A quick e-mail following my posting last night to say that Miriam is fine, the adrenalin worked and whilst she felt a bit shaky for a while, we managed to go out for a meal with Alan and Maelynn.
Alan and Maelynn Ellard are a retired English couple who have been out in Thailand as missionaries since 1967, firstly with OMF, and then with ACET, an AIDS charity. Whilst working for ACET they gave advice to Kitisak the director of House of Grace, and now they have come to live nearby and help out here. We are staying in a room at House of Grace, but Alan and Maelynn are coming in each day and translating for us and showing us around.
Kitisak and his wife, Noy, started House of Grace about 12 years ago. He was a pastor in a neaby Pentecostal Church, and they had three children. When they were away one year, a lady came to the church having been thrown out of her house with her two children, to ask if they had anywhere she could stay. An elder at the church put her in a room next door to the rooms the church gave to Kitisak and his family. After a while it became obvious that the woman wasn’t at all well, and just before she died, she asked Kitisak if he would look after her children. Kitisak and Noy took them in after the lady had died, and then a year or so later, they heard of two children aged 4 and 6 who were living on their own, both parents having died. Kitisak asked his family what they should do to help, and it was decided they should take the children into their own home, and so their family grew.
The church began to comment on the amount of time Kitisak was now giving to visting people who had AIDS and to the children, and so Kitisak and Noy decided to begin an orphanage, and House of Grace was born. Since then they have taken in many more children and are registered through the government as an orphanage, so people contact them to ask them if they can take children.
Anyway back to last night – we went to a restaurant in the nearby town of Chantaburi. Quite a modern restaurant where we could have got English food, but ate Thai which is spicy but we enjoyed. The cost of living is quite cheap here, and the meal for the four of us cost about £15!
By the time we got back, Miriam’s adrenalin was wearing off and she was exhausted, so we went to bed reasonably early and had a good night’s sleep, though the mattress is very hard, like planks of wood!
Up now and off to breakfast in a moment after a cold shower – no hot water – but it is not too bad in the heat. Then church at 10.30am, after a Bible Study at 10.00.
Thanks for your prayers.
Mark