VIsit orphanage

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First of all Happy Birthday Sis !!!! Thirty something ???? Forty approaching !!!!!
Also happy belated B Day to Dion and Ed, we had a few Singha's here as a toast for the Birthday.

Yesterday we spend almost the whole day with Karen and Ricky and their 4 daughters. They have started here a Christian Church and an orphanage for 8 boys who are HIV positive. These kids were before in a government orphanage, you know 15 in a room etc. Npow they are living with the 8 of them in a house setting, the youngest one is 7 months old, the oldest 13. One of the sad parts is that the Thai people are very judgemental about HIV and AIDS. Not every school wanted to have the boys because of this. The boys are very caring for each other, as they were together before, see each other like real brothers but their biggest wish is still to live in a real home. Karen and Ricky are in the process of buying some land and have a developer from Abbotsford who wants to donate. Right now they live in a kind of townhouse complex, with only cement around their place, no grass to play soccer as most of them like to do So we played some basketball with them. At 4 in the afternoon we went to the church with them, where the kids have Sunday school, while the adults sing and pray. Luckily some part was in English so we could understand a bit. Afterwards we had dinner together and there was breakdancing class for the kids, so much fun to watch these kids open up and having fun.

The two babys were at at doctor's appointment last week and after the bloodtest came back Karen and Ricky got the nes that the 2 boys were free of HIV. According to the doctor they had won the lottery, for others they were healed by God and others say it is mother nature. For these kids it is a life saver as now their future looks brighter. I forgot the named of the boys, but the 7 months old was a cutie !!!!

With the 1000.00 CAD dollar we got 30,000 BAht for them, so the 5 oldest boys can now go on a 9 day sports camp and then there is still 15,000 Baht left I will let you know whay they will do with that. The boys are pretty excited and we will get some pictures to the Cheam kids when we get back.

We are on our way to Bangkok in about 2 hours. Another adventure !!!!We will be aircondiotioned treadmill running Remmert and I, so we can keep up with our friendds for when we come back. Hope the half marathon runners did good, I was thinking of you while I went to bed, as you were preparing !!!!!

By the way do you know what you find here in the shopping malls ?????? Little rooms where you can sing Karaoke, the Thai people Loooooooooooooooove this. They get really into it.

Thanks Grade 3 for the e-mail Sabien was pretty excited and will e-mail you later this week.

Cheers for now,

Mir

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Photos

The youngest one
These is one of the two babys declared free of HIV, very quiet little guy

Hi Canada
4 out of the 5 older boys

Everybody
Here you see Karen and 5 boys and the main nanny, we made up a cheque for them

The Church
Hi Brad, Ricky wanted me to show you his church and said you should come too to help, so he could play basketball with you as well

Breakdancing Class
Here a group of the boys at breakdancing class. The guy with the striped shirt is one of the teachers

Breakdancing Class2
We didn't try this.........

Comments

[Meindert]

schaats informatie
Even een koud bericht naar Siam. Sven Kramer en Ireen Wust wereld kampioen. Thialf op z'n kop. Fantastisch (financieel) initiatief hebben jullie genomen t.o.v. de kids in het weeshuis.

[Kathryn]

hi hope your having fun
Hi Meindert hope your having fun in Thyland and austrailia hope to see you soon Kathryn.