Today I thought that I would try to describe LKY School to you better. The only problem is that a picture is worth a whole lot more than I could write. But, I am going to attempt to describe it anyway. Hopefully I can get pictures also.
LKY school is situated below the road. The driveway curves down the hill, goes through the gardens, and ends at the security guard huts. These are small leaf and bamboo structures. Somehow, when they told me that they had their own houses, I was thinking of a small cabin type place. It is not like that at all! Bradley’s house is the size of two full sized beds, with a bamboo attachment that is just large enough for his small car to get into if you are a good driver. The car port is covered by a tarp. His house was considered big enough for him to share it with several of the other boys. The teachers and administrators houses are a little bit bigger, but only by a foot or two. The next thing that catches your eye is the “classroom/girls dorm”. This is a wooden structure, that is open mostly, but it does have some wooden walls on at least 3 sides. You can see between the boards on the walls, so I use the word “wall” loosely! It is a pretty big building, like maybe the size of a medium sized house in the states. During the day it is used as classrooms, and at night it is the girl’s dorm. It actually has a nice floor of ironwood.
If you follow the path through the lime orchard, you will come to a pretty messy type place. It was supposed to be the kitchen, but the tarp roof shredded already, so it is open to the elements. This is where all the cooking and eating are done at the school. It is just a pole structure with a dirt floor, no walls, or anything that you might consider to be convenient. All cooking and chopping and anything else that is done there is done on the ground. Good thing it isn’t the rainy season anymore!
Right next to the kitchen is our house. It is a big building, with a porch where one student sleeps. It has a spigot with running water, piped straight from the creek. We even have a “bedroom”. It is an elevated area with a wall on three sides on one side of the house. Of course, I can see through the walls quite well, which makes it very important to make the bed every day, otherwise all the kids will know about my lack of neatness and order! This was supposed to be the clinic, but the Adams put a stop to that idea since they did not want all the sick people coming to the middle of the campus for treatment every day. But, since it was supposed to be a clinic, I have real shelves in my house! The only downside to my house is the floor. They did not have any fresh bamboo, and since it was the rainy season nobody wanted to go and cut more bamboo for the floor. So, they used old, used bamboo…..thin bamboo….. to build the floor. Not only that, but they did not have enough leaves to finish the roof, so 1/3 of the roof used to be a nice tarp, but it shredded a long time ago, and now Jason and Travis have the rare privilege of taking their showers in bed. Two other students live inside the house with us, and we use the corner of the house to store pumpkins and gigantic cucumbers for the kitchen. Our house may be all of 500 square feet!
Next door to our nice house is the boy’s dorm. Since I am not a boy, I have not investigated it thoroughly, but I have noticed that it seems to be somewhat lacking in size, which is the main reason that you will find, scattered around in the orchard, little bed sized huts. They are rather cute actually, but it is not all that great for students to have that degree of freedom!
Right behind our house is a toilet. The walls are made of a bamboo frame with a tarp wrapped around it for walls. It is conveniently located right next to the creek. (a situation that we are trying to fix right away since all bathing and washing are done in that same creek!) Next to the toilet, you will find some little garden plots, where some hungry student is maintaining their own food supply. I see him out there each morning with a little watering can, carefully taking care of his gardens. They are very nice.
If you follow the path on from there, you will come to a pathway in the bank going down to the creek. This is the official laundry and bath spot. It is the only place deep enough in the creek where the students can go swimming. They take turns using this area, boys one day and girls the next. Keeping track of who’s turn it is can be a challenge. If it is not the girls turn to wash in the creek, they have to go to one of the spigots and wash there instead, which is not nearly as much fun.
If you follow the path from the creek, you will come to a very steep hill where you will find steps cut out leading straight up to the Adams house. This is where we do foot clinics for the kids, and porch clinics for the villagers. The Adams house is about 800 square feet and is held in great reverence by all the people. Recently we have been asked to check into doing something to help the elderly people in our area. This plea came to us from our landlord who is a Thai lady. She is really impressed with what we are doing here, and has suggested ways in which we could expand our work. She assumes that we have unlimited supplies of money, which maybe we do! Our Father is the King of the Universe, right? We have already been supplying rice and baby formula for those who need it. Some of the children who come to the porch are very malnourished; their parents are unable to work legally since they are here illegally due to the fighting in Myanmar. This led us to start trying to meet at least their basic need of food. It seems like the more that we do, the more we find to do.
The good news is that God is sending more people who care about these kids! A group of students from Stanford University in California have gotten involved with helping the kids. They sent a package to them for Christmas, which had some VERY APPRECIATED medical supplies that we find very hard to find here, and Christmas cards and book marks for the kids. I was not here when the bookmarks and cards were handed out, which was a big disappointment, but I have seen the kids carrying their cards and bookmarks with them wherever they go. They are so careful of them, and seem to be very happy with them. They take them out and look at them during quiet times.
Also for Christmas, ADRA and Anna Bell donated blankets for the kids. So, now each child has two blankets each! This was very needed since it gets quite cold here at night. Lena was able to buy each child one warm set of clothing also. I no longer see little kids bouncing around the orchard with their teeth chattering in the mornings.
In January, a business man from Bangkok is going to consider supplying the money to build the buildings that we need for the school. So, that gives us one more thing to pray about. We are praying that if helping us is God’s will, that he will do it so that we can get things decent for the children. The amazing thing to me is that as poor as things are right now, more parents want to send their children. They see what is happening here, and they want it for their kids also. What that tells me is that our work does not depend on fancy buildings and lots of food and things. It is only successful as God leads, and we follow His will for us.