Back in Thailand

Faa and I arrived safely in Thailand after 2 delays at the airport on Friday morning.  Zac arrived safely in the US and Nathan in Guatemala.  From his pictures, he's seeing some incredible places.

Well I'm not the only one missing Zac.  Everywhere I go, people are asking me where he is.  When I arrived at the GROW home yesterday, one little boy who seems to idolize Zac, wanted to know right away where he was.  I miss my traveling buddy , but I am so grateful for all the fun we had together here.

Last Thursday we visited Daughters of Cambodia to learn more about ministry in Cambodia.  Then we met Pheakdey, and she took us to her ministry called CODO. We met the director who was very gracious and shared with us many things about this ministry.  Thus man has many degrees, worked 15 years for World Vision and then felt that God was asking him to leave all of that to work in a small organization where he could work directly with the people in need.  We were very impressed with this man's heart to obey God and to serve the children in their poor communities.  They offer day care for those who can't afford it so the parents can work.  They also offer classes for the parents to help them.  They work with the schools and communities to encourage them to help their neighbors.  I think we can learn a lot from this organization, and it spawned all sorts of ideas in Faa and me for GROW.

Since we had two days full of meetings and it was Zac's last day, we want to do something fun with him.  We saw on our tuk tuk (sort of a taxi) a tourists ad for a place where you could fire a rocket launcher.  So, yes we took a 30 minute tuk tuk ride, got into an SUV and drove maybe 1 1/2 hours to the mountains.  I joked by asking if we were still in Cambodia.  As we drove into the compound where we would shoot, we began to wonder if this was a good idea.  Then we saw the collection of highly illegal in the US weapons and really began to question our decision.  But the prepared and loaded a rocket launcher and called me to fire it first.  Ok, I had no idea of what to expect.  So I just pulled the trigger when he said, "three". Zac said it was like watching a movie, very surreal. I was surprised at how easy it launched.  I have no idea how far from the mountain we were, quite a distance, but it went all the way to the mountain.  Then it was Zac's turn.  Yep, it was just like watching a movie except we were the ones in it.  Zac's rocket actually went over the mountain. Then it was Faa's turn,  She fired a grenade launcher.  After a few misfires, she launched the grenade toward the mountain.  Nothing, nothing, nothing, we turned off the camera, then the explosion.  Lol  I couldn't believe how long it took to reach its destination, but then it exploded on the side of the mountain.  I have video of her firing it, it threw her backward, but she stayed on her feet.

After that adrenaline rush, we had the long ride back to the tuk tuk, back into town and to the cafe we had a meeting at the day before to purchase another mango smoothie, the best one I've ever tasted in my 13 trips here!!!! This was at Zac's request, but Faa and I didn't complain.:) We took them to go, rushed back to the hotel so Zac could shower and get to the airport.  We said our goodbyes and put him on a plane.

When Faa and  landed in CM, Thailand, Brenden Miller picked us up from the airport and took us to their home for dinner.  We got to see little Jude! Becca was pregnant last year when Bria and I were here.  We had a great visit which included a "night walk" with their daughter, Maya, Just she and I though, nobody else was allowed to go.  It basically consisted of walking around their house with my phone flashlight.  It was something she always wanted to do.  Maya was so much fun that night. She reminds me of myself,talk talk talk talk. She told me lots of secrets, like all the games we could play, and planned our next visit to be an overnight where she and I would stay up and watch a movie without her parents.  That night, Faa and I stayed in town.

Yesterday Zach, Tutu's son, picked us up.  I asked that he talk me to one store that's at the night market but open during the day.  Faa and I walked up and down the street trying to find it.  The street looks very different in the day without all of the stands set up.  We couldn't  recognize the store. So we were standing in front of one place trying to decide what to do when we looked in the store in front of us and realized this was the place.  They had changed the merchandise in the front of the store so we didn't recognize it.  When we saw the stairs leading up to the 2nd floor, we realized this was it.  What I was looking for was on the 2nd floor.  SO I was able to purchase some really neat pants and dresses and tops which I will bring back for GROW.

Faa stayed in town for a couple of doctor appointments she had while Zach took me to Tutu's.  Jerry Christensen arrived with Tutu shortly afterward.  We had a chance to talk about his time in Thailand and other things.  It was good to see him.  Jim Rhea is also here, but I haven't seen him yet.  We've communicated on FB, but our paths haven't crossed yet.

Last night we went tp the hospital to see Daniel and Nan's baby.  He was born the day before.  This is another one of Tutu's sons.  He is so adorable.  About 11 pm though there was a fire at the hospital I think in a refrigerator. They had to go home because of the smoke and return the next morning to be officially discharged.

Sunday morning we worshiped at an Asia's Hope church in Doi Saket.  Since a lot of the children are back in their villages visiting family over the break, Tutu had us participate in the special music.  So, we practiced after breakfast and preformed an hour later.

After lunch, Faa's brother picket Faa then me up, and we headed back to WPP.  We all got dressed up and had a celebration for the 6th graders who just graduated.  We also celebrated birthdays for March and April and had a farewell party for our house parents, Bee and Nueng, who are going on to their calling as a pastor. We ended the evening by playing a game with the balloons and the string of flags strung between the buildings.

Today Faa and I head up to Doi Chang with Pat to see how Albonzo Coffee is doing and to purchase coffee for any of you who wish to buy it from GROW.

Thanks again for all of your prayers. We visited a staff family from Asia's Hope who were just in a motorcycle accident this week.  Their two year old has scrapes all over his face and a dislocated arm.  The wife has a fracture in her cheek and the husband had to have surgery for his fracture in his face.  They are recovering and praising God that it wasn't any worse.  Prayers for safety are really important here.  Again, I thank all who are praying.

SOME MIGHT CALL US CRAZY, and maybe we are, but my husband brought to our attention that not only has our family been in three different parts of the world these past two weeks, Nathan in Costa Rica, Zac and I in SE Asia and Val and him in the USA, but starting today, three of us will be traveling to different countries alone at the same time.  Please pray!!!! Nathan left earlier today for a quick trip to Guatemala. At 1pm today, Thurs, your time, I put Zac on a plane to fly from Cambodia to South Korea to the USA and about 11pm your time tonight, I will fly back to Thailand (with Faa). Zac arrives home on Friday afternoon, I arrive back in Thailand 4 am in the morning your time on Friday, and Nathan returns to Costa Rica on Saturday.  Yes, please pray for all of our travels. I leave next Wed to begin my journey home.

IN OTHER NEWS, Tuesday, March 21, we caught a bus from Battambang to Phnom Penh.  This is always an interesting trip. You just never know what can happen along the way. Thankfully, nothing catastrophic happened on this bus ride.  I’ve seen crazy things like people exiting a burning bus, busses on the side of the road with blown tires from the heat or broken down, and I’ve been told (thankfully never seen) accidents where the front or the back of the bus was totally destroyed.  That’s why we always chose seats in the middle of the bus! 

We arrived in PP after seven hours.  I noticed three years ago when I was here last, that the construction going on here is crazy.  This year it is even worse.  Cranes everywhere, high rise apartment buildings replacing what once were humble neighborhoods. All of it is from foreign money, mostly Korean and Chinese.  I tried to inquire about how this is effecting the economy.  Are the displaced people able to afford the new housing, or are they pushed out to more affordable places?  How are some of the people able to afford to live in new neighborhoods of million dollar houses and fancy cars? Most of the residence in one of these neighborhoods are government workers who don’t have big salaries. Of course there is corruption; that might be contributing to some of it.  We are staying in a new hotel in town.  The 12^th floor overlooks the city.  There are pockets of the city that are beginning to look like Shanghai or Ho Chi Minh. I believe in 10 years or so, the whole city will look like this. I’m still trying to get a sense of the economic growth. Is the money trickling down? Is pay able to keep up with the high inflation?  I’m not sure.  I still see a lot of very low income places.

Yesterday was a full day of meetings for us. We met two people from an organization called EMI (Engineers Ministry International). This Christian organization is in 70 countries helping by developing plans for building.  They have some full time staff who prepares short team trips for organization needing their help.  So there are engineers, architects, graphic designers, surveyors, etc who volunteer their time to go where there serviced are needed on short term mission trips.  They work with local construction companies and also offer internships to locals who want more experience in this field.

 

We also met with a man from a ministry called Hagar.  They are involved in helping to create a foster care system in Cambodia.  GROW would like to expand into Cambodia in the future, so this meeting was very beneficial as we learned a lot about the legal side of operating in Cambodia. 

Then we met with Pheakdey, an old friend of both Faa’s and mine. We met her in 2010 when she worked for Asia’s Hope.  She now works with another organization in PP and has made arrangements for us to visit and to learn more about it this morning.  Pheakdey remembered how much Zac likes pizza and ask if we would like to have pizza last night.  LOL, we had a great time catching up and reminiscing about past times we were here with her.

Today, we will meet with the director of Daughters, another ministry here.  Our goal in meeting with all of these ministries is to learn what we can from them to take back to GROW what we find beneficial for us.  After Daughters, Pheakdey will pick us up and take us to see her ministry.  Then, it will be time for a little fun with Zac before he heads out.  Watch FB for pics!!  That will leave us an hour or so to check out the market to see if there are things I might want to bring back for GROW.

I apologize again for not adding pics on the blog.  It’s a lengthy process for me and the equipment that I have.  So please, check out my FB.  I post and repost pics from others often.

LAST THING! I will be visiting the coffee farm where GROW gets its coffee.  If anyone would like to order coffee, please FB message me or email me.  I will make sure you get what you would like to have.     

Again I apologize for not posting more often.  You can follow me on Face Book to see pictures and short updates. I am finding it much easier to post from FB. I will post though from time to time on the blog.  If we aren't FB friends, search for me as Jeana Harley.

We have been in Cambodia for a few days now.  Are flight was delayed a couple of hours from Bangkok to Seim Reap.  Bangkok Airways is pretty amazing though.  They fed us on the one hour flight to Bangkok, then gave us meal tickets to buy dinner since our flight was delayed, then fed us another meal on the next hour flight. Needless to say, we were not hungry when we arrived in SR.

Sambo picked us up.  It was great to catch up with him anout his family and ministry.  He has such a big heart for Jesus and his Cambodian people, especially children.  He opened a new school in a village in the Poi Pet region.  Today we are going to visit him, his family and his ministry.

On Saturday, we stopped at Angor Wat.  Faa wanted to get a few pictures for an art therapy project they have planned. I haven't been there in a few years, so it was nice to visit again.  It was really hot and very crowded though, much more than  before.  We decided the next time we come, we will go at 5am to watch the sunrise, no people, no heat!

When we arrived in Battambang, it was raining very heavily.  Some of our Grace Place 2 kids and the parents came to visit us at the hotel. It’s always a blessing to see how much the children have grown and changed.  Of course they haven’t seen Zac in 3 years, so everyone is commenting on how tall he is.  It’s so funny to watch him with the kids.  The girls, especially love Zac, no matter the age.  He has been getting a taste of what life would be like if he were famous.  Everyone wants a picture with him and his autograph on their art projects that we have been doing with them.  Yesterday, Nga, one of the girls, wanted him to draw a beard and mustache on her so she could look like Zac. Zac double checked with me to make sure the markers ere washable!!  Then he drew on her face.  Then she drew on his face!  The kids laughed and laughed.  He is a good sport.  See FB for pics!

Church at Asia’s Hope in BB is always such an amazing blessing.  There’s just something about hearing all the voices worshiping God together.  The music is good, but not so loud that you can’t hear others signing, not just the person next to you, but the whole assembly.  It’s pure worship from the kids and others who attend the church.  It’s one of my favorite things here.  It takes me back to a time when Tim and I were part of the choir at a Billy Sunday Revival.  We were part of a 2000 voice choir.  When we sang a cappella, it was so beautiful.  All of our simple voices raised up together.  I thought to myself, “This must be what it will be like in heaven.” To be a part of that was so amazing that I really don’t have words to describe it.  That’s how it is at church here too.  So beautiful.  I love instruments, but the human voice with the purpose of lifting praise up to God, from the heart, is beyond beautiful, even more so in corporate worship.

With two Grace Place homes, we have to divide our time between the two.  So after lunch, games and activities with GP 1, we walked to GP 2 where the kids screamed with delight as they saw us turn the corner.  I can only imagine them watching and waiting for us to appear.  Maybe like the father of the prodigal son, watching and waiting all the time with anticipation of seeing his son turn the bend toward home and running out with such joy to great him, they ran out to great us.  So the hand-off was made from one group of kids to the next, and we started all over again with home 2.  Lots of games: soccer, corn hole, parachute games, and more coupled with food and fellowship filled our day.

 I enjoyed being swept away by our house parents for a few minutes for coffee and a time to hear about their challenges as house parents and how we could pray for them. If you can imagine raising 23-25 children, if you’ve raised one, you might be able to imagine what it is like for them.  What I love the most is how much they love these children and want to see them follow Christ.  Their struggles are unique and yet not so different from what parents in the U.S. face.  I keep thinking how blessed these children are to have the house parents they have. They cry when the children make bad choices and rejoice when they choose good ones, work hard, or are successful in something they do.  I can’t thank enough for how He has provided for this ministry in the way of staff.

Today, Vannak, his wife and two of the girls are taking us to Poi Pet to see Sambo.  Sambo couldn’t get a car to pick us up, so he asked Vannak to hire us a taxi, but Vannak said, no, he would take us, and his wife would go along to take care of us.  This is the heart of this couple. 

Ok, wow, I forgot it was my birthday.  Thanks, Tim, for the message reminding me.  It’s weird to go almost all day without even giving a thought to it.  LOL. But tonight we have a dance party with the kids. That will be party enough for me.

We had a very good visit with Sambo at his English school. He was between classes, so we had lunch prepared by his beautiful wife, and spent a lot of time talking about his ministry and about GROW and so on. His heart for Jesus and for children never ceases to amaze me.  He use to have over 300 students in the main city of Poi Pet.  Then the economy took a hit due to many factors.  Most of the children could no longer pay for school, but Sambo kept them as long as he could.  Eventually he had to close the school because there wasn’t enough money to pay the teachers.  He went to Seim Reap and lived out of his car and tried to find work to support his family.  He sold his land and moved his family to Seim Reap but still there was no work for him. So he bought land in a village in the Poi Pet province, moved his family back, and started a new school.  His family lives in a room at the back of the school. He has 24 students who are learning English from him.   It was good to talk to him and spend time with him today.

On my first trip here in January 2010, I met an older girl living in GP 1.  The next year I think it was, she fell in love and got married.  I also know the man she married.young man.  They have a little boy 4 years old and live in Poi Pet as well.  They really struggled those early years, and we had the opportunity through friends here to support and encourage them with rice and diapers. Today we stopped by and visit the husband and his son.  He started a school a couple of months ago.  His wife was working elsewhere, and we were unable to see her, but it was great to visit for a few minutes with him and to see their son.  See my FB for pic!

Now we are heading back to BB for our farewell party and to see Kevin Kane who just returned to BB from a 4 day trip. Tonight will be fun, but difficult at the same time as we say goodbye to these children who are so near and dear to our hearts.  It’s hard to believe so many of them are close to graduating from the university, trade school and high school. They are grown up.  I can’t say enough good things about our house parents here. They love and serve these precious children 24/7.  The quality of the care these children receive is excellent.  I am so blessed to know them.  I have learned so much from them.

Ok, this blog has taken all day to write.  It is now 11 pm.  I wasn't going to add anything tonight, but I just had to add one more thing. Both homes surprised me with birthday cake, silly string and "Happy Birthday" song when we returned from Poi Pet.  First was GP1 then an hour or so GP2.  I came to find out that Faa was in cahoots with our house parents for 2 days.  Ok, to be honest, I never thought about it being my birthday again after Tim's text.  Lol, that is until we pulled into GP1.  Short of not being with Tim and the rest of my children, my birthday couldn't have been more perfectly spent, with the Cambodian "family" I have come to love.

 
Don't forget to check out all pics posted on my FB!

Goodnight,
Jeana

After three seemingly endless flights, we arrived safely in Thailand. We landed at approximately 11:00 pm and were greeted by Tutu’s son David. In celebration of my (Zac) birthday, David treated us with a trip to an authentic Thai restaurant called McDonald’s. We then arrived at Tutu’s place at midnight where we were welcomed with a warm embrace.

After a short night of rest, we attended church at Asia’s Hope homes in Doi Saket. After the service had concluded, we spent a few minutes socializing. My role as a tree was quickly established when children rapidly began climbing on me and lifting themselves up on my arms. As tiresome as this role may be, it brings me so much joy watching their faces light up as I lift them into the air or spin them around. Their smiles are so lively and infectious.

Afterwards, we ate lunch and then prepared ourselves for the drive up to Wiang Pa Pao where the Grace Place and G.R.O.W. homes are located. I was in awe when I noticed how much the kids have grown up since the last time I saw them. Many of them can hardly be classified as kids anymore. With the Grace Place children, we played a lot of badminton. My entire right side is still sore from the hours that we played. We then concluded our time at Grace Place and went to the G.R.O.W. home where we are spending the next several nights.

While I stay at the G.R.O.W. home, my mom (Jeana) is traveling back to Chiang Mai with Faa and Ning for a couple days. Staying by myself in a different part of the country is an abrupt yet exciting start to my adult life. I am spending so much time with the kids and having so much fun. On Monday, I attempted to teach several of the kids how to play the drums and the guitar. This was quite the challenge considering the differing languages. Nonetheless, the kids were fast learners and seemed to enjoy themselves. In fact, as I type this right now, I hear one of the boys practicing one of the drum beats I taught him the day before. Their desire to learn music makes me feel right at home.

Later that day, the other children returned from school and started a game of soccer. This made a great day even better. I had so much fun playing against the kids and the staff. Afterwards, dinner was generously prepared for me. To my delight, one of my favorite dishes was made: mango sticky rice. If it was possible for me to gain weight, I would have definitely already added five pounds. My trip thus far has definitely been incredible.

While Zac was having fun with the kids, I (Jeana) went to CM with Faa, Ning and JJ.  Ning and Faa both had dr. appointments two of the days we were there.  We also did a lot of shopping for G.R.O.W. I’ll post some pictures later of items I am bringing home. I had the opportunity to see the young lady who interned at G.R.O.W. last year.  Maria #2 is what they called her.  She now owns a massage parlor and is using it to reach people for Christ.  She is developing a great ministry.  Yes, of course, she gave me a massage.  I also visited briefly with Beam.  If you remember, Beam is Faa’s cousin who worked for G.R.O.W. for several years.  She left to continue pursuing her education in Chiang Mai a couple of years ago.

Back in WPP, Zac and I went over to Grace Place to play with the kids there for a little while.  We pulled out a coloring activity thanks to a friend who sent them along!  The kids enjoyed that. Then we unwrapped the parachute we brought.  Zac and I taught the kids all variations of things to do with a parachute and a ball.  The kids laughed and laughed, and we all had so much fun.