Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope it was wonderful for you all!
There have been lots of Christmas celebrations here: I think five parties already and there are four more next weekend! Crazy stuff.
Expect a longer update soon: We've been doing a lot, and I've been thinking a lot, I just need to find the time to write it all down. But for now, here's the chorus of a song that I've been thinking about recently:
"To hear with my heart/To see with my soul/To be guided by a hand I cannot hold/To trust in a way that I cannot see/That's what faith must be."
How's your faith these days?

What am I doing here?

The title makes this sound much more theological or something than it actually is: I realized the other day that I have never given you all a thorough explanation of what I'm doing/how everything works over here. So I guess I should do so.
The organization (for lack of a better word...) that I'm working with is called the Love and Care Project Foundation. It is a Thai foundation started by a married couple; Rodney and Phimpha Wojciechowski.
Rodney is originally from Minnesota while Phimpha is Thai. It is a very small foundation, more like a family than anything else. The workers consist of Rodney and Phimpha, a Thai couple who lives with them (Anon and Dang), and then random volunteers who come and help. Right now, besides me, there are three volunteers from Australia.
The main ministry of the Love and Care Foundation is to take care of children who have no other place to go/no one to take care of them. Right now there are 13 children on the property (which is called the Timothy house). They range in age from 2-16, and there are 5 girls and 8 boys.
The physical set-up here at the Timothy House is pretty simple: there is a building that was originally going to be an office where the children all sleep. There is a dorm building mostly finished that the kids will move into eventually. This building has about a dozen good sized rooms, so there will be plenty of space for the kids. Besides these two more modern/western style buildings, there is an open area that serves as a kitchen/dining room, as well as a couple huts. There is a fish pond in the yard, a garden out back, two cows, a dog, and several chickens. [edit: since I first wrote this, there are fewer animals living here...but we will have beef for Christmas!]
Along with working with the children, there are always other people that need helping. Phimpha is the head of the women’s' ministry with the local church, and random people call all the time looking for help with their problems. (for example...giving people rides random places, moving straw in the back of the pickup truck, cutting rice, giving advice, going with a young girl to the police station to report a crime, taking in a disabled man whose family refuses to take back from the hospital...you never know what a day here will bring.)
Most days I ride in with Rodney to drop off the kids at school in the mornings. Then I either go out with Rodney and Phimpha as they help out people or run errands, or I stay at home and help look after the two 2-year-olds who are the only ones too young to go to school. If I'm at home when the kids get out of school, I get a chance to hang out with them before dinner, and I'm nearly always around to play with them after dinner before bed. It is neat to see how much the kids are like every other kid I've ever met: they love to play and laugh and have fun.
Well, I assume you are all tired of reading now, so I'll sign off. Thanks for reading! :)

Mailing address

For any of you who want it, this is my mailing address here!
Love and Care Project Foundation
PO Box 2
Klong Hat, Thailand 27260

Here's one of the girls at the house here! I have no idea how to spell her name--you pronounce it sorta like "doy" ... she's great :)

Hello all! Just wanted to let you know that Luke got out of the hospital on Friday! Thanks for your prayers! He is doing very well hopping around on crutches...still keep him in your prayers as he has some recovering to do still. I think he goes back to the hospital in about a month to get the pins taken out of his ankle.
This weekend we had the first two Christmas parties! They were a lot of fun! Lots of Christmas carols and food and people. And, at both parties I ended up singing in front of everyone with the three other volunteers that are here. We sang Joy to the World, and now Phimpha is having me look up the words to more Christmas carols to sing for Christmas. So that will be interesting! Fun, but makes me a little bit nervous...not quite like singing with the worship team back home where someone else is in charge picking out the music and making sure things run smoothly.
Well, I should go figure out how to ask to print these lyrics! Hope you all are enjoying your weekend and the week before Christmas! :)

Prayer Please!

Just a quick prayer request: one of the kids--Luke---fell down the other day and broke his ankle. He is in the hospital recovering---he should hopefully return home on Wednesday. He is doing pretty well, but still has lots of healing to do.
I will keep you updated as much as possible! Thanks!

Greetings again! I have not been on the internet in a week, so I feel like there is a lot to say. But most of what I have been doing isn't all that interesting to read about: been playing with kids a lot, helping out with dishes and laundry and mudding/sheetrocking a dorm.
Last Saturday we picked up Christmas child boxes from Samaritans Purse that we will get to hand out to kids in the village/church around here. That will be fun! We're going to be a part of 4 or so different Christmas parties this month, which will be cool! there will be one in the village, one with the church, one with the kids' parents, and at least one more, but I'm not sure who that's with...I guess I'll find out when it happens!
That's how life is usually around here: don't always know what's going on until shortly before it happens.
but I've got to run! I have taken a couple pictures that I'll post soon....here's one of the kitchen area and a hut next to it for two Thai workers who are living here right now and below it a picture of the dorm where I'm living. I will post more soon! :)

random thoughts

This morning was spent cutting rice out in the rice fields....interesting stuff....a lot of the rice had been out in the field too long because the guy we were helping couldn't afford to hire someone to help him cut it. so it had just died in the hot sun. Puts a whole new view on the verse in Matthew “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Lots of people are ready to hear God's word, but who's going out to tell them? They won't be there forever...
food for thought.

on another note, a random fact I learned at dinner time last night: the Thai phrase for it's time to eat when translated means "eat rice". so even when they have something else for dinner, that's what they're saying: eat rice. gives you an idea of how much they eat it! I think I've had it about 3 times a day since I got here.....good thing I like it! :)
well, that's all for now! Hope you're all doing well back home!