Hoay Maw

We first visited the orphanage in April 2005 when visiting the Mays - see here for photographs.

The orphanage is up in the mountains near the North Thai border about one hours drive from the main road up and over beautiful country side.

One the way up to the orphanage, we stopped off at a local market to purchase fresh fruit and meat.

We had been told that they had been surviving on rice, rice and more rice, as they did not have enough money to buy food. So we spent a grand total of £50 (~$70) buying 21 kg of fresh meat and some 50 water melons - sufficient food to last them a week (amazingly!!)

The orphanage has a church within the grounds. The church building was specifically donated by a Taiwanese and is a beautiful building - ironical, because the accomodation that the children live in can best be described as "basic" (polite way of saying, a shed...), without any mosquitoes netting (our church childrens group raised sufficient money to purchase mosquitoe screens for the sleeping barns later that year).

They receive no funding from the local Thai government, as the children all come from a hill tribe people group. Currently they receive rice donated by an Austrialian charity, and some funding from a church in Norway.

The May's visited the orphanage in December 2005 to deliver the monthly supplies - see here for Andrew's excellent write-up and photos.

The orphanage was overseen by Thomas (from the church in Norway). Thomas found out that the person running the orphanage owned a large plot of land, and had a friend who was involved in a tea producer who did not have sufficient production to meet demands. So a venture was started whereby tea was planted on this land, well actually to start with, only 1/6 of the land.

Unfortunately due to resourcing and management issues, the tea plantation has not been looked after and managed effectively.

Meanwhile, Thomas and his family were planning to return to Norway for a year's sabbatical, and was concerned that the orphanage would lack support. It had been suggested (not sure why) that we would be able to do a good job there...

It is not certain whether the tea project will be viable, but if not, we will look into alternatives like bananas or pigs!

...so here were are - in the process of packing up our house, resigning from our full time jobs with Eurotherm (we asked to be allowed to work part time remotely, but due to the various corporate changes, they did not feel it possible), leaving the schools, and moving.

But we are really excited - a complete new adventure into something none of us have ever done before! Fantastic!!!

Adrian

Yes, as a family we will be moving to Chiang Mai, Thailand at the end of August for about 11 months.

The flights are booked for 24th August 2006, school fees for Grace International School where our children will attend have been paid for.

What about Eurotherm (our full time jobs in the UK)? Well, they have decided due to current climate (i.e. they are in the process of making some 100+ manufacturing staff redundant as they are relocating manufacturing to Poland and China), it would be difficult to apply different rules of us by allowing us to work part time remotely. So we will have to resign. However on the positive side, they may be wanting us to perform some contract work for product maintenance - to be discussed.

So we will have to resign from Eurotherm. When we come back next June/July, they may or may not have jobs for us - we are trusting God for that.

So what will we be doing in Chiang Mai? Orphanage development.

We have got the opportunity to help an orphanage in the North with a money generation scheme. They have land, there is a demand for tea. They need someone to assist them in getting it going so that they can then fund themselves.

Why? We obviously have none of the qualifications typically associated with this sort of project.

We don't have any of the following:
- agricultural skills
- cultural skills
- language skill

So,we are ideally suited then. We will be calling on all our friends with appropriate experience for advice.

But then, our children are at a point in their education that we can talk them out of the English system into Grace Internation School which uses the US system. We have sufficient savings and alternative incomes to fund ourselves (and therefore be self-funding).

And it will be a big adventure!

Although we decided some time ago, we have avoided mentioning it as we were still in negociations with Eurotherm about whether we could continue being employed.

More later...

Adrian

On Wednesday morning we drove up to Mae Sai, the Northern most tip of Thailand bordering with Burma to visit a couple of Christian orphanages.

This trip was organized by some friends on Andrew and Esther who drove up with use.

The was an amazing experience for all of us.

After listening to the children sing worship songs in their own language, Jenny lead our children performing worship songs in English. The orphan children loved it.

We also delivered some 21 kilograms of meat, 50 water melons and other fruit to one of the orphanages - the children had been eating only rice for the last month!

Jenny, Esther and the girls then did a craft of making ribbon on sticks which they then used in dances to some worship songs.

The time we had at these different yet similar orphanages was a wonderful experience which we were privileged to share with these friends of Andrew and Esther who's organization provide food and money.

It is a sobering thought to think that the money one earns in the West in less than one day is enough to feed some 200 orphans for a whole week.

Adrian