harvesting the rice in Xian Kwang

I love the smile on the team leader...as we left he offered us a glass of water. Well, we thought it was water until we gulped the glass back only to find that it was 'fire' water. 80% prove Lao 'rice wine'. It ripped down our throats like crushed glass and we all smiled and said thanks...we jumped into the car and coughed and spluttered all the way down the dusty road!!!

harvesting the rice in Xian Kwang

it was a real treat to watch the harvest coming in...we got out of our cars and the team leader invited us to come and see up close. There was such a lot of hard work going on and each person was doing their part. Some were cutting, others were gathering, others were bundling and others were threshing and yet others were bagging the grain. People were smiling and sweating!!! Bring on the harvest!

C's good buddy Jenny...

we went on our first Vientiane Christian Co-operative (known fondly as the coop) leadership retreat. We've been cooping now for 1 term and so some of us got away and chatted and reflected on the strengths and weakness thus far...the girls slaved over the table so Dave and I kept the coffee coming...there was a magnificent sunset the night we arrived on the Mekong...praise the Lord for His color and splendor displayed in all Things!

The woman I love...

The sleeping shot was taken during our marriage retreat in Thailand. It was tiring...so the next week we arranged a romantic dinner on a boat floating down the Meekong River..

We were strolling and a long way from Singapore

The ladies on the left were on their daily work chores gathering fire wood so they can cook the lunch and get dinner ready for the night, which is going to be very cold for the family. Have a guess, what % of Laos cook their meals with electricity? ....okie, times up. 1% of Laos use electricity to cook their meals...the rest use wood and charcoal, a smaller % use gas.

On the road to the farm with the boys...

We were weighed down a little but but we got back...well almost!

My first trip to the farm....at Seng Tong

The Flood

Saved by the Sandbanks, or are we?

18^th Aug
We went for a bike ride down to Wi-fi cafe. It’s the first time we decided to ride such a long way together. Sarah was complaining about the heat along the way. I was determined to get everybody there. As we rode it was hard to negotiate the sandbags that were pilled up against the houses’ trapped’ on the Mekong side flood wall. People were trying to dry things out and scoop water out of their bedrooms. It was sad to see them suffer like this. Only a few days ago these people’s homes and lives were threatened by the raging waters. Many had to evacuate to higher ground.

We finally got to Wi-fi. The kids were really glad because their reward was an hour upstairs on-line playing ‘club penguin’. Sarah said that she ‘didn’t believe we could make it’. Once we did, she felt very glad about her accomplishment. I felt better for pushing her a bit to get us here. I suppose that’s what we call team work. Maybe we’ll never make the Olympic cycling team, but who cares, I’m happy just being a family. And I'm glad we were saved from the flood.

In the end, we decided to eat a meal there. The meal Cc cooked we decided to keep till Tue night. It was nice to sit together in our favorite little place. We cycled back. Seth and Shanae giggled all the way. It was hard to watch the families still scooping the more water from their homes. I saw numerous scenes of kids enjoying their ‘backyard’ pool and their parents, mostly silhouettes, scooping water up and out their windows with small cups. Yet, there was still the 13.5 meter deep and 4 kilometer wide river raging and swirling on their door step.

Mark shared in the Sunday evening service how he sensed the flood to be a ‘warning’ from God to the Lao nation. Notwithstanding the realities of the real suffering many people have already endured, Mark saw the flood to be partially symbolic of God’s warning Lao people to turn and repent. Mark mentioned that he’s been living in Laos for 15 years and it is noticeble to him that Lao society is changing morally. It is flirtatious and ‘experimental’ with open morality. Mark saw the flood waters lapping at the door steps of the city as God’s pending judgment on this city. If not all cities world wide.

This resonates with me. I had my E.T. (Extended Time) today. I started off praying at the men’s prayer and then I rode my bike around town a bit just praying for the city. I ended up sitting in the foyer of the Don Chan Palace. I can be ‘incognito’ as I’m a foreigner with a laptop in the foyer. I pend my thoughts.

a tribute to mum's 'would be' 50th Wedding anniversary

Where we held our Family Camp...Fairbridge 2008

The Story of Kingsley Fairbridge by Himself

(first published January 1927 - Oxford University Press)

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Epilogue from the book, written by his wife, Ruby Fairbridge

Should you read to the end of this book, perhaps you will ask, as many do, I think, “And what happened next?” Quite briefly, I will try to tell you. You have read how each of the fifty men present at that meeting, when the Child Emigration Society was formed, paid down five shillings. It was no longer Kingsley Fairbridge who was trying to make the people of England accept his ideas, but these fifty men had pledged themselves to do likewise. The obvious thing for them to do was to talk to others and collect as many five shillings as they could. We were a Society now, and Societies always want money.

The next two years in Oxford were spent in writing, talking, and trying to meet people likely to be interested. Money came in but slowly. We were thrilled when Naomi Haldane, then aged about thirteen, managed to extract a whole five pounds from a learned professor. We always hoped, of course, that one day the postman’s knock would mean something really good – a letter perhaps contained a cheque for fifty thousand pounds just to set us on our feet. But that never happened. A total capital of something under two thousand pounds was all our Society had when we sailed for Australia .

Fairbridge 2008...some of our outdoor stuff

Meet the family...Fairbridge 2008