Sending Hope International— an all girls orphanage & our home for two weeks in Wiang Pao Po, Thailand. I have a huge heart for kids so going into this experience I was so excited that it literally brought me to tears when I first heard about it. we arrived & were welcomed by 40 beautiful smiles & hugs right away.
some information about this place & its residents:
the girls here aren’t actually Thai. they all come from different hill tribes surrounding the area that we are staying at. their families & tribes could be as close as less than a mile away or as far as 10+ hours away by car. in each tribe there’s a different language that is spoken, a different style of clothes worn, & a community that is entirely different from other tribes. there aren’t any problems between the different tribes, but almost a mutual respect due to the fact that most people see all tribe people as inferior. Sending Hope takes girls starting at the age of 4 & brings them to their property & away from their tribe environment in efforts of avoiding the girls getting sold for profit or being forced into living situations that leaves them hopeless. like it says in the name, Sending Hope restores, or even introduces, the girls to hope of a bright future following the Lord. to make disciples while also giving the girls the shelter, food, & love they deserve. it is not an easy adjustment considering they are surrounded by a ton of other girls who they just met & will have to eat, sleep, & live alongside from that point forward. also, since the girls speak different languages in their tribe they have to pick up & learn the legitimate Thai language because that is what is spoken at Sending Hope & at their schools.
days look like:
breakfast: 7 am
english class: 9 am
sports: 10 am
lunch: 12 pm
english class: 2 pm
dancing: 3pm
dinner: 5 pm
worship: 7 pm
**free time occurs in between most of these things but there is a nice schedule established to ensure the girls are taken care of & having fun while also learning & exercising
it is currently their break from school which is weird because it is October but I guess that is how it works here in Thailand!!! so with their off time Sending Hope encourages the girls to learn english. with that being said, my teammate katie & I are responsible for teaching the girls here who are between the ages of 9 & 12. the intelligence that they possess & an eagerness to learn despite the fact that it is their break absolutely blows my mind. it makes it so easy to teach them when at first that idea made me somewhat anxious. if you know me then you probably know I am not the biggest fan of school so I doubted my abilities to teach them well but in reality, the girls are great & we all work together to get the job done.
the sports time slot consists of games of soccer, basketball, volleyball, kickball or any mixture of the options. the girls are filled with energy & have competitive sides to them so playing these sport games with them is a treat. I also get beat quite often in said games but seeing the little smirks & grins they all have on their face when they win makes it impossible to be mad at the fact that I am incredibly unathletic.
dancing!!!! my absolute favorite thing of all time due to my current circumstances. of course I always love dancing but going to the open pavilion area & blaring watch me whip as all the girls break it down makes me SO HAPPY!!!! that song in addition to cotton eye joe, cha cha slide, the wobble, cupid shuffle, the chicken dance, church clap & probably more. (I am also taking dance suggestions so if you wanna comment one down below that would be cool) (if you do I will take a video of the girls doing the dance & I promise you it will make your day like it does mine every day).
worship here is all in Thai but that doesn’t even lessen the experience in my opinion. sure, there is an obvious language barrier but you can still sense their passion so clearly. every single girl pours out her praise before the Lord & it is such a beautiful thing. all the girls are incredibly invested in music & more than half of them play the guitar so you can assume that we jam every night. if I could hear their sweet voices sing every day for the rest of my life, believe me I would & I probably will with all the videos & voice recordings I have already taken in my time here.
everything about being here is so many prayers being answered. I thank God everyday that I am here & will thank Him for all my days to come just that I was able to be in this place with these girls. I am not exaggerating when I say I am truly living my best life!!! as always thanks for reading && thank you for supporting. I only need $400 ish dollars to be fully funded so if you feel led to donate you can do so on the top of my homepage! prayers are always appreciated as well!
much love, olivia
