II was priveledged to spend the last four days at Ruth Home, an new home for girls who would otherwise likely be forced into prostitution. Currently there are only three girls living there (ages 12,14 and 16), along with the pastor, his wife and his eight and nine year old daughters. They live in the boonies of a northern Thai city, Fang. To sustain themselves they make everything that they need and grow a good portion of their food. Their houses are made of leaves and bamboo and the tools they use that are not made with bamboo are crafted with sheet metal. They own a small plot of land to grow corn and vegetables, they harvest their own fields of rice, keep a pond with fish and snails for eating and raise chickens. It's so cool!

My first paragraphs keep getting cut off. This blog makes more sense now...

I was priveledged to spend the last four days at Ruth Home, an new home for girls who would otherwise likely be forced into prostitution. Currently there are only three girls living there (ages 12,14 and 16), along with the pastor, his wife and his eight and nine year old daughters. They live in the boonies of a northern Thai city, Fang. To sustain themselves they make everything that they need and grow a good portion of their food. Their houses are made of leaves and bamboo and the tools they use that are not made with bamboo are crafted with sheet metal. They own a small plot of land to grow corn and vegetables, they harvest their own fields of rice, keep a pond with fish and snails for eating and raise chickens. It's so cool!

The girls who lived there were great fun! We played games and had a little dance party every night, exchanging dance moves and uniting in the cha-cha slide. The pastor's wife was the most beautiful Proverbs 31 woman that I have ever met and she inspires me. They had badminton raquets, so I bought a cheap badminton net and secured bamboo poles so they had a court. We also helped to level the driveway, digging trenches for water to run along the sides, and the boys went net fishing in the pond.

 

We weren't told exactly what we would be doing when we got there, but there had been rumours of doing church visitations or evangelising to the local people. I wasn't dissapointed, but I was slightly confused when they told us that aside from a couple of the things mentioned above, they wanted us to help make bricks each day. Can I really share God's love while making bricks?

Let me give you the run down.

 

How to Make Bricks with only Basic Tools:

1. Use a hoe to dig up clay-dirt and use buckets to transport it to the work shack.

2. Use wooden irons and your fingers to declump the dirt (a lengthy task).

3. Mix ten buckets of refined dirt with one bucket of concrete, wet and mix.

4. Carefully fill the brick shaped mold with the mixture, packing it down.

5. Using a gigantic metal lever system, press the brick, remove it from the mold and set it in the sun to dry.

 

How to Show the Love of God while Making Bricks:

-When asked to start working at 9 am, get up before sunrise, warm-up at the campfire and get to work with no complaints and lots of smiles.

 

In the end, making bricks turned out to be pretty fun. I got to sit with my team and just talk for so many hours. Topics included climate change, university paths, Lord of the Rings, predestination and chemistry. Besides, truthfully, the pastor is going to be more effective evangelising in his community and his language than we could ever be. He didn't need people to pray for the members of the church (they pray with authority too). Ruth Home needed 215 large bricks to put a big dent in building an office/safe room for the church. 

And so, we made bricks. was priveledged to spend the last four days at Ruth Home, an new home for girls who would otherwise likely be forced into prostitution. Currently there are only three girls living there (ages 12,14 and 16), along with the pastor, his wife and his eight and nine year old daughters. They live in the boonies of a northern Thai city, Fang. To sustain themselves they make everything that they need and grow a good portion of their food. Their houses are made of leaves and bamboo and the tools they use that are not made with bamboo are crafted with sheet metal. They own a small plot of land to grow corn and vegetables, they harvest their own fields of rice, keep a pond with fish and snails for eating and raise chickens. It's so cool!

The girls who lived there were great fun! We played games and had a little dance party every night, exchanging dance moves and uniting in the cha-cha slide. The pastor's wife was the most beautiful Proverbs 31 woman that I have ever met and she inspires me. They had badminton raquets, so I bought a cheap badminton net and secured bamboo poles so they had a court. We also helped to level the driveway, digging trenches for water to run along the sides, and the boys went net fishing in the pond.

We weren't told exactly what we would be doing when we got there, but there had been rumours of doing church visitations or evangelising to the local people. I wasn't dissapointed, but I was slightly confused when they told us that aside from a couple of the things mentioned above, they wanted us to help make bricks each day. Can I really share God's love while making bricks?

Let me give you the run down.

 

How to Make Bricks with only Basic Tools:

1. Use a hoe to dig up clay-dirt and use buckets to transport it to the work shack.

2. Use wooden irons and your fingers to declump the dirt (a lengthy task).

3. Mix ten buckets of refined dirt with one bucket of concrete, wet and mix.

4. Carefully fill the brick shaped mold with the mixture, packing it down.

5. Using a gigantic metal lever system, press the brick, remove it from the mold and set it in the sun to dry.

 

How to Show the Love of God while Making Bricks:

-When asked to start working at 9 am, get up before sunrise, warm-up at the campfire and get to work with no complaints and lots of smiles.

 

In the end, making bricks turned out to be pretty fun. I got to sit with my team and just talk for so many hours. Topics included climate change, university paths, Lord of the Rings, predestination and chemistry. Besides, truthfully, the pastor is going to be more effective evangelising in his community and his language than we could ever be. He didn't need people to pray for the members of the church (they pray with authority too). Ruth Home needed 215 large bricks to put a big dent in building an office/safe room for the church. 

And so, we made bricks.