Nicaragua Measure of Success

It is hard to measure success. In Nicaragua where everything you do requires that you solve a problem first or reschedule it for later, success is even harder to gauge. On April 13th, our Region mission team left to help build a church and school on the Mosquito Coast in a community called Kukra Hill. Kukra has a population of about 17,000, with very little industry, high unemployment, no running water or sewage, and very few prospects of a better future. The daily wage of a palm oil worker is about $1.25.

The mission team had three main tasks: to help build the church/school, to lead a Bible school program for children, and to teach adults in the evening. We were welcomed by Pastor Joel, the church planter and pastor of this new church, and Vital, our American Baptist missionary. Joel’s vision is built around the church, but it is aimed at empowering children with education and skills they will be able to use in the future. He is somewhat pessimistic about the ability of adults to change. So not only is the church new, but very young as well.

Although we were successful with all three of our missions objectives, other things emerged on the trip that became more important to us than the reason for being there.

One of the first was the emergence of a fellowship of Christians. The first couple of nights sleeping in a common room were a little stressful, but by the end of the week we could identify each other by our snores and steps. Soon we set aside all the triviality that we use to keep one another at arm’s length and began caring for each other. Soon we felt like a family. The sense that we were family gave us a unique ability to work together and to support one another. One could be passing cinder blocks to the one setting them on a scaffold or pouring water while one shampooed her hair. We miss that closeness in our sometimes busy society. A warm shower might have been an added comfort, but it was not really necessary.

On one of the nights, Joel showed a movie on the side of the house for anyone who wanted to watch. As it played on the green boards, no one seemed to be concerned about the quality of the picture or the plastic chairs, the heat, or the bugs. One tried to stay away from the fire ants, however. We were all enthralled in the moment, although most of us had seen the movie before. I doubt that I would have even considered watching a movie on the side of a house had I been stateside. I found myself wondering how much of my life is governed by distractions. There were no phones, TV, or internet. We did not have our cars to take us to the mall. There was no mall. There really wasn’t anything to buy. And yet we felt remarkably connected. I found myself wondering if the lack of distractions allowed our team to become more connected. No one complained that they missed any of the modern conveniences. Although I am sure that there were times when we all wanted to catch up on our e-mail.

You didn’t have to look hard to find a problem. I had the opportunity to visit other parts of Nicaragua after our team returned stateside. I found wide spread unemployment, poor health conditions, little hope for the future. I found myself thinking that I do not have problems. I have annoyances and speed bumps. Americans do not understand our connections to the rest of the world. When we enter into a recession, the rest of the world, especially impoverished countries, enter into a depression. They wait for us to recover because that indicates they will recover. It is in this arena or poverty and difficulty that our missionaries try to bring a message of grace, hope and future. It is surprising how well they do it.

Will the church and school be successful? Will the money that we poured into the project yield a return? A mission is an exercise in faith. We cannot measure it in the same way that we would one of our commercial ventures. I already see success, the success of love and hope. If that is all that I would ever see, that would be enough. However, I think that more is coming and I plan on seeing that as well. We have set the stage for success, because we have empowered others to teach, create, give, and make disciples. The way God works seems odd to us. God takes the collected efforts of a few and turns them into great things.

One of our team members said that this work was the first worthwhile thing he had done in a long time. In the heat and humidity, sweating profusely, and dirty, I sensed a deep meaning to what I was involved in building and teaching. I found myself rejuvenated and experiencing Christ again. Sometimes we get so bogged down in our very busy culture that the sense of Christ’s presence is lost. One of the ways I view mission is that it is a ‘reset; button on life. Missions have a way of resetting our priorities, revealing what is important, renewing our sense of direction and faith. The work at Kukra continues. Success was not that we went and completed an effort, but that we participated in something that will go on long after us. I was reminded of a comment on of my seminary professors made many years ago. “God did not call us to be successful. God called us to be faithful and to leave success to Him.”


John Turnage
Mission Trip Leader
First Baptist Church
Loveland, CO

2008 ABCRM Bulgaria Missions Team is Ready to Go!

Thanks to in-country planning by ABC-IM Bulgaria missionaries Tom and Terry Myers, a 6-person mission team from Colorado and Wyoming ABC churches is set to go on the June 19-30 ABCRM Bulgaria Mission Experiences trip. Shown in the photo L-R are mission team members Karla Davis (First Baptist-Laramie), Sherry Wilson (First Baptist-Laramie), Kent Oakes (Calvary Baptist-Denver), mission trip leader Kerry Hassler (First Baptist-Boulder), and Dwight and Aladine Neuenschwander (First Baptist-Boulder). Also shown on the right are Betty and Bill Moseley, parents of Terry Myers and the gracious hosts of the ABCRM Bulgaria mission team’s “pre-trip meeting” held on May 24 at American Baptist in Ft. Collins.

The Bulgaria mission team will first stay in Sofia from June 20-22 to meet Tom and Terry and talk with them about their Bulgaria ministries. They also meet Pastor Teddy Oprenov of the Sofia Evangelical Baptist Church (the Myers family home church in Bulgaria), and then tour the new SEBC church facility currently being built. After attending Sunday morning services at the current SEBC location, the mission team will help conduct morning Vacation Bible School classes and fun activities for Bulgarian children from ages 4-15 at the Guliantsi Baptist Church in northern Bulgaria from June 23-26. During the afternoons, the team will improve the grounds surrounding the Guliantsi Baptist Church by spreading gravel and making other improvements.

On Friday, June 27, the team will go to the nearby city of Pleven to make improvements to playground equipment at an orphanage for Bulgarian children of primary school age. The last days of the mission trip will be spent touring the historic Bulgarian city of Veliko Turnovo before returning to Sofia to attend Sunday services at the Sofia Baptist Church.

To pay for the cost of materials for the June 19-30 Bulgaria Missions Experience projects, ABCRM has provided $4400 to the Myers for use in buying project materials prior to the mission team’s arrival on June 20. These ABCRM funds are part of the total $25,000 funds designated in the 2008 ABCRM budget for in-country project costs for the 2008 ABCRM mission trips to Thailand, Nicaragua, Cambodia, and Bulgaria.

You may read about the experiences of the ABCRM Bulgaria mission team during their June 19-30 trip by reading updates posted on the “ABCRM Missions Experiences” blog at http://abcrmmissionexperiences.blogspot.com/. Please keep the Bulgaria mission team members who have answered the challenge of “Been Called? Go!” in your thoughts and prayers!
Kerry Hassler
Bulgaria Mission Team

Lending a Hand in Nicaragua

I had the privilege of going on a mission trip to Nicaragua sponsored by ABCRM this past April. The trip was led by Pastor John Turnage of Loveland and consisted of eight other members from Colorado ABC churches, including FBC Loveland, Calvary in Denver, FBC Colorado Springs, and my own church, American Baptist Church in Fort Collins.

The purpose of the trip was to help ABC missionaries Vital and Ketly Pierre, and their church, Bethel Baptist in Bluefields, with the construction of a multi-purpose building at a site in the town of Kukra Hill, where Bethel Baptist planted a new church in January 2007. Kukra Hill is about 17 miles north of Bluefields on the Caribbean Coast and accessible by boat on the Rio Escondido River.

The second purpose was to put on a Bible study for the children of the Kukra Hill Church and the community. Another important goal was to develop relationships with our missionaries, the parishioners of the Bluefields and Kukra Hill churches, and the Nicaraguan people.

It was hot and humid, and the work of masonry construction was hard and not the sort of work any of us was used to doing on a regular basis, but very rewarding. We made a large dent in the task of finishing the cement block and concrete beam walls. Better yet, we got to know our fellow Nicaraguan church member workers. Language was never a problem. Some in the group were bilingual and the rest of us found ways to communicate.

The three ladies in the group had a successful Bible school with the help of a wonderful lady named Alice from the Bluefield’s Church and Pastor Turnage, both of whom are bilingual. When they weren’t putting on the Bible school, the women helped with the construction.

My fondest memory of the trip was the rapport I experienced with my fellow team members and the Nicaraguan people. Our team meshed very well together and I found the Nicaraguans to be a very warm, friendly and inviting people. I believe that God will use the work we did and relationships we made to foster His purposes in Nicaragua. When the airplane wheels lifted off the tarmac at Managua on the trip home, a large part of me did not want to leave.

Bruce Nuttall
American Baptist Church
Fort Collins, CO

First Update from Nicaragua Mission Experience

Hi All,

We are back in Managua after 9 days in Bluefields and Kukra Hill, mostly in Kukra Hill. Conditions were pretty squalid in Kukra Hill- we were basically camping out in the church building. The work was very hard with humidity around 40-50% and temps in the 90-100 degree range. Rats and geckos in the rafters, chickens and scraggly dogs everywhere. Bugs had a feast on me the last few days. We were in Bluefields only a short time and there was no internet access at all in Kukra Hill. We could not get telephone service internationally there either.

Conditions were rough and remote but I love the people down here and I truly do not want to leave. The church members who we worked with and for are wonderful, humble, hard working people full of God’s grace. They will go far. If everyone from our churches had the opportunity to experience what I have experienced, they would have a much greater sense of urgency about the crucial importance of missions at all levels to the vitality of the Christian church. See you in a few days.

Peace,
Bruce
Member of Nicaragua Mission Trip

February 16-19 ABCRM Thailand Mission Trip Follow-Up

Sunday, February 24

After the ABCRM Thailand mission team left Bangkok on February 19 to return to their Colorado homes, team leader Kerry Hassler remained in Thailand to do non-profit “Good Samaritan Technologies” technical consulting for ABC-IM missionary Karen Smith (director of the ABC-IM New Life Center in Chiang Mai) and other missionaries in Thailand. Consequently, Kerry was able to visit the Sansuk Akha village on Sunday, February 24 with Chuck Fox to see the completion of the Sansuk school improvement project. The project was started on February 12 by the ABCRM Thailand mission team’s “Construction Crew”.

Akha village workers and school kids had worked during the previous week to put lattice coverings over the open windows of the eating area and kitchen. New kitchen cabinets, shelves, and refrigerator (paid for by ABCRM Thailand misison trip in-country project funds) had been put in place. On Sunday afternoon, school kids moved new tables (also paid for by these same ABCRM funds) and repainted benches into the renovated eating area. It was quite a difference between the shabby tables and dirt floors seen in this same eating area when the Construction Crew first arrived at the Sansuk village on Febuary 12!

Many thanks to mission team members who heard the message of “Been Called? GO!” and responded by participating in the February 6-19 ABCRM Thailand Mission Experience. It changed the lives of many people in northern Thailand in God’s name!

February 18 -- ABCRM Thailand Mission Team’s Last Day Experiences in Thailand

Monday, February 18

Today is our ABCRM mission team’s last full day in this beautiful country of Thailand! We start the day by visiting the Chiang Rai New Life Center facility next to the Fox home where Barbara has been teaching the Akha women sheltered to knit. The Construction Crew team, busy most of the past week in the Sansuk Akha village, is led on a tour of the facilities for the first time by Chuck accompanied by other members of our mission team. Chuck shows us a photo of Paul and Elaine Lewis on the wall of the NLC dormitory that reminds everyone that they are the primary reason why the Akha women are able to be sheltered here as well as at the New Life Center facilities in Chiang Mai. What an impact these two American Baptist missionaries have made on helping Akha people in northern Thailand through their many years of ministry starting in the 1950’s!










Our mission trip is ended by our mission team taking a “fun trip” to see the elephant reserve about 30 minutes north of Chiang Rai as we again all pile into Chuck’s truck. This reserve has about 35 elephants that have been placed there to protect them since it’s now not possible for these magnificent animals to be in the urban areas of Thailand due to lack of food sources and too many people in the cities. Our team members enjoy feeding the elephants bananas and taking a short ride around the small city next to the reserve. Karen Van is the only one on our team who is brave enough to have a giant python placed around her neck at a tourist store located at the reserve!











The last part of our day is spent in touring the “Queen’s Garden” further north from the elephant reserve, where the Thai government has created a botanical garden containing facilities for orchid and other plant research, as well as large area of beautiful gardens containing all sorts of Thai flowers. Everyone on our team is astounded by this beautiful place. It’s another reminder of how beautiful this country of Thailand is!










We arrive back in Chiang Rai about three hours before the mission team checks in at the local airport to fly to Bangkok to then fly back to Colorado early the next morning through Japan. It’s been a wonderful experience for all of us to meet many ABC-IM missionaries who are doing so much to help the people in northern Thailand, and to help in our own way to help Akha people with our construction projects at the Sansuk village with Chuck, as well as to help Ruth with her ministry activities in Chiang Rai. With sadness, we say our “good-bye’s” to Chuck and Ruth at the airport. We hope we can somehow tell our church congregation friends and others about the experiences we’ve had here since arriving on February 8 to give them a true impact of our mission trip, but this will be difficult to do. We’re all so proud of our American Baptist missionaries, and hope we can help them in some way to continue their work here in the future!

February 16-17 -- ABCRM Thailand Mission Team Experiences in Chiang Rai and the Akha Village of Sansuk

Saturday, February 16

Today, the Crafts/Teaching Crew in Chiang Rai has completed most of their mission trip projects under Ruth’s direction, so the much of the day is spent in “down time” for them to reflect on what’s happened so far during our ABCRM Thailand Mission Experiences trip. The Construction Crew in the Sansuk village has also decided to go back to Chiang Rai on Friday evening since the cold evenings and lack of warm water for showers has started to take its toll. Those of us working on the Sansuk projects especially enjoy our first hot showers since leaving Chiang Rai on Tuesday. Our mission team members spend the day sharing together their thoughts and the opportunity to talk with Chuck and Ruth about their Chiang Rai ministry activities.

Chuck, Bruce, and Kerry decide to return to the Sansuk village on Saturday afternoon to help with the completion of the kitchen’s new concrete floor, and to do more bunk-bed painting. They are delighted to see that the new kitchen floor has indeed been completed, and work is underway by the Akha workers to install the bamboo lattice that will fill in the cafeteria wall openings. The new tables for the cafeteria will be moved into the eating area after our mission team leaves Chiang Rai on Monday evening.

We are also able to have fun with the Sansuk Akha kids on their Saturday day-off without school, with Bruce showing his badminton prowess playing against an Akha teen. Also during the afternoon, Bruce (who is a highly-skilled pediatric doctor who specializes in curing childhood cancers in Colorado Springs) checks out a few of the Akha students using the medical kit he has brought along on the trip. He found that the kids in the Sansuk village are generally in excellent health.

After dinner, Chuck, Bruce, and Kerry are blessed by sitting with many of the Akha students gather around an open fire as they enthusiastically sing songs in Akha that are mostly of a Christian theme. They are led in singing by Chuck’s ministry Akha song-leader Yohn, who plays the guitar very well. The students clap loudly as Chuck, Bruce, and Kerry sing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” in English. What a great way to end the ABCRM Thailand mission team construction projects in the Sansuk village!

Sunday, February 17

It’s difficult for all of us here on this ABCRM Thailand Missions Experiences trip to think about this being our last day to worship in this beautiful country! Ruth drives the mission team members in Chiang Rai to the Sansuk village in Chuck’s truck to join Chuck, Bruce, and Kerry already there. The Sansuk schoolgirls again dress in their beautiful traditional Akha outfits to greet the mission team members who arrive about 8:30 a.m. The worship service starts at 9:00 a.m. in the Sansuk meeting building instead of the nearby Sansuk American Baptist church due to its smaller size.

During the morning worship, Yohn leads the singing of worship songs by the Sansuk students and adults, and our mission team again sings “Amazing Grace” as we did the previous Sunday in the Sukasem Akha village church. Ruth’s Akha Crafts Store assistant Iew teaches the students our team a fun song involving hand gestures and a little dancing. Karen Van joins Chuck and Ruth and several of the Akha kids to try to follow along with the song at the front of the service. Everyone loves it!

As a thank-you gift to Sansuk village “headman” Tuliwat and his wife who cooked all of our meals during the Construction Crew’s stay at Sansuk, mission team-leader Kerry presented them with ABCRM 2008 Missions Experiences t-shirts. Kerry also presented Chuck’s Akha ministry support team members Yohn and Amay with the ABCRM t-shirts in thanks for their involvement with our mission team projects. Chuck then thanked the ABCRM Thailand Mission Experiences team for their participation in this mission trip, and for all the great work we did in Chiang Rai and Sansuk in helping the Akha people who are served by Chuck and Ruth’s ABC-IM ministry. We all joined hands at the close of the service in Christian love with our Sansuk Akha friends, followed by Karen Van and Barbara giving the kids a few small “thank you” items. What a great experience it has been for our team to come here to the Sansuk village!

On the way back from Sansuk after having lunch there, Ruth drove our mission team in Chuck’s truck to Mae Sai, the northernmost city in Thailand where you can cross over to Myanmar (Burma). We also visited the nearby “Golden Triangle” area where the borders of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand meet at the formation of the Mekong River. We took a short river speedboat trip across to an island owned by Laos (no visa required) so we can say we’ve set foot in that country. What a splendid way to end our last Sunday in Thailand!

Only one more full day left in Thailand for our ABCRM Thailand Missions Experiences team on Monday. Our mission team will be seeing a few more sights before leaving for Colorado from Chiang Rai on Monday evening. Our mission trip here has gone been all too quickly!

February 13-15 -- ABCRM Thailand Mission Team Projects in Chiang Rai and the Akha Village of Sansuk

Wednesday, February 13

Today, the two sub-groups of our ABCRM Thailand mission team (the “Crafts/Teaching Crew” and the “Construction Crew”) started working on their respective mission trip projects arranged by Chuck and Ruth Fox for us to do for the rest of the week to help Akha people that the Fox’s minister to in various ways. For the Crafts/Teaching Crew projects the rest of the week included –

o Beth Cook (with her previous experience in library management) helping Ruth’s Family Learning Center school staff to order and classify books for their library spread over several bungalow offices and classroom teaching purposes. Beth became friends with many of the FLC staff and students in doing this project, including IM-ABC Short-Term Missions volunteer Sandy Martin from Indiana. This was a full-time task through the end of the week for Beth that she thoroughly enjoyed.

o Carmen Ferguson working full-time from today Wednesday through the weekend in the Fox’s home-office to help them by updating Excel spreadsheets containing information the Fox’s need to send to ABC-IM staff members at Valley Forge This is office work that the Fox’s have needed to complete for some time due to time spent on their Chiang Rai ministry activities such as the Akha Crafts Store management. Ruth was elated that Carmen could do this work on her behalf.

o Barbara Fuller finding her calling during our Thailand ABCRM mission trip by doing Ruth’s suggested project of teaching Akha women staying at the Chiang Rai New Life Center (located next to the Fox’s home) to do many types of knitting using the knitting needles and yarn Barbara brought along with her on our trip. Barbara was amazed how quickly these Akha women learned how to make scarves, booties, and other knitted items in just a few days. She’s showing Chuck Fox a few knitting stitches she taught the New Life Center women in the photo on the right.

o During the February 13-17 mission trip project time, Beth, Carmen, and Barbara (along with Karen Van at the end of the week) helping the Akha Crafts Center staff do various tasks, such as rolling the new craft-item material purchased with part of the $4500 in ABCRM funds provided for our mission trip in-country projects on to rolls used for material storage. Our mission team Crafts/Teach Crew became friends with all of the Akha Crafts Store women (Iew, Mio, Pisamai, Luta, Ami, and Duen). No special team-building was needed to make this happen!

For our mission team’s Construction Crew (Bruce Cook, Carl Ferguson, Karen VanValkenburgh, and Kerry Hassler) now are staying in the Akha village of Sansuk along with Chuck through the rest of the week. Today they saw the “before” conditions of the Sansuk school’s eating area, kitchen, and dormitories that will be greatly improved through the use of some of the $4500 in ABCRM mission trip funds provided for our mission trip, including –

o Putting in of a new eating area and kitchen concrete floor (about 1800 square feet in total) to replace the current flooring where some areas are simply dirt. The open wall spaces in the eating area and kitchen will be filled with concrete block and bamboo lattice by Akha village workers as part of this project. These facilities are used every day to feed all of the Sansuk school’s 57 elementary- and primary-level students.

o Replacement of current old wooden eating tables with new formica-topped tables, as well as replacement of old shelving used to store eating plates with new shelf units. These tables and shelves were designed and constructed by Chuck Fox again using part of the $4500 of ABCRM mission trip funds provided for our in-country mission trip projects.

o Replacement of the wood tabletop of the kitchen’s food-preparation table with a new top that will improve the sanitation of the food that the Akha school students are fed.

o Painting of school dormitory bunk-beds by our mission team’s Construction Crew using paint paid for out of this mission trip’s ABCRM in-country project funds.

o Putting in bamboo framing in the boys’ and girls’ dormitories to support mosquito netting to protect the students from getting mosquito bites while sleeping. Although malaria and yellow fever are not a problem in the Sansuk village, the students’ health will be generally improved by this mosquito protection especially during the summer rainy season.

o Building of a covered porch area near the girls’ dormitory where they can dry their clothes on clotheslines during the rainy summer months instead of hanging them under an edge of a nearby thatched roof.

The Construction Crew met the Sansuk village Akha “headman” Tuliwat for the first time on Wednesday, as well as the Chiang Rai AKHA Foundation staff members, Chiang Rai University student volunteers, and Sansuk Akha adults who would be helping with the ABCRM mission trip projects. Tuliwat was the “project leader” for all of the various projects Chuck Fox had planned with him for our in-country mission trip projects, and our Construction Crew members are acting as their “labor servants” to help get the job done. In this way as it should be, the Sansuk school improvements the ABCRM mission trip project funds are paying for (and the Construction Crew labor we’re donating) will be “owned” by the Sansuk Akha people, not by our ABCRM Thailand mission team.

During this Wednesday morning, the Construction Crew learned how we will help construct the new concrete flooring for the school’s cafeteria/kitchen by carrying sand and stone in plastic buckets from where it was dumped about 50 feet from the construction site, and then help when needed to help mix the sand and gravel with Portland cement bags with hoes and shovels to create batches of concrete that each cover about 100 square feet. The mixing of the concrete by hand was very messy and tiring, and a lot of this work will be done by the AKHA Foundation staff and university student volunteers. Finishing of the concrete surface will be done by Akha workers from the village who are experts at doing this specialized work.

About 10 o’clock in the morning, the first concrete batch was mixed on the cafeteria floor and spread into one corner of the corners. Our Sansuk cafeteria/kitchen renovation project is underway !!!

Thursday, February 14

As the Crafts/Teaching Crew continue to work on their Chiang Rai projects under the direction of Ruth Fox, the Construction Crew continues to complete the Sansuk school cafeteria/kitchen project by helping to make more batches of concrete, carry concrete blocks used for the new kitchen walls being constructed by Akha workers, and painting the school dormitory bunk beds. It’s been a lot of work, but thankfully the weather has been relatively cool in the 50’s and 60’s under cloudy skies.

As the Construction Crew is sleeping in Sansuk guest homes with no heating, it’s been very chilly in the night with temperatures falling into the 40’s, but Chuck has brought along sleeping bags to keep us warm, and our Akha host families also provide us with warm blankets. We wake up every morning to the sounds of multiple roosters competing to see who has the loudest cock-a-doodle-do. Thanks to Chuck’s pre-trip suggestions, all of our Construction Crew have brought along ear-plugs to help sleep through the morning rooster-crowing.

The Construction Crew mission team members are now staring to make friends with the Sansuk school kids who normally walk to school about ¼ mile away \ at 7:30 a.m., and return in the afternoon from a full day of academic and Christian studies at 4:30 p.m. We have all found these kids are absolutely beautiful and delightful, at all times respectful to us and all adults they interact with, active in their play outside after school without having any video games or toys other than shared badminton and soccer sports equipment provided through ABC-IM funds.

Even more amazing is when the Sansuk school girls from grades 3 through 12 treated our Construction Crew team members to a display of their native Akha dancing after supper in the Sansuk village community building that was built several years ago thanks to ABC-IM funds. These beautiful Akha young women are made even more beautiful when the wear their elaborate Akha outfits that they make themselves usually in about one month, starting around the age of 10. They performed various types of traditional Akha dancing for us, including one dance where three or four each interlock a leg in the center and hop on the other leg in a small circle. They invited our Construction Crew team members to dance with them on Wednesday evening, but we were sorely lacking in our Akha dancing abilities! Chuck said that the young Akha women dancing for us every evening after dinner is a real treat since they are normally very shy about dancing for foreigners like us. It is almost impossible to not have a strong sense of Christian love for all of these Akha school kids that we see every day!

Friday, February 15

Today at the Sansuk village, we reached an important milestone in our Akha school cafeteria renovation project as the last batch of concrete was mixed to complete the new floor! We are now helping the AKHA Foundation, Chiang Rai university volunteers, and Akha workers to finish the new kitchen concrete flooring. One particularly difficult part of the kitchen project is to break up large rocks with a 20-pbound sledgehammer to level out one corner before new concrete flooring is spread over it.

Everyone working on this project (especially the Sansuk village “headman” Tuliwat) is very happy with our school cafeteria renovation project so far, with the new kitchen concrete floor to be completed on Saturday. The Construction Crew also continues to paint school dormitory bunk beds. During the afternoon, we took a work-break to learn how the Akhas make “mochi” by pounding raw rice put into a stone bowl with a large pole. It’s hard work to smash the rice into a chewy paste that the Akha then cook over a stove or open fire to eat after dipping small portions of it into a bowl of sugar. The Akha students and adults love it, but we non-Akha Construction Crew members can’t each much of this mochi at a time.

Also, our Sansuk village project team has now completed the frames for mosquito netting in the boys’ and girls’ dormitories. Chuck’s being tall (about 6 feet-6 inches) was quite an asset in securing the bamboo poles to the rafters as part of this project. The Akha kids are delighted when the see the new netting and also new bed pads after they return from their school day. Monday evening.

Also today, the construction of the clothes-drying porch next to the girls’ dormitory was completed by the Chiang Rai AKHA Foundation workers and Chiang Rai University student volunteers. Great progress is being made on our Sansuk mission trip projects!