I’m back in Canada after spending 3 1/2 weeks with my wife and family in Thailand. I was met at the airport by most of the children and a huge banner ( in picture)
What a great family
It was a great surprise as they should have been at Thai Church at that time but because I hadn’t been there for so long everyone wanted to come to the Airport to met me. It had been just about 10 months since I’d been home, which is wayyyyyy too long, due to work issues etc in Canada. But now we are back on track so the longest time away will only be 4 months or so. You know you see them on the computer with video feeds etc but it’s still not the same as in person. It was hard to keep the tears in check but in reality I was crying like mad they just didn’t know it ( I know a few escaped while walking up to them) They all gave me hugs and of course noone wanted to be left out so they all tried to hug me at once, which I didn’t mind as it was a great group hug.
By the way the other people in the Airport sure watch us as they see this group of Thai kids welcoming home Dad who is a caucasian. We never fail to attract attention wherever we go. Many Thai’s will come up to our kids and start asking questions about the family and our relationship to the kids and it’s heartwarming to hear them say that’s our MOM and DAD!
Group hug!
After you’ve been away you have lots of things to work on, discuss and deal with. One major one was that one of the older boys had left the home just before I came. Caleb had been with the home for many years and we’ll miss him but he is at that age that knows everything and noone else does so he wanted to leave. He told some of the ther kids stories about why he had to leave before Dad got home but really it boiled down to ”I” . Meaning that it was selfishness om his part, he got very demanding with Terry telling her she had to take him back. Back being to his village in the North by Chang Rai immediately of course when you are a parent by yourself you just can’t pick up and cater to 1 out of 16. She told him you will have to wait until Dad comes home and he’ll take you back but he insisted that he had to leave right away and he couldn’t wait. Anyways she arranged for someone to return him (as he was underage he had to be returned to the family or village to sign him over and change his govt paperwork etc) Terry asked him when he said he wanted to leave ” have you thought this thru? You aren’t part of our family anymore, you’ll have to make your own way etc” but he just wanted out so he could show everyone that he could do it on his own (kind of on his own as his parents supposedly were going to pay for living expenses and he was going to stay at a friends house) It turns out that he has had both parents and they are doing quite well now and had been for some time now but wanted him to “get as much as you can” from those people. Sad to say but his heart has never been right and he was always whining that we loved the other kids more than him. The other children open up to tell you the truth of what has been going on once he left. Which goes something like this, he wanted to have a girlfriend, cell phone, freedom to do what he wanted, his parents had been sending him money and gifts for a long time now and he was always grumpy around the other kids. (we’d always see a positive change in the house when he was away at school camps etc) So when he was actually leaving the house Terry told him to pack all of his belongings, he filled a backpack and said “I’ll come get anything else some other time”. Ter said no, whatever you want you better take as everything else will be gone after you leave, Oh he thought he’d just pop in whenever to play with the kids and pick up stuff and kind of keep it there for when he wanted it. That was probably one of the biggest shocks he got when he was told he wouldn’t be able to just pop over whenever, we still had our family schedules etc and he wasn’t going to disrupt our household just because of him! So he left with a few garbage bags and a back pack filled with his school books and possessions.
So one big thing we both needed to do (AGAIN) with the kids was explain about what was expected of them and the rules of the house. So we sat them all down one night and asked them to list off the house rules and I wrote them on the whiteboard. They came up with all the usual, don’t lie, don’t steal or cheat, don’t fight, obey your parents etc and we asked if you were living somewhere else what rules would you have to follow? About the only one they could come up with was “speak English in the home” everything else they’s have to do. Also we’d heard some stories that Caleb had told them about why he had to leave right away which boiled down to him saying that “Dad was going to deck him when he got home as he’d hurt mom”. (of course he’d never hurt Ter anyways but it sounded good) We explained that when someone wants to shift the blame from themselves when they are doing something wrong they will make up stories so they don’t look bad or at fault. And when we asked them would Dad deck someone they said no, not unless they were actually pyhsically hurting us or mom, Right now you know the truth and don’t believe the stories you hear from someone who’s doing wrong as they will always try to blame others.
One of the big things that we were supposed to do this trip over was recieve a set of new born twins, after many listless days and nights waiting for the phone to ring for us to go get them from the hospital it never materialized while I was there. Two day after I left Ter recieved the call and made arrangements for spomeone to lokkafter the family while she and Naomi drove down south to get the babies. The night before she left she prayed to God (as something wasn’t right) and asked him to let her know if we wouldn’t be getting the babies before she got down there. As it turned out while on the way to get them she recieved a phone call saying the mom was going to keep them as a Christian group was giving her a job and was going to help her with the children. Praise God
Ter had gone out of her way getting prepared by buying baby stuff, reorganizing rooms etc but it was still better that the children could stay with their mother.
I have lots more to post but It will come later,
Thailand Daddy
What they started with.
