Full House Full Heart

It seemed like a good idea at the time...
growing pigs for food.

The children loved the tiny little piglets and cuddled them...
Thanks Amy Milson for helping Indi!

"Little" Amy

until ...

one let out an almighty squeeeeel!

Pippa was NOT impressed!

They ARE cute though.... until one escapes...

and you have to catch them! (Joey and Neng get themselves dirty chasing the piglet).

Or until they grow and you have to clean out their pens!

But it's better than buying the meat from the market...

Allan replaces rice hulls to help keep down the "mud factor"!

And they ARE cute when they are feeding.

But all good things must come to and end...

After the kill, you have to bag up the meat...

And make your own mince...

Or go inside and make cupcakes!

Our lovely friend Pauline made us her yummy pikelets...

to eat after killing and cutting up the pigs of course!

So we are finished with the pigs...until the cycle starts again...

Love and blessings...the Schmidtees!

When will I learn that the Thai's idea of time and ours differ ever so slightly ;-)
I asked our friend how long it would take to get to his village- "not long, maybe 2 hours"...
well, yeah...it's 2 hours from the last town...
which is about five hours from our place!!

We headed off at 7am and collected our friend who kindly translated for us. Amy, our volunteer, was excited as she was going to her first ever visit into a Karen village.

Some shots along the way...

The Karen are persecuted people group and they are very close to our heart. Having had several Karen staff over the years, we were keen to see where two of our staff were previously working before they joined us. We had no idea the trip that was in store for us!

After travelling for about 5 hours, we turned into a village and saw the Children's Home where our coworkers had last been working as House Parents.

This was the boys's "dorm." We were pretty shocked at the conditions.

The girl's dorm.

Inside the girl's dorm.

Our staff were very emotional as they greeted the children they had formerly cared for.

Our staff left and far right.

Morning tea at the Children's Home.

One of the lovely Karen boys who lives at the Children's Home.

Toilet block at the Children's Home.

The children cook their lunch. They had not eaten meat recently, only eating rice and the vegetables they were able to grow.

Not a good place for a chicken to sit!

After our visit to the Children's Home, we travelled 30 kilometres up a mountain into the village.

Our staff were greeted with such affection. Tears were shed. They were clearly missed by their family and friends.

We were shocked when we were taken to our accommodation. The Pastor who worked for us was plucked from his village when he was young and spent five months being taught the art of fine wood carving. It was a project spearheaded by the Thai Royal family!

He won a competition and sold his massive carving of an elephant and put the money into building a house for Missionaries to visit/live in the village!