Here it seems like anything can happen at any time and often it does. But even so I am still surprised by many things here in the slum. Today though the last thing I expected, as I walked to the Community Centre after Language School, was to be greeted by a mob of boys from our kids club running towards me saying “Yai Tan dai leew!” Translation: “Tan’s Grandma just died!” What do you do with that? My head was still trying to get around the new rules and words I had just learnt at school but BAM I came down to reality pretty quick. At that moment I almost felt stuck not knowing what to do. The only thing I could manage was to continue walking to the Community Centre while trying to round the kids up who were trying to see what was going on in the house. Once inside the Community Centre I stood there with the kids and suddenly became very aware of my powerlessness. The situation was already under control, me getting involved would only make things more complicated and my “helping” could actually have been very unhelpful. I was powerless to do anything. In a world where power seems to be such a sought after commodity it is quite confronting yet strangely freeing to be rendered powerless. As I processed my powerlessness a renewed sense of God being all powerful overwhelmed my despair. We are not in this alone, thank goodness. Tan is one of what we call the lost boys of Klong Toey and one who spends many afternoons playing in our house. He seemed fairly unphased by the events of the afternoon but is spending the night with us. Many times I have watched him play in our house but today as I watched him play with Film & Aiden the reality of his life hit me. Sadly he is one of many people in our community with a tragic story to tell, war wounds of many battles waged on their lives. Life here is raw and rough but God is at work in ways we can’t even imagine.

Time really flies here as that last story was two weeks ago now. It is crazy to think that we have only been home for a month since our few weeks in Australia. The “Cooking with Poo” Tour was an absolute success and everyone is still buzzing from it. Thanks so much to everyone who participated in it in some way, whether you attended a seminar, encouraged the girls or bought the cookbook. The Poo wave is not over yet though as on September the 16th Poo and Noi are being flown to Canberra for a Micah challenge Tear fund event called “Voices For Justice”. There Poo will be the celebrity chef cooking a parliamentary breakfast for 300 people on the front lawn of parliament house! Look out Australia, you might just see their smiling faces on the news soon.

They say that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do, in my case I think maybe they should have added finding a house to the list. Sometimes life is like a roller coaster ride you wish you could get off. It just never seems to end because there is yet another dip or turn. The house adventure has been one I could write a book on but I like to call a learning curve (all be it a very steep one). The house I thought I would be renovating and moving into to rent soon became apparent was not a viable option. Once I had done it up it was more than likely to be sold out from underneath me and it was causing a real neighbourhood disturbance. Some days I would go to language school thinking we had sorted things only to come home in the afternoon to a whole new drama! When we decided not to pursue that house I was quite disappointed but also relieved as it was quite a stressful couple of weeks. Another option appeared literally right outside our doorstep and it seemed this was even better. The house next door to the Barkers was for sale so Pi Sim (who lives across the road) set up a meeting to talk about us buying it. Sounds like a simple process but no as in the slum we can’t actually own anything. So we had to find a Thai neighbour that we trusted to put it into their name. Thankfully Poo’s mum agreed to help us out. She has been amazing through it all as there have been many hurdles that have required her to take time off work to go to the local authorities to get everything in order. I feel terrible that she has had to do this but have been really blessed by her generosity and continued friendship.

Finally we had acquired the house and the next step was to find an available builder who could renovate it. Thanks to my teammates we soon had a builder willing to come and have a look. He walked in took one look at it and nearly had a heart attack. Poor guy I think he wished he’d never said yes in the first place. The next day we met him again for him to quote and he said it wasn’t repairable. The floors needed replacing and in order to do so meant pulling part of the house down to be able to sink concrete supports down. It was this process he thought would make the house fall down anyway as it wasn’t strong enough. At this point I felt frustrated that we had bought a dud but then in thinking more about it we bought the house for the location more than anything. My teammate Jodie prayed with me about it and we felt a peace to go ahead with it even though it was now going to cost more than I had originally planned for or had available. I am so thankful we have a big God who is in control even when we have no control over anything. The craziest part about all of this is that then we found out to build a new house I would need a building permit from the council. I found this highly amusing considering we don’t actually own the land (it belongs to the Port Authority) and are technically squatters. Also when you see the state of a lot of houses here it makes you wonder why you need a permit but there are times in life when you just have to roll with the punches.

So with all those dramas behind us we were ready to start the actually building process!! The wrecking crew arrived on Saturday morning and by the time we came home from kids club early afternoon the whole house was down. It is one of the most interesting things I have ever witnessed. Occupational Health & Safety would have had a heart attack had they seen it because there was nothing safe about this process at all. Imagine this…rusty tin, nails, rubbish, broken/termite ridden wood, overhanging electrical wires still connected to power and in the midst of all this 5 people wearing shorts, tshirt and flip flops tearing it all down. Crazy! Once it was all down they began sinking some concrete pylons into 3 metre deep sludge, a sight you have to see to believe. It takes four guys to put it in then they push it down as far as they can before they place a plank of wood on top chained to the pole. Then 4 guys stand on it arms linked together like soccer players after scoring a goal and chant as they jump it down to the right height. I have never seen anything quite like it. The house is making progress each day now which is nice as it feels like it has been going on for months without seeing anything physically progressing. As of yesterday I now have some of the concrete pad down with Anji’s name eternally etched in it!  If you want to know more what is happening on a day to day basis please feel free to check it out on facebook.

Most of you know already that we have been fostering a little boy for the last four and a half months. Well yesterday was Film’s 7th Birthday!! I cannot believe how much he has grown up just in the few months he has been with us. Anji decorated downstairs and filled the table with presents for when he woke up. He was so excited but only had time to open one present before school as he had to be there really early for an excursion. I am not sure who was more excited, us or him, in the afternoon as we waited for him to come home to open the rest of his presents. It didn’t take long to uncover all the goodies and then it was straight into playing with them. Some of you may remember a story I shared earlier this year about his inability to play or imagine but through a few hours spending time together he suddenly came to life. Well I nearly cried again as I watched him open up the Lego and start building it all by himself! It was another milestone for our beautiful little man. We all ventured out for dinner, in the pouring rain, to a crazy restaurant called the Flying Chicken where they literally send BBQ chickens flying through the air via catapult to a man riding a unicycle who catches them on a spike. It is a sight you have to see to believe. The night ended with icecream cake and being serenaded with Happy Birthday Karaoke style. So much fun!

Thanks so much to all of you for your support, it has really helped me get through this rollercoaster ride of the last month.

Big hugs and lots of love…Lish Faulkner