Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Good times
My last 9 days before leaving for home were some of the best.
On Saturday evening I enjoyed soccer with some of the students. It was dark enough that I couldn't see the ball when it was in shadows, and we were playing in the cafeteria, so it was lots of fun.
On Sunday I did my best to disrupt a staff meeting by teaching the gardener to use a skil saw as I was working on a handrail for the stairs we had built. I soon found myself elsewhere, and got lots of reading done. When I went back to work in the afternoon, I got distracted by soccer for a while, but eventually some work got done.
On Monday I focused on a high priority: escaping to the woods. I took the Nafie sisters to both of the rock structures I had explored, and we climbed the one with the view down to the school. Three students met us up there. The forest is really nice right now: trees that have been bald for a while are putting out elegant red leaves. The hillsides will look really nice when these leaves are big and green. We saw a few new types of flowers along the hike too. We could have taken twice as much time as we had to explore, but made the mistake of checking the time.
On Tuesday I went to Byota with Gayle (the nurse), her son Micah, a student and a teacher, and Elani, another volunteer from Tennessee. Byota is about 4 hours away from the school, in a beautiful valley. It's higher country: the mountains we went over on the way there have pine forests on them. It was neat to see wild bananas and pine trees growing beside each other while I enjoyed the refreshing forest air.
Wednesday was a good work day: we got one bamboo wall replaced with boards. If I stayed I'm that house too long, I think I would develop a sideways lean: the walls in the house are way out of plumb. The house has character that most North Americans miss out on.
We had used most of the wood on Wednesday, so on Thursday, so I had the problem of trying to stay occupied in a beautiful mountainous place. I went for a hike on a shortcut road before breakfast, then did the repeat and enlarge version of that hike with Elani after breakfast. We went quite a ways before she turned back, then I kept on going and followed the road to until it joined the main road at a big pagoda. There were many excellent views. I got back to Byota on time to go to an excellent swimming hole in the stream. It is surrounded by nice rocks to jump off, and made an ideal place to play tag, which we did at Micah's suggestion. In the late afternoon I finished replacing the front door of the house. Gayle gave me her VitaMix blender, since she can't use it with Thailand's 220 power. Excellent pay for little over a day of work: especially since just the experience was more than worth it.
On Friday some of us returned to the school: my main accomplishment was taking in views.
For some crazy reason I agreed to play violin with Dah Bu (a teacher) and Anna for AY on Sabbath afternoon. Then I found out there was no written music for the song they were going to sing. My play by ear skills are almost non- existent, so I had lots of practicing to do. But then I skipped half the practicing to chase Emily and some students to the pagoda with Micah. So everyone had to put up with a fistful or two of wrong notes. It went better than I thought it would though, way better than the week before.
On Sunday, Mr. Adams and I got the handrails for the chapel stairs up: something I really wanted to get done. Now he just has to install a couple supports (which are just to make sure they're too strong) and that project will be done.
Overall I had an excellent time here in Thailand. Great exploring and good work experience helped make it worthwhile. But it was the staff, students and volunteers at Sunshine Orchards (the school) that really made the trip worthwhile: they're all awesome people, and the love of Christ shines very brightly through many of them.
Jan. 5 update:
I had most of the day in Seoul. I took the subway to the old part of the city and explored a historic palace and a park. Pictures of the palace, fortress wall, and broad-topped pine trees say a lot more than I will: I'll post some on Facebook when I can. I think the lunch I had was a traditional Korean meal. The salad part of it was excellent, and the soup cleared my sinuses quite well.
On Saturday evening I enjoyed soccer with some of the students. It was dark enough that I couldn't see the ball when it was in shadows, and we were playing in the cafeteria, so it was lots of fun.
On Sunday I did my best to disrupt a staff meeting by teaching the gardener to use a skil saw as I was working on a handrail for the stairs we had built. I soon found myself elsewhere, and got lots of reading done. When I went back to work in the afternoon, I got distracted by soccer for a while, but eventually some work got done.
On Monday I focused on a high priority: escaping to the woods. I took the Nafie sisters to both of the rock structures I had explored, and we climbed the one with the view down to the school. Three students met us up there. The forest is really nice right now: trees that have been bald for a while are putting out elegant red leaves. The hillsides will look really nice when these leaves are big and green. We saw a few new types of flowers along the hike too. We could have taken twice as much time as we had to explore, but made the mistake of checking the time.
On Tuesday I went to Byota with Gayle (the nurse), her son Micah, a student and a teacher, and Elani, another volunteer from Tennessee. Byota is about 4 hours away from the school, in a beautiful valley. It's higher country: the mountains we went over on the way there have pine forests on them. It was neat to see wild bananas and pine trees growing beside each other while I enjoyed the refreshing forest air.
Wednesday was a good work day: we got one bamboo wall replaced with boards. If I stayed I'm that house too long, I think I would develop a sideways lean: the walls in the house are way out of plumb. The house has character that most North Americans miss out on.
We had used most of the wood on Wednesday, so on Thursday, so I had the problem of trying to stay occupied in a beautiful mountainous place. I went for a hike on a shortcut road before breakfast, then did the repeat and enlarge version of that hike with Elani after breakfast. We went quite a ways before she turned back, then I kept on going and followed the road to until it joined the main road at a big pagoda. There were many excellent views. I got back to Byota on time to go to an excellent swimming hole in the stream. It is surrounded by nice rocks to jump off, and made an ideal place to play tag, which we did at Micah's suggestion. In the late afternoon I finished replacing the front door of the house. Gayle gave me her VitaMix blender, since she can't use it with Thailand's 220 power. Excellent pay for little over a day of work: especially since just the experience was more than worth it.
On Friday some of us returned to the school: my main accomplishment was taking in views.
For some crazy reason I agreed to play violin with Dah Bu (a teacher) and Anna for AY on Sabbath afternoon. Then I found out there was no written music for the song they were going to sing. My play by ear skills are almost non- existent, so I had lots of practicing to do. But then I skipped half the practicing to chase Emily and some students to the pagoda with Micah. So everyone had to put up with a fistful or two of wrong notes. It went better than I thought it would though, way better than the week before.
On Sunday, Mr. Adams and I got the handrails for the chapel stairs up: something I really wanted to get done. Now he just has to install a couple supports (which are just to make sure they're too strong) and that project will be done.
Overall I had an excellent time here in Thailand. Great exploring and good work experience helped make it worthwhile. But it was the staff, students and volunteers at Sunshine Orchards (the school) that really made the trip worthwhile: they're all awesome people, and the love of Christ shines very brightly through many of them.
Jan. 5 update:
I had most of the day in Seoul. I took the subway to the old part of the city and explored a historic palace and a park. Pictures of the palace, fortress wall, and broad-topped pine trees say a lot more than I will: I'll post some on Facebook when I can. I think the lunch I had was a traditional Korean meal. The salad part of it was excellent, and the soup cleared my sinuses quite well.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Worthwhile viewing
For those of you who want to read something worthwhile about the school here, check out the Nafie sisters' blog:
http://mrnjln326.wordpress.com/
Also, there's a new video on the Adams family page:
http://karenoutreach.org/
http://mrnjln326.wordpress.com/
Also, there's a new video on the Adams family page:
http://karenoutreach.org/
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Diapers are more handy than I thought
Mar. 5 Sabbath
To top off another good Sabbath, we piled as many people as we could in (and on) the truck and went to a waterfall at the national park. I explored upstream and took a trail to another waterfall. It was farther than I expected: about 2km until I came to the beautiful pool with two small waterfalls flowing into it. After pulling myself away from the refreshing water, I hurried back, hoping I hadn't made everyone wait too long for me.
They hadn't waited too long. At the main park area, I was greeted by a group of boys who had been swimming in the waterfall pool there. They tried to get a message across to me, but I was unable to receive it. Finally, one of the boys sheepishly showed me a diaper. It had the message on it that Miles would come back to pick me up. So I had lots of extra time to enjoy the beauty there, Miles got to put 20 miles more on Micah's motorbike, and a bunch of boys got something to laugh about. I'd say the extra trouble I caused was worth it.
Please don't tell short versions of this story that go anything like this: Will had a problem near the waterfalls, so he needed Miles and miles to be put on a motorbike... and a diaper...
Mar. 12 update
Last week was all about stairs for me: a week's worth of labor for two flights of stairs. I'm that slow.
On Friday the 4th, Harvey Steck, probably the future principal of this school, arrived. When I was getting his hut ready, I noticed just how steep his walkway was, and decided to take an hour on Sunday to carve in some stairs to the hut. I soon found out just how crumbly the clay there was, and was wondering if I needed to clear a new walkway to replace the one I had just destroyed. Then a rock caught my attention, and I realized my opportunity to play Flintstones for the morning. I've never built stone stairs to withstand monsoons before: especially not without filter cloth. I'll have to find out if I built a flight of stairs or a surprise flight path for the rainy season.
After lunch, just when I was about to get to work, I decided to play some more, so I built a stone landing for the volunteers from Tennessee. I knew I didn't need to, since it probably wouldn't rain for months, but couldn't resist. A few days later it did rain, and it rained here both days afterward also. I guess it pays to play Flintstones after all.
On Monday, I got the request to build new stairs for the chapel, since the bottom rung kept falling off. Also, they were far from ideal: each 2x4 tread had a rise of 12 inches. And mothers would carry their kids up and down these stairs. And students would sometimes go up or down 3 at a time (as in, there would be 3 kids on one rung jostling for position). Good thing the Karen people have fine-tuned senses of balance: I didn't hear of any accidents.
Anyway, Laren offered to help me build the stairs. He had the same experience level as me: we had both seen stairs built. We had two half-sawn logs for stringers, and they didn't give us any extra length to play with. So we spent Tuesday doing engineering (actually, basic math) on a chalkboard and reinforcing the joists of the chapel entrance to handle heavy stairs.
Laren and his family left on Wednesday, but fortunately, the gardener here helped me do a lot of the labor from then on. Since all the lumber here is the equivalent of rough-cut (or very rough cut), and I wanted all the treads to fit tightly in their slots, there was piles of labor - at least that's my excuse. Anyway, we got the stairs done just on time for Friday evening worship. They were an excellent learning experience.
On Friday, I again found myself in the position of not having a gift to give for my mom's birthday. So I had some of the students and staff here give her a gift instead. It worked great: I'll have to remember this trick for later.
To top off another good Sabbath, we piled as many people as we could in (and on) the truck and went to a waterfall at the national park. I explored upstream and took a trail to another waterfall. It was farther than I expected: about 2km until I came to the beautiful pool with two small waterfalls flowing into it. After pulling myself away from the refreshing water, I hurried back, hoping I hadn't made everyone wait too long for me.
They hadn't waited too long. At the main park area, I was greeted by a group of boys who had been swimming in the waterfall pool there. They tried to get a message across to me, but I was unable to receive it. Finally, one of the boys sheepishly showed me a diaper. It had the message on it that Miles would come back to pick me up. So I had lots of extra time to enjoy the beauty there, Miles got to put 20 miles more on Micah's motorbike, and a bunch of boys got something to laugh about. I'd say the extra trouble I caused was worth it.
Please don't tell short versions of this story that go anything like this: Will had a problem near the waterfalls, so he needed Miles and miles to be put on a motorbike... and a diaper...
Mar. 12 update
Last week was all about stairs for me: a week's worth of labor for two flights of stairs. I'm that slow.
On Friday the 4th, Harvey Steck, probably the future principal of this school, arrived. When I was getting his hut ready, I noticed just how steep his walkway was, and decided to take an hour on Sunday to carve in some stairs to the hut. I soon found out just how crumbly the clay there was, and was wondering if I needed to clear a new walkway to replace the one I had just destroyed. Then a rock caught my attention, and I realized my opportunity to play Flintstones for the morning. I've never built stone stairs to withstand monsoons before: especially not without filter cloth. I'll have to find out if I built a flight of stairs or a surprise flight path for the rainy season.
After lunch, just when I was about to get to work, I decided to play some more, so I built a stone landing for the volunteers from Tennessee. I knew I didn't need to, since it probably wouldn't rain for months, but couldn't resist. A few days later it did rain, and it rained here both days afterward also. I guess it pays to play Flintstones after all.
On Monday, I got the request to build new stairs for the chapel, since the bottom rung kept falling off. Also, they were far from ideal: each 2x4 tread had a rise of 12 inches. And mothers would carry their kids up and down these stairs. And students would sometimes go up or down 3 at a time (as in, there would be 3 kids on one rung jostling for position). Good thing the Karen people have fine-tuned senses of balance: I didn't hear of any accidents.
Anyway, Laren offered to help me build the stairs. He had the same experience level as me: we had both seen stairs built. We had two half-sawn logs for stringers, and they didn't give us any extra length to play with. So we spent Tuesday doing engineering (actually, basic math) on a chalkboard and reinforcing the joists of the chapel entrance to handle heavy stairs.
Laren and his family left on Wednesday, but fortunately, the gardener here helped me do a lot of the labor from then on. Since all the lumber here is the equivalent of rough-cut (or very rough cut), and I wanted all the treads to fit tightly in their slots, there was piles of labor - at least that's my excuse. Anyway, we got the stairs done just on time for Friday evening worship. They were an excellent learning experience.
On Friday, I again found myself in the position of not having a gift to give for my mom's birthday. So I had some of the students and staff here give her a gift instead. It worked great: I'll have to remember this trick for later.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
February in Thailand
Feb 24
I'm in Mae Salit with a bunch of Gulliwa's (white people) at a really fancy restaurant. Just to give you an idea of how fancy it is, in Canada many restaurants say "no shirt, no shoes: no service". Here it's no Thai: no service. Anyway, there's another couple missionary families here for about a week. For the last couple days, there was also a dentist and a doctor working at the school.
During the times I haven't been busy perfecting my thumb twiddling skills, I've been making table frames and shelves, working in the garden, learning to play caneball, and breaking stuff.
The garden work involved digging and dunging vegetable beds, and helping to set up bamboo trellises for tomatoes and beans. The school's garden has really taken off in the last month, and the cook has been using greens grown there for over a week. We dug water lines into the garden area, so now they have gravity-flow water system to water the garden (with maybe a couple inches of head in the high places).
The carpentry work has been an excellent learning experience for me. I have the use of a skil saw, a drill, and an angle grinder. The lumber is like rough-cut 2X4's. Needless to say, many hours have taught me the value of table saws, planers and other tools. Designing and building beds, shelves, and tables with the available materials has been fun (now you know how much biking I'm doing here). I now have a student, Cha E Tu, working with me, and he's learning very well.
Another good (time consuming) learning experience has been breaking tools. There was a wire getting bad in the angle grinder. After my first fix ended up being temporary, I tried to replace the wire: and pulled the wire right out of the windings. So I got to learn how to take the windings out of a tool motor, and why you shouldn't scratch any wires in the process. The grinder did run for an hour or two after the repair, but I'm now using a new grinder. I also had the skill saw somewhat apart, but it's doing better.
Miles and I have been learning to play Caneball, the hands-free volleyball game. The locals here are very skilled at it, my skills give good contrast to theirs.
Yesterday was the first time I heard warfare: at about 11:30, we heard explosions and gunfire in Burma. The Burmese have been advancing through what the Karen had held, and clearing their landmines. Apparently what we heard was a successful ambush that the Karen staged. It only lasted about 10min. By the way, that afternoon we went swimming in the border river (in the opposite direction from the fighting.
Feb 27 update
Yesterday a bunch of the guys hiked up to some more of those rock outcroppings. I went up later and joined them. It's a good thing they were making lots of noise so I could find them. We had a little worship on the top of the rocks. One of the routes down included going down a vine about 25'. It's amazing how strong the roughly 2" diameter vines were: I went up and down one, and it's no worse for the wear ( nor am I). The hike back to the school involved lots of sliding: good thing there was lots of bamboo to grab on the way.
Last Sabbath a whole bunch of us went up to the pagoda. When some of the kids found out I has a camera, I had almost incessant photo requests for a while.
There are often villagers who come to the Adams' house with medical needs. Last Sunday it seemed like there was a ton of them. And that's saying something, since these people don't weigh very much. There was a blind man with no hands. As I was wondering if he was a victim of the fighting in Burma, I started to feel very privileged. Many of these people have it rough.
I've been doing some electrical repairs here: it's a sketchy setup with really thin wires.
The visiting American families left this morning. They were working on a short video to show how God has led in getting this school going and to present the current needs. I listened in on Mrs. Adams sharing the story: it's amazing.
I'm in Mae Salit with a bunch of Gulliwa's (white people) at a really fancy restaurant. Just to give you an idea of how fancy it is, in Canada many restaurants say "no shirt, no shoes: no service". Here it's no Thai: no service. Anyway, there's another couple missionary families here for about a week. For the last couple days, there was also a dentist and a doctor working at the school.
During the times I haven't been busy perfecting my thumb twiddling skills, I've been making table frames and shelves, working in the garden, learning to play caneball, and breaking stuff.
The garden work involved digging and dunging vegetable beds, and helping to set up bamboo trellises for tomatoes and beans. The school's garden has really taken off in the last month, and the cook has been using greens grown there for over a week. We dug water lines into the garden area, so now they have gravity-flow water system to water the garden (with maybe a couple inches of head in the high places).
The carpentry work has been an excellent learning experience for me. I have the use of a skil saw, a drill, and an angle grinder. The lumber is like rough-cut 2X4's. Needless to say, many hours have taught me the value of table saws, planers and other tools. Designing and building beds, shelves, and tables with the available materials has been fun (now you know how much biking I'm doing here). I now have a student, Cha E Tu, working with me, and he's learning very well.
Another good (time consuming) learning experience has been breaking tools. There was a wire getting bad in the angle grinder. After my first fix ended up being temporary, I tried to replace the wire: and pulled the wire right out of the windings. So I got to learn how to take the windings out of a tool motor, and why you shouldn't scratch any wires in the process. The grinder did run for an hour or two after the repair, but I'm now using a new grinder. I also had the skill saw somewhat apart, but it's doing better.
Miles and I have been learning to play Caneball, the hands-free volleyball game. The locals here are very skilled at it, my skills give good contrast to theirs.
Yesterday was the first time I heard warfare: at about 11:30, we heard explosions and gunfire in Burma. The Burmese have been advancing through what the Karen had held, and clearing their landmines. Apparently what we heard was a successful ambush that the Karen staged. It only lasted about 10min. By the way, that afternoon we went swimming in the border river (in the opposite direction from the fighting.
Feb 27 update
Yesterday a bunch of the guys hiked up to some more of those rock outcroppings. I went up later and joined them. It's a good thing they were making lots of noise so I could find them. We had a little worship on the top of the rocks. One of the routes down included going down a vine about 25'. It's amazing how strong the roughly 2" diameter vines were: I went up and down one, and it's no worse for the wear ( nor am I). The hike back to the school involved lots of sliding: good thing there was lots of bamboo to grab on the way.
Last Sabbath a whole bunch of us went up to the pagoda. When some of the kids found out I has a camera, I had almost incessant photo requests for a while.
There are often villagers who come to the Adams' house with medical needs. Last Sunday it seemed like there was a ton of them. And that's saying something, since these people don't weigh very much. There was a blind man with no hands. As I was wondering if he was a victim of the fighting in Burma, I started to feel very privileged. Many of these people have it rough.
I've been doing some electrical repairs here: it's a sketchy setup with really thin wires.
The visiting American families left this morning. They were working on a short video to show how God has led in getting this school going and to present the current needs. I listened in on Mrs. Adams sharing the story: it's amazing.
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