First of all, good news - the luggage has arrived! Perhaps we will all be a bit (and smell a bit) fresher tomorrow!
The day started with breakfast and devotions with the CHO team; Trevor from New Zealand led us in a Bible study. So many highlights of the day, too many to narrow it down easily. We saw School on the Mat in such a remote rural area, a forest clearing, with 18 children, a teacher and a helper. They sang to us - "If you're happy and you know it" - and we sang back to them with "Jesus love is very wonderful" and the children joined in the actions.
Then we visited the health centre, a heart-rending and humbling place, where people suffering with HIV/Aids are treated; there is a new TB centre as well. An amazing place, paid for by Tearfund and CHO.
2 sewing centres: one training young girls in the skills and the other with an older group, making 15 pairs of shorts a day for 7 bahts a pair. We did these visits in the pouring tropical rain that was a downpour; the roads turned to mud very quickly.
Safe Haven - a refuge behind locked gates for the victims of abuse and trafficking. Children from the age of 6 upwards are cared for, going to school, being cared for by house mothers, the older boys learning welding skills and carving. 2 years ago this place didn't exist, but now more than 30 children are being cared for. It is lots of little projects within a big one. The children were acting out the bringing down of the walls of Jericho - plenty of enthusiasm and noise.
we're off to make sure that the luggage really is here and that it is ALL here!
