A visit to the Bamboo School's (Thailand) Lakeside Chapel

                                                        Bamboo School
The Bamboo School exists to fulfill God's direction given in Isaiah 58.
We're located in the mountains up against the Burmese border in the small village of Bongti, home to 541 families with an annual average income of just US$180/year.
There are currently 63 residents (many of them orphaned, abused, medically challenged, retarded, or refugees of economic poverty) that God has molded into a family.

Many of you know that Ciejay and Me , are very much supporters of the Bamboo School near the Burma  border in Bongti, Thailand. The Bamboo School is a orphanage , that is held together and run by a lady,the kids call MOM MOM Kat, I call her Kat for short . She is a wonderful , and committed person to the Task God has called her to do , I know of no other person with so much love and compassion ( and energy) for unwanted children. She is truly what God calls "The Salt of The Earth".The school is not funded by any one particular organization , even tho Kat is a Seven Day Adventist, Children of all religions , are welcome, the school is funded by freewill offerings , if you would like to know more about the Bamboo School  check out their web site at http://www.bambooschool.org/ .

My friend Jerry took a trip thru the mountains to visit Kat and the Kids , this past Saturday , we wanted to take some bakery goodies for the kids that Ciejay had a lady who bakes in our neighbor hood ,she had her to bake a bunch of small cream filled rolls , enough for the kids to have for a couple days for an afternoon snack.
We got there just in time for their Sabbath Day Church Services at their new Chapel by the Lake , what a beautiful place , and we enjoyed a great sermon from Kat and some really wonderful singing of hymns from the kids . We visited for a few hours  and really enjoyed our time with the kids . I took a lot of pictures and will post a few for you to see , If you are ever over this away and would like to visit the School , give me a call and I'll show you the way .                                                                     Malcolm and Ciejay

GOOD-BYE-----BOK----WE LOVED YOU

Today is a sad day at the Burgess's , Our boy Bok (dog) passed away ,and went on ahead to the rainbow bridge to wait for Ciejay and Me when we pass by someday.

Bok was a stray ,that found his way to our home and hearts as a little puppy he was , not even a month old, he was nine months old when he was poisoned , by someone or something , we'll probably never know . Bok never meet a stranger during the day and was loved and enjoyed by all who live on our road , a couple of our neighbors loved him as much as we and they called him Peter, he could understand Thai and English and was very obedient when told what to do.BUT when nightime came and he would take his post on our front porch , then, he was transformed into Bok the Wonder Guard Dog and everyone was a stranger till morning. He will be missed , If you have dogs  watch after them as they like Bok will love unconditional and sometimes  that's not to good. Take care of them as you would a small child and never allow any folks to be cruel to them.

The Rainbow Bridge inspired by a Norse legend By the edge of a woods, at the foot of a hill, Is a lush, green meadow where time stands still. Where the friends of man and woman do run, When their time on earth is over and done. For here, between this world and the next, Is a place where each beloved creature finds rest. On this golden land, they wait and they play, Till the Rainbow Bridge they cross over one day. No more do they suffer, in pain or in sadness, For here they are whole, their lives filled with gladness. Their limbs are restored, their health renewed, Their bodies have healed, with strength imbued. They romp through the grass, without even a care, Until one day they stop, and sniff at the air. All ears prick forward, eyes dart front and back, Then all of a sudden, one breaks from the pack. For just at that instant, their eyes have met; Together again, both person and pet. So they run to each other, these friends from long past, The time of their parting is over at last. The sadness they felt while they were apart, Has turned into joy once more in each heart. They embrace with a love that will last forever, And then, side-by-side, they cross over… together.

ฉ 1998 Steve and Diane Bodofsky. All Rights Reserved.

I Do a Walk-About

Well, not a very long walk-about , just a walk around the yard and our house , some in-side and mostly outside. Folks are always wondering what kind of a house or hut we live in here in the LOS. I thought I would take a few pictures to post and show you that we are not as far removed from civilization as some folks seem think that have never been to Thailand . A long time ago in one of my first post here on  Retired in Thailand and Loving It  , I showed pictures of the house ,before and after the remodel, you see we bought a 8 year old Thai concrete house that was 70% finished when it was abandoned, and sat empty for about 8 years  , really run down and some structural damage no one was interested in buying it to repair or live in , but Ciejay and Me  had a dream of turning this into a home for us in Thailand , so with a lot of blood, sweat , and tears , we think we have almost after 7 years got it just about like we want it .There will always be little things we see that we want to do and as time and money allow we'll try to do what we can.Now we are happy with the little make-over we have done and hope you enjoy the pictures, I put little brief caption on each to explain them . Malcolm

Share my blog with your friends and family, and they will get a little (real) glance into living and retireing in Thailand.

Building a Hut

I was surprised last week when a friend stopped by and said that Ott our neighbor who owned the land we bought and still owns the 12 Rai  clear to the foot of the mountain , told him he could build a small hut at the end of the road that ends at the foot of the mountain. I was interested in knowing why he wanted to build a hut on someone else's land , he said he liked our area and there was lots of small trees and lots of bamboo to help with the material he will need and he said that also he liked the neighbors.
I ask him what he was going to use the hut for and when was he going to start building , the rainy season has already started here in Whang Pho, so I figured he would start in Oct. or Nov.  , to my surprise he said , "I'm starting today an before I knew what was going on Mac the fellow that works in my yard and on my house was here and said he was going to take a few days off and help to build the hut. He told me that the reason for the little hut was that he needed a place to get away on the week-in's after a long hard week at his job at the resort , and also he wanted a place he could bring his dog s so that they could run free and play in the woods and get some exercise (he lives in the city and they are in a pen all week while he is at work). He loves his dogs as much as we love ours .
Well off they went with a saw and a ax and a few hours later they were back carrying logs they had cut , then a day later, after they had the foundation and post up they put in the floor of bamboo and he had a load of log slabs that he got at a saw mill for the walls and a friend  wove the roof covering out of palm limbs and leaves and bamboo , and to my amazement it does not leak they worked steady on it and would you believe , in one week they had it done and have even planted some plants and flowers and hung flower baskets from the eves and he has spent a week-in already and his dogs love it there and to my surprise and our dogs get along well with his and they stay at their little hut and don't run up and down the road . I still have to say , that Sabu is still the alpha Male of this road and he made sure that they knew it right away I love this little hut and I have talked to B-bie and he is going to find me a place at a friend of his that has a piece of land on the River Kwai and Mac said he would go and build me a small hut just like this one , I think that maybe Ciejay would like it and we could spend a few week-in's on the river once in a while and also it would be available for friends that want to get away and back to nature so to speak for a few days .  What do you think?

Where else but in the LOS could you find a person to let you build a hut and not have to bother with building permits and best of all , get most all of the building materials right there from the land . I love it and  I guess this kind of freedom and these kind of folks, is just a couple of more reasons that make me say I'm Retired In Thailand and Loving It

WHAT IS THAT SMELL??????

I walked out back the other day to feed the dogs their lunch when this ,awful smell hit me in the face like a ton of bricks , the wind was blowing just right and the smell was coming from the back deck , I thought for a minute the dogs had dragged up something dead from the woods to roll in , their favorite thing to do of late , they both smell like a couple of skunks. I walked around from where I thought it was coming from and there in the dirt and grass looked like a scene from the ole Beverly Hillbilly's t.v. show (" up from the ground popped a bubbling crude") there was a bubbling , But it was not crude this was bubbling SH-- coming from the buried sewer tank under the poured deck and ground. When we remodeled the house 7 years ago we took a look at the system and (knowing nothing about them ) thought it looked ok to me , the contractor never said anything different, Sooo  we poured a concrete deck over it with a plug left to clean it out when it got full, this is usually about every 3 or 4 months ,I knew it was already old when we moved in but what I didn't know was that when they put it in almost 15 years ago they did not put gravel or rocks around the outside and did not seal the concrete top when they put it on and after all these years when the rainy season came the holes in the lid and between the two culverts  were letting it fill up with water and pushing the sewer water out the top holes , thus the bubbling stinky stuff. Well with nothing left to do but put in a new sewer system ,BUTT the only problem was that all the PVC pipes from the toilets were also encased in the concrete deck.Would you believe I had a dream as to how to fix the problem .  First ,we dug a 5 mete hole beside the deck and put in 2 huge concrete culverts and sealed them and sealed the cover as well , with the hole in the top we we put a 6in. PVC with a elbow and ,then where the old system came to the side if the deck , punched a hole in the side close to the bottom and ran the PVC pipe in there, and sealed around it good ,  sooo when the old system fills to the pipe the water and stuff them flow thru the PVC, from the old , into the new system that is lower than the old one  thus utilizing some of the old and also a new system , we then, back filled around with rocks and gravel and packed the top soil real good, . and  WALA  it works like I hoped and prayed it would , now instead of have the POOP sucker come every 3 or 4 months  and as if late with the problem , more like every 2 months  , hopefully it will be every 6 or 7 months , will cost more , because of pumping two systems  but will be a while in between pumping, that the truck does not have to drive on the grass  , which always takes a week or two to look normal again.Another thing that we did was to put a gas vent in the system to keep the smell and gas from coming back into the toilet when you flushed sometimes  , now nooo smell and gases stay outside and away from the house .I hope you understood all this high tec (dreaming)Thailand ingenuity, anyway life is never boring here in Wang Pho and especially at the Burgess's. Well at least I didn't just run a blue PVC pipe out the back and let it run into a hole in the ground , which most  Thais that live in the country side do , on the plus side of things here on Moo1 , is that since we have moved here and I have talked to all our neighbors about the importance of sanitation and  clean yards and surroundings  they have all installed sewer systems and I can really smell the difference when the wind blows from their way up to ours and I have also noticed that we have almost no flys and the mosquitoes are a lot less in the evenings ,when you are outside working or playing ..
Well that's an up-date on thing here at our house , the new project is a pathway with stepping stones from the carport to the side deck , which I will report and post pictures next time .. Hope you enjoy this post and pictures and are any of you taking on summer projects ??? if so  then what ??