Welcome Rachael to our family.  She is three years old and has been living at our friends orphanage since she was three days old.  It was intended for her to be adopted by our friend who in the end wasn’t able to.  He has given her to us and she has been with us for three weeks now.  We aren’t too sure about being able to adopt her either.  It is a very complicated process.  She will always be our daughter but it may not be able to happen on paper.  Everyone is still adjusting but most everything seems positive with the new change in her and our life.  Abby is enjoying being a new big sister.

Eli is amazing.  He is beginning to walk and will be one year on the ninth of this month.

The house is pretty much finished.  I just finished the bathroom last week.  We brought the girls up a couple of weeks ago while Lisa Gavin was here and they had a great time staining the outside.

We are looking forward to B-ma and almost all the Blues coming here in the next couple of weeks.  We will spend time in the village doing everything from painting, teaching, soap making, cooking, and working in the coffee field.  People in the village are excited and wont stop asking for B-ma.

The coffee is looking great and after a couple set backs with the locals most things seem to be doing well.  In one area we were forced to take out our banana trees because they believe there is an evil spirit attached to the tree that makes them sick.  We refused for awhile and even used the opportunity to speak to them about God.  But after they released cows in our field and threatened my brother in laws life.  We were forced to remove the banana trees.  Since then we have planted a new fast growing, nitrogen fixate, shade tree to replace the banana trees.

Prang is doing well and is busy with the weaving project in the village and even some free lance translation.  We are brain storming and researching many new business opportunities for her.  We are in the process of buying and selling avocado and coffee.  This could some day turn into a business or a company here in Thailand.  We will be driving up to Chiang Rai tomorrow to meet with farmers and with local buyers.   Prang will also be starting school here next term in December.  She will be studying on Saturdays and Sundays to some day become a teacher as well.

The next month is packed with many trips to the village, B-ma and the Blues, soap making, buying and selling avocado’s, taking care of coffee trees, and hopefully at some point having some sort of a vacation.  We have yet to have had a vacation since we first got married four years ago.

Please check out our pictures link. I have many recent photos uploaded

We had a good month in the village.  Two weeks can easily turn into four once the rains start coming.  This is the rice planting season.  Or the season for any sort of planting.  Farmers in the mountains rely fully on the rain for their crops.

For those of you who follow this blog will remember that we had a water project proposed.  Well that project has been funded and completed.  We ran two Kilometers of water pipe to two different places.  This project seems to be a building block for many new relationships.  They see us running water pipe and then all of sudden you have many new friends.  I’m not concerned about their motives.  It’s the relationship that I care about.   This water will be used to ensure the survival of our new 3,500 coffee plants.  Others in the family and church who will be planting coffee or that will be working with us will also be using the water.

Once the rains started coming we began planting our coffee, avocado and banana trees.  We now have over three thousand coffee trees, 100 avocado trees, various different shad tress and a few hundred banana trees.  The shade trees, avocado and banana trees will serve as a shad canopy for the coffee.  We already began micro loaning seedlings out to other farmers and have sparked the interest of many other local farmers who say they want to plant coffee with us next year.  Which is our goal.  We want farmers to invest long term investments into their properties.  A good veriety of different cash crops that they can get a little something from every season.  Now they just battle with the supply and demand of tomatoes and chillies.  Most of the time just wasting their time and money in hoping to get rich once the supply drops and the demand increases.

Our house is pretty much done.  I still need to finish framing in the kitchen area but have run out of wood.  I used the rest of the lumber on the bathroom.  Again I will send some pictures once I can.

We also had a lot of time to spend with people in the church and were sharing and teaching.  Our main theme seemed to be relationship.  To have a relationship with God.  Something that isn’t taught here.  Many people in the church didn’t seem to understand when we explained that that’s what it means to be a Christian.  To have a living relationship with Jesus.  He is your father and friend.  You can talk with him and he listens.  My 15 year old nephew came to me after church one day and said “Thank you.”  He has never heard anything like this.  He said that is was cool to know that we could be friends with God.  It seems that we are mainly just battling with the spirit of religion all the time.  Living in this contractual world makes having a grace filled relationship with the living God seem impossible.  But we are seeing people accept what we say.  Even if it’s just my nephew being able to grasp it.  That makes it all worth while.

Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, or economic strength of individuals and communities. It often involves the empowered developing confidence in their own capacities.

I pulled this definition off Wikipedia online.  This word has really been grabbing my attention lately.  For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why.  Now I think I know why.  This is what it means to be a missionary.  Or better yet a Christian.  We need to be empowering other people and other cultures.  This mind set has begun to reshape my life and work over here in Thailand.  Or better yet.  It has given me a sense that what we are doing is in fact for their sake.  For the Thai people.  Mainly the underprivileged or marginalized people groups.  They need to do it on their own.  We just need to plant the seed, or the vision and watch them grow and become something bigger and better than what their culture settles for.

The reason I have come to all this is because I have begun to see results in people’s life around me.  One case study would be my brother-in-law Koi.  (Prangs youngest brother)  He has been living with us ever since we have been married.  Yeah really.  So that is coming on four years in July.  He was the reason that I first started the landscaping business.  He needed money to live and go to school and I was sick of him just living off of us.  I knew it wasn’t helping him and he needed to make his own living.  It has been three years since he has been working with me cutting grass.  I had always visioned him running the business and it being his.  But the lack of work ethic and the laziness has never allowed this to happen.  Recently I just felt like God was telling me to give him the business.  And so I did.  Now I am seeing a change in him that I have never seen in the three years he has been working with me.  He wakes up early, gets the truck ready, goes to work on time and at the end of the day makes money and puts it in his pocket.  He seems happier, more motivated and just easier to be around.  I know money is motivating him.  As it does all of us.  But what I am also seeing is him being empowered.  He is growing.  Becoming more and more self capable.  All because I gave him responsibility.  And he had a willingness to do it.  I’m not trying to take all the credit here as I know God is growing him.

The point I am getting at is.  Empowering people to make their own decisions, the ability to access information, and increasing one’s positive self-image can take years.  But I am being able to see this.  This is giving me more motivation with the teenage boys in our house and our work in the mountains.  Someday we may actually see people being changed.  It just may take for ever.

Coffee

We have already dug some 2,500 holes for coffee seedlings and about 2,000 more planned.  We are planting our own as well as micro-loaning seedlings to farmers who want to grow.  Primarily working with people in the church and family.  Many farmers have told us they may want to grow coffee after they see ours succeed.  Apart from the holes being dug we have also built a small (and I mean small) nursery to keep seedlings and other plants.  A new water project has also been proposed and will consist of drawing water from a natural spring, running one kilometer of pipe and possibly building a cement tank.  It will provide water for the coffee plantation and possibly give water to a near by village during dry season.

Also we hope to have a training event where villagers who are planting coffee will be able to learn all about growing, mulching, trimming and harvesting coffee.  We are hoping to receive training from a local coffee company.  www.silaacoffee.com

Bags

J’Nangutong ~ My Sister’s Bag

The vision includes bags from a variety of women groups around the world, but for right now, we only have Karen Bags.  We have modified the tradition style side bag to meet the grocery bag standard in the West.  We are also thinking some products like tea towels, table runners, napkins, etc. might provide a more consistent appeal to western markets too.  This is all still in the marketing research phase and a web site will hopefully soon be up and running.  For the mean time we have women busy making bags and tea towels to be sent to the States and Canada.

House

I am building a small two bedroom house for our family to stay in while we are in the village.  Mission teams and guests will also be able to use it while visiting the village.  We are cutting the wood from big pine trees in the forest and building it ourselves.  It will be a traditional Karen style house raised off the ground.  I also hope to have this done before the rains hit in mid May.

Rice Mill

We have just installed a new machine in the rice mill.  It will take the rice husks that get tossed out in the back of the mill and grind them up to a fine bran that will be bagged and sold for fodder.

Though we are having some initial set backs and some mild miss-communication on how to use the machine.  We hope to get the kinks out soon.  Thank you to those of you who have supported our rice mill project.  We will be using the profit from the rice mill not only to pay for the workers but also to help establish small businesses in the village.  Including the bag and coffee business.

Not much else to say other than be praying for Abigail’s skull fracture to close up and that she wouldn’t hit her head again.

Kim and Sean

So here are some pictures that everyone has been waiting for.  Click on my “photo album” to view more.  Let me know of any problems viewing any photos.  Eli and Prang are both doing very well.  I am staying home taking care of Abby while Prang heals and focus’s on Eli.  My god mother Pattie is here to visit so we are all just hanging out at home being a family.  I’ve done a little bit of garden work and planted some Thai veggies along with , oregano, tomatoes, lettuce and kale.  Also thanks to our good friend Kevin ElJ we now have a video of our rice mill project.  I will be sending DVD’s out soon.  E-mail me or leave a comment with your address if you would like to receive your free copy.  For now you can view it below.

I am having driver problems with my computer.  So everyone is going to have to wait on the pictures.  I’m hoping it’s just my memory card and not my camera.  But don’t worry I will get some up soon enough.

These are just a few of the really good photos our friend Kevin LJ took for us when up in the village.  Click here to see all of them.  We also did some video of rice planing and of the rice mill.  We took up about ten gallons of some organic fertilizer that I have been making for them to use on their rice crops.  It’s still in the experimental process but I am learning heaps all the time.  I’m still keeping busy with Im Jai House and mentoring teenagers.  We’ve gotten lots of new landscaping work in the last month and it’s keeping me and the boys busy.  We also have a new member in our house.

His name is Tinglee.  He is 17 years old who we originally knew from Im Jai House.  Though he hasn’t been living there for a few years I have still been mentoring him.  He has ben with us for at least a month now and is adjusting well.  He grew up with Park who already lives with us.  They both go to a dramatic arts school.  He is a very talented musician and is studying the violin.  He is on my soccer team and also works the landscaping business with me.  A very smart, talented and hard working teenager.  We are pleased to have him apart of our family.

We’ve been back for more than two weeks now.  So this post is by far over due.  Especially since I didn’t write one post while I was in the States. 

We had an extended trip of two months.  Upon arrival at LAX, Immigration granted  Prang a six month visa instead of a one month which is what we thought we were going to get.  Next time she applies for a visa she will be given a ten year, multiple entry visa.  The thing is that may not happen.  Prang is very content with being in Thailand and was glad she visited but has no real desire to go back.  This is here home.  As is it mine now too.

I have been busy since the day I got back.  Organizing and running a soccer tournament at Im Jai House, re-newing my visa, building an area for raising chickens, catching up loose ends on the landscaping service, hanging out with teenage boys, laying pavers under our car park, and of course trying my hardest to get 18 guys together to practice soccer before our tournament begins.  Everyone wants to play but no one wants to practice.

We are planning a trip to the mountains here soon.  We will visit family, hang out with friends in the church, check up on the rice mill, help plant rice and I will hopefully be bringing some natural fertilizer that I am going to be making here next week with a friend.  I am trying to perfect how to make it so I can teach people in the village how to do it themselves.  For now I am still in the learning process. 

So though I don’t have a real concrete, day to day job.  I still can’t seem to find enough time in the day to do all the things I want.  Writing on this blog is one of them.  It’s the one that gets put at the end of the list.  I want to try harder and update this thing on a more regular basis.  For those of you who care, just keep nagging me by leaving comments about how boring it is to keep seeing the same old thing all the time. 

Just as I am about to send this I just got some knew news.  Prang and I have been asked to take in the other four teenage orphan boys that I mentor.  Where they are staying wont be available to them any more and they may not have any where else to go.  So as of now we are just talking and praying about it.  Prang and I both have a long history with them and know them all very well.  It will just be a lot all at once.  We aren’t worried about space or money or anything other than can we take them all on at one time.  Be praying for us.  I think we may have until the end of the month.

Click here or go to my “photo gallery” link to see some pictures of our time in America.