Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Hope you had a lovely day filled with family, friends, laughter, turkey, pie, potato, and maybe a bit of parade watching! :)

Thanksgiving in Thailand is definitely different than back home---since no one celebrates it here---but it is still a good time to remember how much I have to be thankful for! And you are all at the top of the list. :)

A Little Background

Hello all,

I thought I'd take some time to fill you in on some of the basic information about what the Love and Care Project Foundation is all about and introduce you to some of the key characters, so to speak. Many of you already know most of this, but for those of you who don't it will help what I write make a whole lot more sense.

The Love and Care Foundation is run by a husband and wife: Rodney and Phimpha. Rodney is from Minnesota, and Phimpha is from Thailand. The main purpose of the foundation is basically to show God's love to the Thai people. This is done in countless ways. Probably the most obvious is the children's home that the foundation runs. This home is called the Timothy House, and it is a place for orphaned or unwanted children. Currently there are 19 children, ranging in age from a few weeks old to 16. (We acquired a newborn baby and his mother this past Sunday.) I guess it's not entirely accurate to say that the Timothy House is merely a place for children who have nowhere else to go: we currently have several adults here who also have nowhere else to go. So it is a house for anyone who needs it, primarily children.

In addition to caring for children and the others who find shelter at the Timothy House, Rodney and Phimpha have several other projects going that keep us all rather busy. Phimpha is head of a women's group for church leaders. (She was the head of the group for this area of Thailand--covering seven provinces I think---and then this summer she was elected the head of the organization for all of Thailand!) The Timothy House holds a church service every Sunday morning. On Wednesdays and Thursdays, someone from the Timothy House goes to a nearby school to teach English. (And the director and some teachers from another school came today to ask if we would teach over there every week as well!) Much of Phimpha's time is also spent dealing with the "problemers," as she sometimes calls them. Many people know that if they have a problem, they should just call Phimpha and she will help them. It's hard to write down everything that she does, let alone everything that the foundation does! We've been helping someone build a roof, helped some people from Finland get their internet provider to fix their modem, helped a boy get a birth certificate, picked up ribbon from the store for someone who needed it, and everything in between.

The Timothy House is a pretty small community, so I can tell you a tiny bit about who is here without boring you to death! (I hope!) I won't try to describe all the kids right now, because that would take a looong time. So adults: we have three "ferlongs," or white people here right now: three Americans (Rodney, David, and me,) and a Canadian (Robert). David and Robert have both been in Thailand for a while now, and are volunteers like me. We have two Thai men who live here--Sanook and Loong Cheung. (I am butchering the spelling of everything Thai...) Sanook is here because he is disabled & in a wheelchair and his family could not take care of him. I have not heard all of Loong Cheung's story yet, but he helps a lot with Sanook in addition to general work around the property. Ba Leck is a Thai lady who lives and works here. I guess she is part of the womens' group that Phimpha leads and decided to come help. She does a lot of the cooking and helps a lot with the kids and cleaning. We now have a Cambodian lady living with us--the mother of the newborn baby. They just arrived on Sunday, and I haven't even figured out her name yet! Finally, we have a husband and wife couple who are paid workers and come Monday-Friday to help out.

So all in all we have 29 people as part of the Love and Care Project Foundation. Things around here are always interesting, and I never know what the day will bring!

My First Week

 Ok, time for a real update!

My trip started on Friday the 8th at the lovely hour of 4:00 in the morning as I left Barrington with my roomies & mother to head down to Boston for my 7:30 am flight. After saying my final goodbyes and making the mandatory Dunkin Donuts stop, I boarded the first, and shortest, of my three flights. 27 hours later, I arrived in Bangkok after stops in Newark, NJ and Tokyo, Japan. Thankfully, everything went smoothly and Rodney and Phimpha collected me at the airport at about midnight Saturday night.

Since then, my life has been a whirlwind of meeting new people, re-meeting people I knew from my last trip visit here, eating spicy food, driving around with Phimpha, and understanding only about 5% of what people are saying. I do not have any elephant sightings to report yet, though I have seen a few monkeys crossing the road through the forest! I am writing this Thursday morning, so I have only been here about four days but I have already been to Pattaya twice and Bangkok once, each about a three hour trip one way. I was thankful to sleep in my own bed here at the Timothy House last night, as it was the first time since Saturday night I had done so! It truly has been a busy week so far, and I am pretty sure another Bangkok trip is scheduled for Friday. (Phimipha is working to get a birth certificate and other citizenship documents for a boy who needs them so that he can go to school.)

Some highlights from the week so far: church Sunday morning here at the Timothy House, getting to go out to eat for my birthday (and the chocolate cake!!), making friends with the kids I didn't know yet--getting chased around by some of the younger kids as they pretended to shoot at me and then playing soccer with some of the older kids, and watching the youngest boys (four-year-old twins Green and Lot) laughing hysterically as they try to throw my frisbee. (Lot has a pretty nasty flick!)

I think that's about all for now! Hope life back in the USA is going well! I'll update again as I get the chance. :)

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So I wrote this Thursday morning and it's now Sunday afternoon...don't have many chances to get online these days! Since Thursday, I've been to Bangkok + Pattaya again, and a city about four to five hours north-east of where we live to go to a body ceremony for someone who died. We have another body ceremony either tonight or tomorrow morning, and then who knows what after that! Life here is never boring!

Oh, and we had an elephant visit our house Friday night! He was just chilling in the driveway when Phimpha and I got home from Pattaya.  :)

In Thailand once again. (Address + donation info)

Greetings from Thailand!
 I thought I'd start with just a quick post with my address here and donation information so that those of you who asked about it can find it quickly! 
My mailing address is:

Love and Care Project Foundation
PO Box 2
 Klong Hat, Thailand 27260

 If you are interested in donating to the Love and Care Project Foundation, you can either donate through paypal or by sending a check to Rodney's church here in the US.

On paypal, you will be donating to Rodney Wojciechowski. His email address is rodski@gmail.com. Mark it as a "Gift" so they do not take fees out of it.

Or send a check to Rodney's church. You must put " Rodney Thailand" in the memo area of the check so they will forward it to him. Make the check out to Maranatha. The Church address is:

Maranatha Assembly of God
24799 Forest Boulevard
North Forest Lake, MN 55025-7215,

If you need the donation to be a tax deductible gift, it should go through the Church Maranatha.