After landing in Bangkok, my team and I took a bus North to Chaing Mai. We are coming along side of people in “The Haven Project” this month. This is a group of Christians in Thailand who work with everything from children’s homes to schools to medical check ups and more. They are Jesus loving folks that come from Thailand, Ireland, Austrailia and America. (Lots of fun accents!) Meet Zeb, his wife Rachelle, their sweet daughter Laney, Juls, Dr. Jane, and Jim!
During our first week we packed up and traveled 7 hours North to the Burmese boarder to help run hygiene clinics in Mae Sot. For 3 days we went to 2 different schools and ran stations for children, teaching them things such as proper hand washing, teeth brushing, healthy eating, staying hydrated, excercise/yoga, and cleaning wounds.
(Hand washing with glo paint and blacklights)
(Janine using dolls to show how to bathe properly)
(Yoga with Cristin)
(Brushing giant teeth with Daniel)
(Staying hydrated with Jim)
(Carla and the hungry caterpillar with healthy foods)
(Relay races with Jack)
(Cleaning and wrapping wounds with Brad)
This first school was for Burmese immigrants. Burma has been in a civil war for the past 60-70 years and many of its citizens have come to Thailand as refugees or immigrants to escape the conditions. In the 2 days spent here we got to teach about 260 kids!
The second school we ran the clinic at was located in a dump. The Burmese families living here make houses from whatever scraps they can find around and collect money from recycling the trash. These are refugees that have chosen to squat on this Thai government land. The children obviously do not have much of a say so in the matter. We loved being with them to teach cleanliness and play.
We also got to go shopping and put together hygiene baggies for these kids that we handed out afterwards!
When we weren’t helping with hygiene clinics we were doing house visits to an orphanage with Dr. Jane. Doing regular check ups for them that they otherwise wouldn’t get. We also got the opportunity to visit a home for blind children where we played textured dominos with 3 precious boys. A lot going on over here! We are loving it!
That was a wrap for week one!
