Gardening at Udon Thani Safe House

 TG has worked very hard to get the backyard cleaned off and a garden planted.   Our neighbor told someone he knew who had a small bulldozer about our desire to level the backyard.   It was hard as a rock from no rain for a long time and there were holes, weeds, grass, rocks and other debris scattered all around.   The neighbor said everyone used the backyard as a dumping ground while the property was vacant.    Not any more!    The gate on the side has a padlock and the front entrance gate is kept closed and locked.    

Two men came with the small bulldozer and worked less than an hour, grading the back yard and pushing the stuff into a pile.   The cost was $16.00 U.S. which is just unbelievable for two men and the equipment.  TG and other workers picked up rocks, burned some stuff and put the rest in sacks to be picked up by the garbage service.   

A young soldier on leave, worked two days digging up the garden space.   The first day, he and TG worked to install a very strong bamboo frame and attached clear plastic across the top to keep the hot sun from burning the young plants.   The next day they laid out the beds for the vegetables, dug in the hard soil to make trenches for the thin concrete block that was used to make the frames for the beds.  

TG planted four papaya trees and one lime tree.  

 She has other papaya seeds coming up as well as cucumber, lettuce and other vegetables.    

The garden transformed the backyard into a great landscape with banana trees and mango trees surrounding the fence.   

We have enjoyed the bananas since we arrived and there are currently 3 bunches large enough to cut soon.   Most of the mango trees have some fruit at various stages of maturity but none are ripe at this time.   

TG drew the plans, purchased all of the supplies, seeds and supervised the entire project.   She knew exactly what she wanted in the garden and she has taken a great deal of pride getting it underway.    She is definitely a master gardener in our estimation!

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!

Wonderful time with visitors from Houston, TX

I don't know where to start to write about last week's adventures.   On Monday, Ron and I flew to Bangkok and took another flight to Chiang Mai, Thailand.   Kasem and his wife met us at the airport, and we spent the rest of the day with them.   

Chad and Carlyn Jackson and their children from Alpharetta, Georgia are living in Chiang Mai for a year.   They came to the safe house to have dinner with us.   We have seen Chad a few times in the past years, but it was probably in 2009 when they traveled with us in China.  The Jackson Foundation built two of our orphanages in China.   It was great to be with them again.   

We had a good night's sleep at the safe house.   I made it up to the top bunk to sleep.   We were tired so we slept all night even with about a thousand frogs crocking in a nearby rice paddy.   We had a good breakfast, and the girls went to school.   Ron had a 10:30 appointment at the U.S. Embassy to request a temporary passport.   Ron used all of the pages in his passport and the new one he requested did not come before we left the states in late October.    They said it would be ready at 2:00 so we went to the airport to meet our visitors from Houston, TX.   Their flight from Bangkok was an hour late.   

After we met them, we drove to the Central Mall and had a good lunch at Sizzler's Steakhouse.   We went back to the U.S. Embassy to get Ron's passport and then to the safe house.   Our Houston visitors had time to tour the house, but we had to go back to the airport for our flight to Udon Thani.   One girl was home sick, but the others were in school, so they did not get to see them.     

Tuesday night, when we arrived at the Udon Thani airport, TG met us to take us to a restaurant.  With five guests and bags, she got an Uber driver to follow us to the hotel for them to check in and then transport us to the restaurant.   After a very delicious dinner, the visitors went to the hotel.  Ron and I returned to the Udon Thani safe house where we are living now.   

On Wednesday morning, TG came with the van driver to bring our guests to the Udon Thani safe house at 10 a.m.   They toured the house and then Ron showed them a power point presentation about our work.    We went to Central Mall and had lunch at the good restaurant that Ron and I like so much.   After lunch, TG had the van driver take us to some gardens with fields and fields of flowers grown for fresh flower markets.   

Thursday morning, the van picked Ron and me up first and then the guests for the trip to the Laos border.    It was about an hour's drive.    

It would take a whole segment to write about our experience crossing the border at immigration.  I'll just skip the details.  I think the process took close to an hour.  The Laos immigration workers seemed flustered to have to process seven Americans and I was handed a paper that belonged to one of our guests.    They failed to stamp when one of our guests arrived, so she had trouble at immigration the next day as they left for Bangkok.   

Phet, our housemother at one of the safe houses met us and secured a taxi to follow up with some of our group and their luggage.    We went to Ket's house first.    This is Phet's parents' home, and they keep about six girls in their home.  Girls were in school, but we got to see where they live.    

We drove to Hong's house and were blessed to see about half of his girls.  The others were taking exams at school.    Our visitors had a chance to ask Hong and the girls a lot of questions and it was a very good visit.    Hong and his wife, Amphone, care for 18 girls in their small home.    

Phet and Ket drove us all to JoMa's Restaurant, my favorite place to eat in Vientiane, Laos.  They have burgers, sandwiches and salads along with a lot of delicious desserts.    It is smaller but similar to Panera Bread.  Our housefather, Hong, was manager over two of these restaurants in Vientiane and one in Luang Prabang, Laos when we recruited him for our work. 

When we arrived at Phet's house, all of her girls were home and eagerly awaiting our arrival.   It was a great time for them and the visitors as they sat around the table and talked.   The girls enjoyed answering their questions and there were big smiles on everyone's faces.   

After an hour or so, we went to check our guests into the Lao Orchid Hotel.   We walked to a restaurant that had western and Laos food and it was very good.    

We parted company with our guests after dinner.  They were going to the night market before going to bed for their morning trip back to Bangkok the next morning.   Ron and I went home with Phet and spent our two nights in her guest room.   She provided everything we needed, and the bed was such a welcome sight to very tired old people.   Each morning, we had a wonderful table spread with yoghurt, bread, cake, fruit, cheese, and hot drinks.     

We stayed to spend time with Ket, Phet and Hong on Friday.    Ron changed some of their responsibilities for the future management of the work.  Ron had meetings with each to discuss what they need, how we and help them more and what he wants them to do in the future.   We met with Phet and Hong until noon.   We had time to see more of Hong's girls who were home from school that day.  These are the girls we've seen on previous visits so all of us were happy for the reunion.  

Phet's mother prepared a delicious lunch for us on Friday.   We had chicken soup and stir-fried rice with vegetables.   We toured the farm with Ket and he discussed how he wanted to raise pigs and fish.

Hong and his family came to Phet's on Friday night to take us to have dinner with his family.   Their very smart son, Nathan is 7, their daughter is 3 and they have an adopted daughter about 15.   We went to the Pizza Company.  This is about my favorite restaurant because they have the best pizza I've ever eaten.  The children really enjoyed it.  They were well-behaved.   It was good to spend a little more time with Hong and Amphone.   We bought a large ice cream cake that they packed securely at the next-door ice cream restaurant named Swenson's.   They took the ice cream cake to their girls at home.   We told Phet we would include funds in her next transfer for her to buy an ice cream cake for her girls and tell them it is a gift from us.    

Saturday morning, Ket and Phet drove us all the way back to the safe house in Udon Thani.   He crossed the border frequently, so he knew how to process the passports without it taking too long.

After touring our next house in Udon Thani, they returned home to Vientiane, Laos.   Ron and I unpacked, prepared a little lunch and began to check our emails after being away most of the week.

It was a great week for us.   We enjoyed our visitors very much and it was good to get to know them. We needed time with our workers.  

Phet's girls at our arrival at their house: 

Goodbyes are very hard for us as we realize this may be our last trip to see the girls and our workers.  The girls realize this too due to our age and limited abilities.    It was almost a fight with the girls to get to help hold our arms as we climbed the stairs to our room on the 3rd floor.    On the first floor, there is the large dining room where they spend much of their time around the long table, having Bible classes, studying and eating.   The kitchen is small and outside but Ron is going to renovate it to put a roof over it before the monsoon season arrives and provide them with painted walls, a fridge and washing machine (none of which they have now).   The second floor is occupied by Phet, her sister and her family (maybe one little boy) and two rooms for girls.  Phet's sister teaches the beauty course and helps with the cooking and marketing.   When Phet is away, she is always there to stay with the girls.   Phet also has another place where she teaches sewing to some of the girls.

The third floor has two rooms for girls, the guest room and two baths.  There are two baths on each floor.    This house is owned by Phet's father.   At the entrance (you may can see it on the above picture where the girls are waiting for us) there is their small beauty shop where girls are learning to do hair and makeup.   (Kham, the girl that was blind, is taking this course so she can go back to her village and have a shop).  You will see Kham's picture below in a yellow shirt.

It was wonderful hugging and spending time with these sweet girls.  They love us for providing them with a home where they can go to school and learn the Bible.   All of our workers are very dedicated Christians, and they spend as much time as they can to teach the girls.   They meet in different homes on Sundays and do some Bible classes by zoom because Laos is a Communist country.  They must be cautious.

This is a group of very happy girls and it bring joy to our hearts to know they are safe and doing so well.

Kham is the girl that Ron found blind about 5 years ago while touring the villages in Luang Prabang, Laos.  She was brought to a hospital in Bangkok and her eyesight was restored.    Dr. Tom Pryor, a physician who has helped with our work in the medical field paid for her surgery and she is forever grateful to all of us for her sight.

Unfortunately, one of the ladies did not have her passport when she arrived in Bangkok.   She filed a police report that it was stolen but they would only let her report that it was lost.   I guess she didn't have anything else missing.    This was the same lady who had trouble because the Laos Immigration did not stamp the date she went into Laos.    The men returned home to Houston, but the two ladies are still in Bangkok.   

With it being a weekend and Monday a holiday for Martin Luther King Day, they cannot get to the U.S. Embassy until Tuesday morning to get an authorization needed for the airlines to allow her to return home.    We are hoping that process goes smoothly tomorrow morning and the booking for their return flight will go well.    I hope this incident does not ruin their memories of this trip to visit us and our safe houses.

God continues to bless our work tremendously.   Ron and I are also very blessed to be able to make this trip and to do all the work we must do for this ministry.   We appreciate your prayers on our behalf.   

I will have many additional pictures in a few days from everyone's cameras.   If you read this now, check back in a few days and scroll through the pictures.  I wanted to write about the trip early in case some of you are checking to see if I've posted again.   

If anyone has any questions, please write to me at patbrown10@ gmail.com.

May God bless you for having an interest in our work and for the encouragement you provide to Ron and me.  

Progress update at the close of 2022

On the last day of 2022, we will have a high of 81 degrees.   Skies are bright blue, and the air is fresh.  Tonight, the low will be 55.   We sleep under a comforter or blankets every night during Thailand's winter season.   

The members of the church are camping out in the rice fields surrounding the church building.   They will be sleeping in small tents and cooking outside and enjoying the fellowship together today and tonight, New Year's Eve.  Remember, it will be 55 degrees tonight. 

TG asked if we wanted to join them.  Ron's quick reply was "We are already camping."    She smiled at me and told Ron that she promised the church people that he would be there.  He said she could tell them he is too old to sleep in a tent on the ground as he would never be able to get up Sunday morning.  Of course, she was kidding as she had no expectations of us going.   

I took progress pictures of the house today.  You will know what most are but if you want any additional information write to me at patbrown10@gmail.com.

Here are things we hope to have completed on the inside by the time supporters from Houston, TX arrive to see the house on January 11th.

1.   Touch up painting on walls as the electrician made many changes and additions (plugs, switches, wiring, etc.)   Some walls are rough, and Ron asked them to sand and repaint.   

2.   Bunk beds set up in the girls' quarters upstairs.

There are beds for 24 girls.   Space is tight but it is like a dorm room and girls will not mind if they like each other and get along well.  They can switch beds until roommates are compatible.   Curtains will be added as this room is exposed to the street and other houses.  A large fan will be mounted in each area but there will be a good cross breeze with so many windows.  Windows will have screens to prevent mosquitoes.   Each will have a small locker space for personal stuff to be under lock and key.  Clothes will be stored in bins for each girl.    

3.   Tables and chairs will be set up in the dining area.   The second picture below is in the carport now for workers, but this is the kind of table and chairs that will be in the dining room.  They are practical and economical for a large group of girls as we have used in other Thailand safe houses.  Chairs can be easily moved from the dining room to the living room if all girls are there for TV or Bible classes.   

4.   Kitchen needs shelving underneath in the cabinets and either more cabinets overhead or shelves for dishes, sauces and supplies.  Doors to the right end of the kitchen lead to a space under the roof where they could set up a couple of tables and eat outside.   It is a great sitting area with a cup of coffee and a book!

Another cleaning will be done when these things are completed.

OUTSIDE or ADDITIONAL things to be done:

1.   There is space to add another bath (at least a toilet and shower) next to the existing bath to the left of where the washing machine is located (where supplies are stored as you see in the second picture).  

I tried out the washing machine this morning.   There is a second tub to the right side that has a fast spin cycle to get clothes practically dry.   I stretched out a line out the back door and put things on hangers and they dried very quickly.  The washer will be a blessing to these girls.   

This is at the left end of the kitchen.   This entire area is the width of the house downstairs (plus the small patio area I mentioned above).  

2.   Second coat of paint needed in under the roof at the carport and down the side of the house under the eve in some places.

3.   Section of metal roof is rusting and needs work.

4.   Screens to be purchased and installed on all of the upstairs' rooms for the girls (to prevent mosquitoes)

5.   Curtain rods to be purchased and installed upstairs.  Curtains to be purchased for girls' rooms.    

6.   Some screens need hooks installed.

7.   The electrician has about a day's work to correct some plugs and problems.

8.   Fence painting to be completed.

9    Landscaping around house to be done.

10.  Garden to be prepared and ready for planting vegetables.

Drains around house are completed.   This was done on both sides of the house and at the back behind the house so flooding should not be a problem now.   

   

The concrete block wall around the property is being painted a dark gray.   It was a horrible dirty white without this fresh paint. 

  

As you can see, great progress has been made in two months, but the remaining items listed will take time.   There are many things that have been done that the pictures or my writing to do reflect.  Workers have diligently put in some very hard work.  There is at least another month of work remaining.    

We have been living in the house mother's room for a few days.  She has a nice bedroom, office and bath.  

I'm not wild about bathrooms in Asia as the shower is mounted on the wall.   With the shower not separated, the entire floor of the bathroom gets wet.   

I am having trouble sleeping due to the noise.  Ron can sleep on his worst ear and hear nothing going on.   Roosters crow all night, loud music comes from some houses or places of business behind us, the main highway is not far, and traffic is loud at night.   We are about half an hour's drive to markets, restaurants, the mall or to the condo where we were living.  We are outside the Udon Thani city limits so getting Uber this far is an extra cost.

We will have to depend on TG for shopping.  I will keep an on-going list of things needed and she can pick them up at her convenience.   She took us shopping the day after we moved to the house.  Macro is about 2-3 times the size of our Sam's club at home.   Some signs are in English, but many items have no English on them.   There is a large selection of different brands and kinds of most everything, so selection of the right item is sometimes a challenge.   At this store, as at Sam's, many things in the fresh food section were in too large quantities for us.   The other grocery that is extensive is Lotus and they have most everything we need but not in large size packaging.

I know I could do a better job arranging pictures and giving a better explanation about various aspects of the progress, but I think you can get a good idea of this project from my posts.    The house is not the most beautiful, but it is practical.  And it is one we can afford with the generous donation from Bands Ministries in Dallas, TX.    It is not easy to find an ideal house to accommodate 24 girls and have so much nice living space with a large living room, dining and kitchen area.   The property is safe and ideal for a nice garden.   Living conditions for the girls should be very good and they will have good teenage years if they will study hard and get along with each other.   This is an opportunity of a lifetime for poor girls to live free and get an education because loving Christians want to help them.  It prevents the chance of a recruiter coming along and promising them a good job, only intending to sell them for prostitution.   

More importantly, they will learn the Bible and about Jesus Christ.   It is their choice whether they believe and accept Him and His Word.   They will be taught well.  Christian teachers and workers will be diligent to teach the truth of the Bible without manmade opinions and creeds.   Sometimes, this is why we lose the girls...because of our determination to provide spiritual education along with secular education.  They agree to study the Bible just as they would any subject in school but when they reach the point of believing, parents may object to them becoming Christians.  Buddhism is the official belief in Thailand.  It only teaches a thought process to obtain happiness at some spiritual level, but it will not provide anyone with salvation in eternity.  

Once the house renovation is complete, we will start working with TG to locate girls who want to come to the safe house to live and attend school.    We will teach TG what duties and responsibilities will fall on her shoulders as the housemother.   If we can spend a month with her, she will know what to expect. She is very smart and quick to learn so we have no doubt but that she will do a great job.  She has watched Ron purchase things and she knows how to be a wise shopper.

Healthwise, Ron and I are doing well.   We both have back problems but now that we are at the house, we have comfortable places to sit and work and the bed is very good.   Ron continues to have allergy problems and his dry eyes are bothersome and he can't tolerate air conditioning or fans.   

I will post about our travels with the Houston supporters as we visit the safe houses in Chiang Mai, Thailand and Vientiane, Laos during the second week of January.

Let me know if you have questions about us or the work.   I would love to hear from you.

We wish everyone a Happy New Year.   May God bless each of you with good health as you find peace and joy throughout the year as you count your many blessings.

A New Year is coming!

We are hoping that everyone had a wonderful Christmas day, that you worshiped the Lord on His Day and enjoyed family and good food.   Christmas is another day to reflect on health and blessings from above.  For many of you, the cold weather made it a challenge to enjoy the day as you usually do on this holiday.  We hope everyone survived by staying warm enough and not having frozen pipes.    From my friends' pages on Facebook, it looks as everyone had a great time.    With no traditions for this holiday in Thailand, we only saw decorations at the mall.   

We took TG with us to a grille restaurant in the mall for all of our holiday treat.   She took pictures that I will post later but here are some that I took with my camera.   

We had a delicious meal with TG.   We enjoyed spending time with TG that was not working time.   She has worked tirelessly for two months to help renovate the safe house and see to our every need.  She deserved the lunch treat and much more.

This is the picture of the small church here. 

It was taken on Sunday, the last day of the gospel meeting.   They estimated that there were about 100 present but many had left to return home to remote areas of Thailand and Laos to be home for worship on that day.    

We did not attend this day as the service was entirely in Thai.    We worship at the condo on-line with our sponsoring congregation.

We plan to move to the new safe house this week and avoid paying for another month's condo rent.  It has been cheap at about $250 U.S. per month (and that includes utilities) but for the next several months while we are here, we can save about $1,000 in rent by living at the safe house.   They are placing furniture in the house now, setting up the bunk beds and the house mother's room.   Since all of the girls' rooms are upstairs, we will have to occupy the house mother's room the rest of our time here.  The stairs are straight up and we can't risk a fall.    

I will post pictures once we move in so you can really see the change in the house.   It is going to be very nice.

Wishing all of my readers a very blessed NEW YEAR!