El Shaddai Childrens Home

Sorry for being so long in posting, but when you are busy these computers don’t get a lot of time spent on them. Besides it takes sooooooo long to upload anything in Thailand that I wait until I’m back in Canada. Spent 5 1/2 weeks  with the family, most of the time in SriRacha but we did get a chance to travel some.

The kids were just finishing their school year so some finished before the others (no ryhme nor reason to the school schedule) which meant many trips to pick up and deliver kids to and from school. Due to exams etc. We always have a busy time when school is just ending, picking up stuff for last minute reports etc.  Anyways about school. Back in the fall they switched the hours so the kids stay at school and “study” from 3:30 till 5 So we got called in to see one of the teachers at school and when we got home we had a meeting with all the kids. Explained that we’d been in to the school to see some teachers and we found out that some of them hadn’t been staying in class. So we asked them who wasn’t staying in class? Most of them confessed that they hadn’t been staying and studying but rather playing around outside. Exactly what Terry had told the school when they sent surveys home to the parents. The sad part is that the kids didn’t do any homework at school or at home as they said ” we did it at school” yeah right! Typical kids eh?

Lots of house work and vehicle repairs to keep me busy while I was there. In fact so much my wife thought we should take a day to ourselves ( after the kids were in school) and go to Pattaya for breakfast and spend the day doing whatever. Well so much for that, the old jeep we were driving died and I spent the day trying to get it running. Meanwhile Terry sat reading a book, watching me  lying under the jeep. Finally I got the fuel line bypassed (plugged solid in the tank it turned out) with a hose thru the bumper and into the tank. Good enough to get us home and back and forth for the next week picking up kids etc. (our other truck was in the body shop)  So much for a fun day by ourselves.

We planned a trip up North to Chang Mai with the family as a bit of a holiday and on the way we spent a couple of days in another city. While there I noticed 3 young boys sleeping on the step of a building next to a 7/11. We pointed them out to our kids and they noticed that they were there for the next couple of days when we passed by. We explained to them that that could have been them if things hadn’t worked out with them coming to our home. I think it hit home with some of them, they were pretty quiet for awhile. You could see them thinking pretty hard. They need a few sobering moments to make them realize what they have now and how things could have been for them.  

It was a great time overall.

More to come later Dave

So do you ever think your kids aren’t grateful for what they have and all that you provide for them? Well we do think so every now and again.  Now all our kids in the home came from different situations, but they all came from poor families. Sometimes they don’t realize just where they’d be if we hadn’t taken them into our home. We’ve struggled at times trying to come up with a way of educating them about this without point blank telling them “ Look this is where you would have ended up, sex trade workers, drug addicts etc”

So we thought one of the best ways would be for the children to work with under privileged children to see for themselves what their lives could be like. Through the Ministry we have made contact with some groups and Terry started taking the kids to different events. One of these was over the Christmas period. A lady from our International Church in SiRacha has an out reach in Pattaya (about 1/2 hr away) for children and needy people every Saturday. For Christmas she had Santa come and give out gifts for the children. Terry took our children to this event to help out and let our children see up close what happens with these children.

Terry called me after to relate some of the things that happened to her during the celebration and I thought I’d pass them on. At the beginning she was standing just watching the goings on and a little boy came up to her and kept tapping her leg. Once she looked at him he just proceeded to lean up against her and watch too. Once he was called up to Santa to get his gift he brought it back to Terry, he’d never had a gift before and didn’t know anything about unwrapping it. Terry showed him what to do and he was off to the races, amazing how fast they learn. There was 115 kids there so it took awhile to pass out presents, during that time Ter sat down in a chair. Not long after a little girl comes up to her, pulls Terry’s arms off her lap and proceeds to climb up onto her lap. As soon as she sat down she leaned back against Ter’s chest and fell fast asleep. Terry says to me “what gives? These kids just pick me out and settle in” I said because you must look like a loving caring person they can trust, our kids giving her hugs and kisses might have had something to do with it. 

Our kids came home with a different outlook after they mingled with kids that suffered daily abuse, got pimped out for a parents next fix and  slept on the streets when they had no safe place to go. You have to realize that Pattaya is the sin city of Thailand and these kids are exposed to it all day after day, year after year and many have no choice as they are forced into some kind of service. Terry came away with many different stories of  people dropping their kids off at the outreach as they needed somewhere safe for them. Women showing up beaten by their spouses or boyfriends and returning to them so they don’t hunt them down and possibly kill them.

In the end we hope it sinks in to our kids that it could definitely be worse for them, even if  they do think it’s so tough sometimes.

Another thing Terry did with the kids was to bake ginger bread men and then go carolling around the neighbourhood and hand them out. Interesting times were had by all, many people tried to give them money for singing (turns out when some other groups do this they expect to be paid).  They couldn’t get that we wanted to bless them and their families in this time of giving. After all that’s what Christmas is all about!

Christmas morning

Christmas tree

In the end it does our kids good to get out and help others.

Dave

I hadn’t hardly been home and Mom texted me to say that the kids were just wound up like crazy. At first she thought it was because the weather was cooler but ??????? Who knows, maybe it was because Dad had just been there? Christmas is coming? They had been out of school for a few weeks? You just never know do you? Or was it because Mom was feeling lost without her husband there so things were driving her crazy?

Anyways things have settled down to a dull roar in the home again, the kids are back to school which is another story.  I would say for another time but I won’t. So here it is. The schools set home a questionaire for the parents to vote on what time they wanted the students to stay at school until. As it was the children were done at 3:30 which gave the children time to do homework when they got home before supper. But with going to school until 5:30 they wouldn’t have much free time for anything before supper. Of course the extra time at school is supposed to be for doing homework and studying.  But from past years when they’ve done this we know it’s just a fooling around time for the kids due to the lack of supervision. Of course most of the Thai parents want the later days so they don’t have to go get their kids until later.  Terry filled out the forms for all of our kids saying that we wanted them home at 3:30. So after the kids returned the forms to school the teachers had them fill out their own forms. Then one of the teachers told Hannah that she’d give her another form for her mom to fill out again. This was because she filled her’s out saying that she wanted to go to school until later and the teacher said your mom will change her’s too then. Hannah said ” Not Mom, she’s already filled out the forms and she won’t change”. But we knew what the decision would be as they did this every year. LOL :)  It sure makes a long day for the kids, 8 till 5:30 even the ones in kindergarten. It does give us more time to do things during the day but it is hard on the kids.

It’s amazing  how things work, kids find things to do no matter what. Like the one of the last days I was in Thailand, I come around the corner to find most of the younger kids throwing rocks. Okay throwing rocks by itself is no big deal but when they are throwing at a sibling, sitting on top of the swing set, it’s a big deal. Now he (Isaac) was playing it safe, he had a 5 gallon bucket over his head. I guess that’s how all the rocks end up on the neighbour’s roofs.

Just like the picture of the kids playing in the rain water they found coming down the mountain while we were out camping at Kok Chang Island. They had a great time in the water and they didn’t need any fancy computer games etc to do it, just an imagination and someone else to do it with!

Anyway’s I watched the kids open their stockings on Christmas morning from my daughters in Canada and they all seemed to be a little more relaxed, not so wound up. Just having a great time with family.

So from our family in Thailand to your family wherever you may be over these Christmas Holidays. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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

Group hug!

It happens on a regular basis (getting asked to take children into our home) but sometimes it’s more special than others. Sometimes we get a knock on the door and someone is there asking us if we’d take their child? They have seen our kids and everyone in the neighourhood knows that we are a Children’s home. So when someone wants to get their child thru school, learn english, have half decent clothes and just generally looked after they come banging on our door. It’s hard to say no but we have to or we’d be overrun with everyone’s child that they don’t want to put the effort, time and money into themselves. We are white so of course we are “rich” (in their eyes anyways).  I even had a policeman ask me one day to take his boy, he knew that this was a christian home, so we could teach him english etc. I asked “so are you a single parent” wanting to know why he wanted us to take him.

“No” he replied, “I know you do a good job as I’ve seen others come from this home before” meaning when my brother and sister in law lived there with their 33 children. They have been in Thailand for 30 years now.

Like this time we’ve been asked to take two children (twins) that haven’t been born yet. (coming soon, beginning of October we’ve been told) From a young single mom who has no means to provide for this double trouble family, nor any desire to. To bad they didn’t think about that when they jump into bed with someone eh? It will be a quick trip to the hospital once the babies are born as we have to be there to take them home one day after they are born. These two are coming from the south of Thailand so that means a 12 to 15 hour drive to get there, means travelling straight thru (oh well won’t be the first time we’ve done that)  Should make for an interesting trip home.

 Terry and I decided awhile ago that this would be our family and that we wouldn’t take any more kids but maybe the next home could get started with these two. It’s nice to get babies as they don’t have any bad habits, like stealing, lying and generally anything they had to do to survive etc. So I guess it’s still not a done deal but if it’s meant to be it will be.

Take care everyone, more details to follow soooooooooon. Dave