The Bakery Is Open!

Hurray! Announcing the Grand Opening of the official

Home & Life Coffee & Bakery!

One of the highlights of our trip to Thailand was the grand opening of the bakery that we have been helping with. The Home & Life Orphanage has been working toward this event for over a year and we got to be a small part of it at the end of the journey. We spent the last two weeks trying to help them get ready for their big day. I have to say that it was quite different than preparing to open a new Spring Creek Facility and I had to remind myself of that on several occasions, although in some ways--it felt like something familiar.

Let me tell you a small part of the story of Home & Life. Root and Rosa are the parents of 25 children. After the Tsunami hit, the area of Phuket was devastated. Root was an engineer and is quite educated. They decided to go down to Phuket and see what they could do to help. As I understand it, as they got there and tried to go to work to help--they found so many children that were displaced because of what had happened. They decided at that point to try to help these kids. What they have developed there is amazing! They have a thriving home culture where the children feel loved and are getting a wonderful home life, an education and are being taught life skills that will make a huge impact on the rest of their lives. It was our blessing to be there and experience just a small part of what they do.

They have created a bakery--where they are making baked goods and selling them for income for the orphanage. Bom and Bay are the bakers and they make awesome goodies for those to stop in. This also gives the children a chance to help work in the bakery. It was awesome! We loved to help in just a small way to help them this opening a success!

This is Root at the Grand Opening!

For the grand opening, the President of that providence prepared a special dish to be auctioned off to donate money to the bakery. Doug won the auction and was given the special dish. (Although it was too spicy to consume the whole thing!)

Fa is one of the older and spoke at the event. She spoke in English and was sooo nervous! But she did a great job and we were so excited for her! They also had some of the boys do a karate dance and some of the girls (including Olivia) did a Thailand cultural dance. My camera got ruined a couple of days before--so I did video it with another camera but am now realizing that I don't have any photos of that to include.

We showed up on the morning of the opening--dressed and ready to go to work to help finish the landscaping and do last minute cleaning. As we pulled up, it was unusually quiet. As we went up to the bakery, this is what we found. The monks were there and were offering a blessing on the bakery. We found out later that they are also the ones that picked the day of the opening. A couple of months before they thought they would be finishing-- Root went to the monks and asked when they should open. After consideration, the monks told Root that they should open on Feb. 27th--and so it was decided. They went to work and made that date happen.



Right before the party got going--Munchie lost his first tooth! We didn't even know that it was that loose! He was so excited. Did you know that the tooth fairy brings

Thai bahts instead of dollars when you lose a tooth in Thailand?

This is the sign on the bar in the bakery. The letters are made out of paper mache and then painted. The girls worked really hard on this!

This is the outside sign of the bakery!

We moved a lot of dirt and gravel. Everyone helped at some point.

This is Alexa. She is what we call our second adopted "Smegg!" We love her and she was so great to jump in with our families. She is from Australia and has gone home now. She is "just lovely!"

Jill and Sam are hard at it. The dirt is newly moved and is so soft that pushing a wheelbarrow through it proved to be exciting and required two sets of hands!

Nightime is a great time to work! We were pushing and trying to get the stairs done and the driveway.

I have a greater appreciation for landscaping contractors now! Doug is in heaven. Does it get much better than this?

Marcus likes to help and then goes to take a break with the orphans in the river.

He had to come and show me that he caught a little fish!


Ally is supposed to be touching up paint on the walls--not on Jocelynn's toenails!



This is the crew working on the bathrooms!

In came the first refridgerator!

One day the dust was so bad that Bom gave us masks to use. We couldn't help to pose for a picture before going to work!

Another day, we took a break for an hour or so and went to play in some waterfalls. It was a welcome relief from the heat and humidity!

Jocelynn and Root working on the paper mache! That was a tedious job--but the sign looked great!

Jill is thinking-----"I will shoot myself if I have to move this dirt one more time!" We would move it to one spot so that we could move it over farther! What we would have done for a little bobcat!

Deck complete! Ready for paint!

I got the job of scraping paint off from the window frames. Apparently, they don't tape things off here before painting.

More paper mache work! But that sign looked great!

You gotta love those stairs! First we dug them out for four feet wide stairs and then had to fill back in for three foot stairs. It was cutting into the drive approach too much! More dirt to move!

Time to paint the deck! Everyone came home wearing paint!

Can you say, "paint party?"

Munchie & Ashton hard at work! :)

Can you say, "moving more dirt!" :)

Root working on the bathrooms!

Matt & Sam working on the deck.

More dirt..............

Jillian and Doug working on the stairs.....

Hurray! The final product!

Wow--how did I miss that?

Do you know that story where the boy is getting scolded for going to the corner after his mom has told to time and time again, "Do not go to the corner." Only after a simple question did she understand why he did not behave. "Mommy, what's a corner?"

I had one of those moments the other day. We were getting ready to go to a new orphanage in Phuket that houses baby orphans. Most of the children are under three. About half of them live there full time and the other half are dropped off and picked up each day. Previous to this orphanage opening, those latter children were just left at home by themselves during the day.



Most of the children are or have been victims of physical abuse. As we hold these sweet children, we see bruises (some very large), scars from cigarette burns, big scratches/cuts and swollen faces. It breaks my heart. I can't understand how this can be openly tolerated. Then I remember that we are in a foreign land and the laws that I know and appreciate do not exist here. It is a scary realization.



So, knowing all of this ahead of time--I think that I should give the boys a little warning so that they are not caught off guard. I wasn't going to go into all the details, but rather help them understand that these children are very little and that some of them might have some ouwees. In the middle of my great explanation, Marcus goes, "WAIT, so orphans don't have parents????" WOW--shocker moment! How have I missed that little detail of information with him. What did he think over the last month? That all these children that we have been referring to as orphans, were just having a major sleepover party? I just looked into his sweet, little eyes and had to wonder what else I have neglected to teach him. I was blown away.



We get to go and just hold these little babies. We bought some toys at the store but the selection was poor and most were very cheap in quality--but you would think we brought Christmas. They were delighted--although some broke within minutes! We play with them, tickle them and say, "This little piggy went to the market..."

We can play with them until about 11:30 and then they serve them lunch. They all line up against the little gate to wash their hands in a bucket of water. Then they sit down in little rows.



They have to wait until everyone is given their food and prayer is said. Some need help in feeding--although the care givers say that can feed themselves. We can't resist and feed them anyway. They are so stinking cute. Munchie even enjoys feeding the "liddle babies."



As soon as mealtime is over, they all run to the back of the building and strip down for shower time. It is just concrete walls with a hose, but they love it. There is a bottle of shampoo and bucket with sponges and a bowl full of toothbrushes. We help to get them all washed up and they grab a random toothbrush and brush their teeth (some are all rotten).





Then next step is to dry them off and powder them down. Then they run over to these plastic drawers and just grab random clothes out and get dressed. It doesn't matter what they wear, they just grab something and put it on. We all just enjoy every minute of this experience. They are almost giddy to get clean! I really just wanted to scoop them all up and take them home! They are all so sweet!



There is one little girl that really touches my heart. Her name is Fun and she is so snuggly. Just look at those cheeks!



The last thing that we get to do is to help get them down for their naps. We come back out to the front of the building and there are blankets all laying out and pillows for them. We just randomly lay down beside them and rub their hair or stroke their faces.



  Cole especially loved singing the "Magic Frying Pan" song that Grammy sang to all of our kids. My girls all just eat all of this up. They love it. We have gone there just a few times.  This orphanage is a place that is dear to our hearts! What a blessing to be with those children.