To the orphanage again:)

We said good-bye to most of the Eastlake team and saw the off to the Udon Thani airport. I miss the group already. I'm sure Paul, Tim, and Leanne are enjoying there 12hr layover in Korea about now. I imagine Jim and Janet are near home now since they left Bangkok on an earlier flight. Amy, Bank, and Joy were huge supporters as local team members that could speak Thai and loved playing with the kids.
Anna and I are sticking around the area a couple days before we continue our travels in SE Asia and Marco decided to stay another week here in Udon Thani. We plan on going to the orphanage again today with Amy after going to her church. We will play with the kids and pass out some more photos. It's hard to say good-bye to the girls that we have grown to love, especially when you see the tears in their eyes.
Jeff

Last day at Udon Thani Home for Girls

Well here we are, the final day of our team's interaction with the wonderful girls at the orphanage. It's close to noon and I would guess it's around 90F and sunny today. We love the girls here each personality is unique and beautiful. As we play with them we do our best to love them with hugs, smiles and laughter. Anna and I passed out a few photo books to the girls and they loved them. One girl, Jane, was sad because she knows we are leaving soon and she will miss us as she misses others from past Eastlake teams. As a team we've bonded well and are pretty exhausted from the high energy output and colds over the past week. Please keep these girls in prayer and pray for a safe return of the team over the next few days.
Jeff Chachka

A little more on GLH

The smaller orphanage is fairly self sufficient for the majority of the year. They have a pond where they grow and catch fish for dinner, a frog farm, rice fields that they harvest and it supplies them for about 10 months. There a several very talented young boys (13 to 15 years of age) that teach the younger ones how to play musical instruments and how to become mechanics. Dang, who is 13, is building scooters and dirt bikes from spare parts and sells them to help support the orphanage. truly amazing. This experience has been such an eye opener to all that we have in the US - how little it takes to truly survive and thrive. As Pastor Ryan said, all should do a mission trip of some sort to realize what we have and what others don't. Love and hugs to all - miss you very much!

XOXOXO
Janet

GLH Orphanage - Good Life Home

It's Wednesday and we visited a small privately run orphanage today - it has about 20 children with both boys and girls. It is Christian based and the director and his wife are teaching these children life skills so they will have an occupation once they graduate school. They are well educated and very loved.

Here is a picture of some of them. The two small girls in yellow shirts are extremely cute. The girl on the right, Carrot - was being sold by her parents and was rescued. I cried as she reached out to all of us with a warm heart. Please pray for continued support and love for the children here.

Janet

Our Teachers....

Jim's Teacher

Our Teachers....

Janet's Teacher - Joy

An Eventful Day in Udon Thani

Well, it was an eventful morning. We had one of our teammates fall sick and had to be taken to the hospital. Thank the Lord that we had Paul and P'Nam (spelling may be off sorry) assist him with the language barrier. After fluids and meds he is doing great. Many prayers to help him stay healthy would be appreciated.

After spending our first day with little toys, the team went shopping last night and bought all sorts of toys and fun filled activity games for the children. We will be disbursing them a little each day.

The one thing we have noticed is that the children are eager to learn English but they are also very interested in teaching us Thai. A few of the girls (Joy, Ploy and Beam) were fantastic teachers and we have encouraged them to attend the local University and become teachers. We have learned many Thai phrases - it was truly inspirational.

I'll look to get a photo of the three of them tomorrow. Much love and hugs to all of our friends and family - please continue to pray for the team especially Marco. XOXOXVW
Janet Briggs