Diary : 30 Oct 2011

Apologies for the extremely long lapse in updates.

We're all back safely in Chiang Mai and I'm recovering from another bout of headaches.

The 18 days in Singapore was awesome but passed way too quickly. We didn't even have time to meet everyone we hope to meet.

Tim & Puu enjoyed the trip thoroughly and it was really fruitful !

I'll start with the good news. We have managed to raise our targeted 60K for our first phase of our integrated complex and hopefully this building will be up mid-2012 ! We'll finally have our very first home (or office) to call our own !

So thats the great news ! Now for the less cheery news.
1 ) BKK Sea port is closed.
We received a note from the port authority to inform us that the port has been closed indefinitely due to the flood. We've already did our best to put the container on the first ship available and its scheduled to arrive tomorrow night. We can only keep our fingers crossed, worst case is when our cargo has to be rerouted to another port and that will spike up our shipment cost.

2 ) STK2 Grades
Today was the parent-teacher meeting. It was not pleasant. All but 1 boy had grades suspended for not completed school projects. It was terribly disappointing and we had to come down harsh on the kids today.

We took much effort to ensure our kids are given the very best and even made special efforts to get them to visit their families during the holiday. But after coming back, some had lovebites on the necks, others got attached, and other lost their drive to study and wanted to quit.

Some wanted to give up because studying was so hard, they rather choose the easy way out, go with the flow. Drop studies, get married young and go back to the fields.

Today we had to sit out kids down, talk and discipline them in love.

We spoke about self respect and a courage to fight for our own future. Some of the kids just wept remembering the dreams they had when they first stepped into the centre Their tears just rolled down their cheeks as we prayed for them, restoring hopes and dreams again.

At the end of the meeting, everyone was teary eyed. I guess its not the pain of the physical punishment, but them knowing that they have let the care staff down.

Later, Jong my 12 year old girl came up to me.

She said "I'm not very good in school, sometimes i don't understand, the kind that is not too smart."

I smiled, and said "for what we lack in talents we can make it up with hard work & diligence"

She looked up, eyes sparkled...."yeah.... I could definitely have done better"