiar with that vegetable.

Hong, our worker in Vientiane drove himself to Mukdahan and arrived about 3 p.m.    It was a 10 hour drive for him due to a lot of road construction.   

We moved to the room where they conduct worship services to have a meeting (that room has air conditioning).   For the next hour or so, a discussion was held in regard to problems they have at Mukdahan.    Ron has appointed Hong as the Administration over this facility (and other Thailand safe houses also).   

The girls arrived home from school about 5:00 p.m.  The security guard dogs welcomed them.   We spent a little time with them before going to the mall to have dinner at a restaurant.   The girls cook at night.   Ron thought it was too hard for them to cook for five more people.   

Phet and Hong, workers in Vientiane, Laos, are pictured together on one side of the table at the restaurant. 

The restaurant was like a hot pot restaurant where you cook your own food in a boiling broth.  The broth is in the center of each person's plate.  The conveyor belt runs continually with small plates of food (meat and vegetables) so each person selects what they want and add it to the broth.   If is hard to know how much you are eating so when we get full, we just stop.   It cost about $10 U.S. per person.   There was a tempura bar and a sushi bar to also select food from with free drinks, fruit and ice cream.   It was a different experience for some of the workers.   

As we left the restaurant, we looked for Swenson's Ice Cream restaurant.  Ron purchased a large, beautifully decorated (with strawberries), ice cream cake for the girls.   When we returned to the safe house, the girls were in their rooms doing homework but they came down in their p.j.’s and enjoyed a large slice of the cake with the house mother.  

After they enjoyed their ice cream cake, we all headed to our rooms as it had been a very long day for all of us.  

Rooms were prepared for us to spend the night there.   The guest room has its own bathroom.  The bed was comfortable but the heat that night was very hot.    Ron cooled the room down before going to sleep and then turned the air conditioner off.    I woke up at 1:00 a.m. too hot to sleep.    

Ron likes hot weather, so he slept the entire night.    

We greeted the girls at breakfast.   It was girl scout day so several of the girls had on their scout uniforms.    

Breakfast was porridge – a rice soup with a little meat and carrots.   In China, the typical breakfast was congee, a thick rice soup with the rice cooked into a mush.   Sometimes, they had things you could add to the congee for flavor.    In Mudkahan, they had chopped garlic and hot peppers to add to it.  

Ern, our youngest girl is eight years old this month.  She is living here with her two older sisters.  Their mother is either dead or has left the family.   Her father is a drug addict.  They were living in a shack with a plastic tarp over the place where they were living when our housefather found them.  The older girls would not relocate without their little sister.   She is adorable and smiles all the time.   The girls are doing well after being here for the past three years.   We are so happy to be able to care for them.  

Girls got in a circle with the housemother and each girl took a turn to pray.   They were not short prayers.   Each girl seems to express a great deal of excitement in their prayer and the little girl, Ern, probably prayed longer than any of the girls. 

Hong looked at the building and grounds and spent time with Ron to determine what work needs to be done there to improve the facility.    

After about an hour outside the building, we loaded up and drove back to Udon Thani.    We stopped for gas and got sandwiches and snacks at a 7-Eleven for lunch and just ate in the car on the way back.

Phet was dropped off at the bus station when we arrived in Udon Thani so she could take a bus to the Laos border for her father to meet her there.    We stopped at a market for groceries and then TG brought us home after a long day.   

Hong had a long drive back to Vientiane from Mukdahan.    He had to go to the border crossing at Savannakat, Laos this time due to some passport problem.   He will get this corrected and it will be a shorter drive coming through Udon Thani on future trips when he needs to go there.

Our days are routine living here at the safe house.   After breakfast, we straighten up the house, do laundry, mop floors and then start our computer work.    We are past the half-way mark to finish our trip to Asia this year with our return scheduled for April 30th.   

The school term ends at the end of April.  TG hopes to find girls to move into the house in May.   Ron and TG will prepare a power point presentation to use to explain to girls and their relatives what we are offering them to come to the safe house.  They will begin to search for girls soon.

Thank you again for following our work, for praying for our workers and the girls we care for in each location.   Thank you for your emails to me and your concern and prayers for Ron and me.  We could not do this work without our loving, generous and faithful supporters.   May God bless you!