Khaodee Orphanage

We had a Saturday work day at an orphanage about an hour away from where we live. Khaodee translates to “good news”, and is an orphanage based around Christian values. We arrived just in time for Saturday chores, and Justin and I were fortunate enough to be assigned to help a group of girls weed a very overgrown and very muddy portion of the yard by the restroom. We trimmed a hibiscus tree, used a rice machete to cut down the tall grass, packed the leaves and branches into rice bags, and carried them down a steep muddy hill. Phew! We got incredibly muddy because it kept raining, and found more spiders than I ever wanted to see in a combined 30 minutes, but we all worked together to get the job done! 

Over-grown awesomeness

The craziest non-creepy bug we found while weeding.

Our happy crew. Someone handed me that random plaid shirt..I’ve learned not to ask questions. These girls were cute: they just kept giggling and having the oldest one ask us about ourselves and America. They asked if I had a boyfriend and were very surprised when I told them Justin and I were married, and they were very pleased when we told them we are Christian. We haven’t met very many Christians in Thailand so we were just as happy to be hanging out with them as they were to hang out with us!

Another Saturday chore that some people in our group were privileged (?) to participate in was slaughtering and butchering a pig. They told us all about how the pig was hung from a tree, killed, doused with boiling water, and gutted. We first saw it when it was in about 500 small pieces spread out on a thin mat by the cafeteria, with a team of about 15 widows sitting crossed-legged cutting it up. Everything up to that point sounded like standard procedure for killing a pig, but watching it be slice and diced on a mat on wooden stump cutting boards was a little too much.  We watched the skull cracked open, the brains come out, the teeth be cleaved off, and the skin be sliced. There was blood all over the mat and we could only guess it was the same mat they use every two weeks when a pig is killed. Every meal we ate at Khaodee was a little bit harder to get down than most of our meals in Thailand, just knowing how unsanitary it was. And we did have pork for every meal!

 All that pork and there's no bacon..unbelievable.

 The point of us going to the orphanage was to carry out an activity day for the children. Many children there are orphans, but others are there because their parents are drug addicts or cannot provide for them. Our group had the idea to do an activity day with soccer, four square, jump roping, yoga, hat-making, hair styling, and face painting, and it was a huge success! Justin and I were in charge of four square, although when we first prepared for the game all the kids wanted to do with the basketball we brought was (you guessed it) play basketball.  They started just shooting hoops but eventually organized a game.

Since most kids here grow up playing soccer and Tacraw, they were pretty awkward with a basketball, and after awhile we taught them how to play four square.  They caught on faster than we thought they would! After about half an hour of playing nonstop, we noticed the ball started to look a little egg-shaped. One of the kids picked it up to show us that the rubber was slowly splitting, revealing small stringy black fibers underneath. We gathered around watching it, when all of the sudden it EXPLODED!! Everyone jumped back and I screamed a little, and then we all just busted up laughing. We kept playing with a soccer ball, but the kids talked about it for like 20 minutes afterwards—we could tell because of how they pretended to hold a ball and make an exploding noise.

Before the big explosion

After so much hard play we ate dinner (cautiously) and freshened up for the evening in the amazing guesthouse they let us stay in. Seriously, it was nicer than the house we live in here!

Later we went to one of their services, which is most easily described as an EFY singalong session. There was a group of teens playing instruments and being the lead singers, but the rest of the kids in the audience were singing the words to all the songs as loud as possible. It was a really good time, and you could really feel their enthusiasm for Jesus Christ. We could hear it in their voices as they sang, and we saw it in the cafeteria during meal times when everyone loaded up their plates but no one ate a bite until one child was chosen to pray.

Our first meal when we didn't know to wait for the prayer..awkward! And ignore my crusty face..haha.

Especially considering what they’ve gone though, they are a strong group of children who will have better futures than the pasts they have behind them. All made possible by a group of loving Thai Christians who care!