Thailand: Part I

I just returned home from Thailand last week and I must say it's great to be home! It was an awesome two weeks packed full of tons of different projects. The people were so amazing- they've been through so much since the tsunami and they're still so happy and content. Many great lessons to be learned from their humble examples! I loved it! And so I took a million pics. Here's a few for now...and more to come later while I sift through them.



We spent most of our time at Home & Life orphanage. The kids here either lost their parents in the tsunami or their families are too poor to support them. We built a storage house, painted murals on their dorm houses, tiled one of the floors in their main building and taught vocational skills.





These are all the kids at the orphanage. The people who run it are so perfect for the job- they've created a great atmosphere and want to keep it small so they have a family feeling. The kids are all so happy too- it really wasn't a sad place at all.
















Okay, construction Thailand-style means mixing cement from powder, carrying bricks/cinder blocks one-by-one and digging holes only with shovels, all done in the heat and humidity. This also means that we were constantly wet with sweat.



Below we were teaching them sewing on the freshly tiled floor and here's a pic of the mural. The kids loved helping us paint and it was neat that they became a part of it too. (Until they got a little carried away and started painting crazy aliens on the wall. We edited them out a bit so they wouldn't regret it when they're older and realize how freakish they looked- I should've gotten a picture of them though, they were pretty funny!)