Early Christmas at Hope House

Just before leaving CA for Mexico we helped plant a new church in Mountain View, CA. As founders of that church it was our dream that they would join us in the work God has provided for us. As we became more deeply involved in Hope House we kept up contact with our CA church, Grace Bible Fellowship (GBF). Last summer they sent a team down when they conducted a sports camp for the boys. After returning to CA they were so enthused a decision was made to make Hope House there first and main mission outreach. To kick start this goal they decided to provide presents for all the boys at Christmas. This resulted in 25 large boxes filled by various members of the church. The challenge now was one of delivering the packages. With shipping costs to Mexico being high and getting through customs, it was decided that the most efficient and cost savings way was for one of the church members to fly with the boxes as additional luggage. All of this to say that this was a real learning experience for all of us and there are several things that we will now do to improve future generous donations of this sort. This past Tuesday evening, Bob Douglas, the assistant pastor, flew down. As we waited for Bob at customs, we could see him slowly move towards the final doors. Then the doors remained closed for almost an hour and we never saw Bob that whole time and we became quite concerned. Clearly one passenger with 25 extra pieces of luggage raised a few customs officials eyebrows. Bob eventually did come out but it was too late to deliver the packages and we decided to do it Wednesday evening. Wednesday morning we all met for breakfast with Rodney and Kina because of GBF’s desire to know how better they can help not only Hope House but the staff and especially Rodney and Kina. Breakfast lasted four hours during which a wide variety of constructive suggestions arose. As a result we are looking forward to a great relationship between Hope House and GBF. Already on the books is a return visit in July to conduct another sports camp. God is indeed more than good, in fact, He is awesome and we are so thankful that we can serve in the capacity He has so generously provided for us. The blessing for us is to see God at work. For Bob, the blessing was to see the look on the boy’s faces as they carried their individual boxes into the house. Now comes the anxious waiting for Christmas to open the boxes. Here are photos of this event.

Israel October 2012 GMP trip

This was our third GMP trip to Israel. This posting will primarily consist of a photo album with appropriate captions and a few videos. The album is presented in chronological order of the places we visited this time. The blog on our first trip can be found here and our second trip blog can be found here.

The photo album for this trip can be found here. We were given a demonstration of how they fished on the Sea of Galilee in Jesus' time. The video of that is here. The interior front of the Church of the Nativity is quite ornate. Here is a video that shows the altar area of the Church. We were treated to two excellent views of Jerusalem, one was from the Shepherd's Field in Bethlehem and the second from Herodion. Here is the view from the Shepherd's Field and here is the video taken from Herodion. While we were in Old Jerusalem some people were celebrating a Bar Mitzvah. It was rather loud but interesting. It is a special honor for a boy to have his Bar Mitxvah in the Holy City (and expensive). The video for this Bar Mitzvah is here. We managed to take our harpist's harp in the Garden of the tomb. Just before having communion we had the luxury of hearing her play "In the Garden" and a few other numbers. Here is the video of "In the Garden".

Second Aquaponics System

Our first aquaponics system, described in our posting at this location, has been a resounding success. After completion of the system described in that post, we planted a variety of plants: lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini and even a papaya tree, and added fish to the fish tanks. All plants are flourishing and the fish continue to grow so the system is beautifully balanced. Since we had a small amount of funds left over we decided to build a second system much like the first. This brings Hope House closer to the point of being self-sustaining. We also have approximately 50 lettuce seedlings that need a place to grow as our first grow boxes are full. So it made sense to move forward with a new build. The one ingredient missing this time was volunteer labor to help in the construction. We put a call out to our sons in CA to see if they would be interested in coming down to help. We received a resounding "yes".  The visit was made even more attractive by scheduling the time for construction around "Dia de Independencia" celebrations in September, especially the "Regata de Globos" which is a fiesta of hot air balloons made out of tissue paper and the heat source being a cloth ring soaked in kerosene and then lit. You can get some of the flavor of that at this posting.

Our sons Andrew and Eric and friends of Eric's, Lexi and Tyler, arrived during the night prior to the regata. So we started off with a big bang. Sunday we toured Tlaquepaque in Guadalajara with them and then put them to work on Monday. Lexi and Tyler were able to work Monday through Wednesday and Andrew and Eric continued the remainder of the week. In anticipation of their arrival, we decided to have much of the basic construction completed so that they could finish the project in the week that they were here. Their labors were also supplemented by a local friend of ours, Charles.  After much mixing and carrying of cement the Mexican way, shown in this video, we did get the project complete except for a few odds and ends, like the sidewalks around the beds and the plumbing. We anticipate the second system to operational by the end of September. Here are photos of the construction of the second aquaponics system and the current status. However, we have to hold off on finishing the area around the new system and construction of the sunshade over the system. Once we get sufficient funds again, we will complete the second system to be on a par with the first system. By the way, this is the Mexican way of construction, when funds are available - build, if no funds are available - stop building. Until we get the funds, we already have 50 lettuce plants ready to transplant into the new system since the first system is already full. Fortunately we believe it is sufficiently cool at this time of year so the plants should be fine.

We kept the kids busy with the construction but they also had time to play an aggressive game of Ultimate Frisbee with the boys. Our sons' comment by Thursday was that as much as they were glad to spend time with us, they were looking forward to getting back to CA and recovering. Mixing and carrying cement by hand is hard work! Here are photos of the ultimate Frisbee game as well as the boys that played, which is not all the boys in Hope House since some were in school, and a photo of our youngest little two year old. When you see him, your heart melts.  

GBF Visits the Heines in Mexico

After five years of waiting we finally had the privilege of having our church from CA, Grace Bible Fellowship (GBF), visit us on a missions trip. It was with great anticipation that we waited for them. Their trip began with the whole group attending our little Spanish church, which has grown to approximately 150 adults from 60 when we first arrived. God stepped in again so that Nancy happened to be leading worship that Sunday, in Spanish of course. This was special since Nancy was the first worship leader at GBF. The team appeared to enjoy the service, although by US standards it is very long, and they got to meet a lot of people including connecting with the pastor. Some of the team members plan to keep in contact with our pastor as an encouragement to him. This is one of the many benefits that we appreciate resulting from a team visit of this nature. 

The overall trip was short and the team only had two and a half days to spend in a sports camp with the boys. The activities included basketball, ultimate Frisbee, and hockey. Yes, hockey in Mexico, although it was regulation hockey but on concrete. The boys were excited when they heard it would be a sports camp. This enthusiasm carried over to their involvement in the sports activities. The team members also had the opportunity to conduct Bible lessons with groups of the boys as well as special one-on-one times. When saying goodbye to the boys, clearly the boys would have liked to have more and took more time then scheduled to say goodbye. One of their questions, "are you coming back next year?" We definitely hope a team from GBF will be returning next year with an even much larger team and staying for a longer period of time. Here are photos of the basketball camp. Here is a video of the basketball portion of the camp. 

The last night in Mexico was dinner at our house followed by a summary discussion of their visit. Here are photos of the visit. We could see that even after three days, the boys really touched the team members. A trip like this will do that to you. Several of the team also became quite attached to our church and our pastor. This really touched us. As some of the team's family members had been concerned, one of the questions we asked was "Did you feel in any danger while you were here?" The answers from essentially everyone were very enlightening and interesting. Answers like: 

- "Although coming from broken and abusive homes, all the boys were cheerful and real gentlemen and we never felt any danger being alone with them whatsoever. "

- "Each evening at 9 or 10 pm we would walk down to the Ixtlahuacan plaza to get street tacos. Not only were they excellent but we survived the tacos and the walk." 

- "Rodney and Kina, the local missionaries, have four little girls and they live in the center of the village and feel totally safe." 

- "Another intern missionary has a little girl and they feel no danger." 

- "Contrary to what some people thought, the bottled water was just fine." 

Hopefully and prayerfully the team coming down and experiencing our little part of the world first hand will allay any fears for future teams. So now we are prayerfully anticipating a much larger team for a longer period of time next year.

Guatemala - July 2012

We joined Global Missions Project on another missions trip, this time to Guatemala.  This likely has been one of the best we have been on.  We had approximately 14 concerts and 6 workshops in the 8 days we were there.  Fortunately Guatemala is a Spanish country so we could conduct the rhythm workshops in Spanish without a translator.  One of those 8 days was committed to touring Antigua, Guatemala.  Because there was so much activity this blog will be organized by day and events for each day.

To begin with, here are photos of the group of 20 that met in Guatemala for this adventure. Our orchestra was supplemented with local musicians and the largest combined orchestra was 40 people.  So it was exciting. Before getting into the individual events there are some generic photos. These photos are of Casa Emaús, the guest house that we stayed at.   Here are photos of typical street scenes of Guatemala City and surroundings. One of the things we have always been intrigued by in each country we visit  is graffiti, shown here. In Guatemala it is very reminiscent of Brazil. The first few are just a series of graffiti but the last group is a mural of people holding hands and rolling a ball along. Another thing we noticed was the variety of buses. Besides the standard tour buses, there appeared to be two types, dull red old Bluebirds or Mercedes Benz, and very colorful. The dull red ones seemed to concentrate within the city and the fancy ones for intercity travel. In fact, these colorful ones always had the luggage loaded on top. Here are representative photos. We called the fancy ones "parties on wheels".

Of special interest were the volcanoes around Guatemala. Typically they are covered with clouds but we did get some good views as these photos show.

The highlight of any trip of this nature is eating, generally local food.  However, we ate a lot of fast food on this trip because we were always on the run and this was the easiest.  We are not used to that much fast food, and half way through the week we got tired of pizza.  Here are number of "eating" photos.

The rest of the blog will be by day and then location during that day.

Friday 13 July

Our first and ONLY rehearsal at Union Church.  This included some Guatemalan musicians.  Photos of this rehearsal are shown here.  We then went to the National Conservatory to conduct workshops and then give a concert but ended up hearing a Marimba concert and then giving ours as seen here.  A video of the Marimba concert is at this YouTube site.  We then visited Coro Filarmónico, which was very interesting.  Two Guatemalan brothers, Pedro and Manuel, felt called to reach out in a poor community to try to bring kids off the street through music.  They have been successful because they simply trust God to provide and He always has.  Here are videos of the choir singing alone,  the boys playing the piano, all of them playing hand bells and all singing with the piano. Understand that these people live in a bad environment and come from abusive homes and found Coro Filarmónico to be a place of refuge.  Many notes on the piano no longer worked so our group decided to help out.  Here are a couple of photos of the choir, a welcome sign and Manuel and Pedro after receiving the gift from our orchestra, which was almost enough for a new piano.

Saturday 14 July

We began the day by giving a concert at Universidad de Valle.  However, we did not get any photos as we rushed in and out.  After lunch we went to Centro Cultural Cristiano. Their website is at http://cccguatemala.com/. Apparently the leader of this organization felt led to go to an extremely poor and violent part of Guatemala City to reach the youth.  According to their website they are working with upwards of 1,200 young people.  What caught our attention was that they have an auto mechanics workshop, a metal workshop, art studio and English classes to provide centers of life skill training.  We then noticed a Rotary Club symbol and asked about it.  60% of the funding for the workshops comes from local Rotary Clubs who are in contact with a large number of clubs in the US and Canada.  Since we are Rotarians in our local club, this was of special interest.  His next project is a carpentry shop!! At this location we put on a concert on the street.  The local police blocked off the streets for us.   Here are photos of this opportunity. That evening we ended up giving a concert at Bethania Baptist church. Three photos of this concert are shown here.

Sunday 15 July

On Sunday we gave two concerts at Union Church.  These were our only English language concerts. Here are four photos of our time at this Church.  That afternoon we held workshops and gave a concert at Vida Nueva Church. We didn't get photos of the workshop as we were busy instructing the rhythm section in Spanish.  We rotated instrumentalists on each instrument to give them all a chance.  At the end of the class, with Nancy singing, we had a "near" perfect worship band.  As instructors this was extremely gratifying.  We did get pictures of the concert, which can be seen here.

Monday 16 July

This was our one tour day and so we went to Antigua, a historic city in Guatemala.  Here are photos of this adventure.

Tuesday 17 July

In the morning we headed off to the Alfredo Colom Music School to conduct workshops and give a concert.  Here are the photos of this opportunity.  In the afternoon we went to the Universidad Galileo.  This is one of the most prestigious universities in Guatemala.  Students are not allowed to work and so their parents have to  provide total support.  Cost is approximately $1,000 USD per month so by Guatemalan standards very expensive.  But it is an extremely beautiful campus.  All students have to take English and those in medical and dental school have to add at least one indigenous Mayan dialect because they are expected to work in the outlying communities.  Our director, Camp Kirkland, gave a lecture on music composition followed by Nancy lecturing on Sound Tech. These lectures were followed by a concert.  Here are the photos of the time at this university including the lectures and concert.  Here is a video of Camp and Nancy lecturing, at least small parts. Nancy found out just prior to the lecture that half the audience knew nothing about sound, so she started with the basics.

Wednesday 18 July


The whole day was spent at a very interesting orphanage, Camp Bernabé.  This orphanage has about 150 orphans on a well maintained and beautiful campus.  They have their own school, several houses with from 10 to 15 children in each with house parents, a garden, a carpenter shop and a well organized structure.  We met several short term interns and some folks that are there for a longer period of time.  This orphanage is part of a larger international organization Friends of Children Everywhere (FOCE).  It is not government supported so relies totally on private donations.  However, it is one of the best if not the best orphanage in Guatemala.  In fact, it has a waiting list of 1,000 children.  So there is a real need.  We did workshops and held a concert here.  However, there were no rhythm instruments so no rhythm workshop. So Walt found a guy named Tony who essentially does exactly what we do at Hope House so Walt had to compare notes.  Tony's next project is an aquaponics system!!  Just what we are trying to do in Mexico, Tony is trying to get Camp Bernabé to be self sustaining.  Here are pictures of Camp Bernabé.  One of our gals, Barbara, put a whole program together for us to interact with the kids.  So you will see photos of that.

Thursday 19 July


Thursday began with a ministry that really touched everyone.  It was in a place called Potter's House.  Their website is at http://www.pottershouse.org.gt/. Apparently 11,000 people scavenge the Guatemala City garbage dump to make a meager living.  This has been going on for generations. It is not just the poverty that is an issue, it is that they are considered second class citizens so they have no apparent hope.  Potter's House has been working to change that for the last 25 years and have been quite successful.  We went to listen to an orientation briefing and to give a concert.  Here are photos of this opportunity.  Later that day we were joined by a choral group, Virginia Voices International, who joined us for the last two days.  Our first combined concert was at Jesús El Buen Pastor church.  Here are photos of the concert.

Friday 20 July


This fantastic trip ended with workshops and a concert at Seminario Teológico Centroamerica (SETECA).  The concert was on live radio and the very large church was packed with a very enthusiastic crowd.  It was an excellent way to end this incredible trip. Here are a few photos of the workshop and concert.

Future


We are signed up to go to Israel in October of this year and to Curitiba, Brazil in June of next year.  If you would like to help us out on these ministry opportunities God has given us, you can do so by going to https://www.globalmissionsproject.com/givetoparticipant.php and supporting either one of us for Projects GMP-190 and/or GMP-200.  Although they can be quite exhausting they are extremely rewarding and we are convinced this is a ministry God wants us involved with. Any support would definitely help us in serving where God is leading us.

Aquaponics

A major goal for the boys home that we work with is to make it self-supporting. This can be accomplished through systems that offset operational costs, such as solar electricity and water, or by systems that provide food both for use at the home and selling of any additional products. Hope House already has a chicken coop for raising chickens. Other systems can include standard gardening for produce or hydroponics, growing produce in water. Also, aquaculture, the growing of fish in tanks, is attractive. However, a combination of hydroponics and aquaculture is a system known as aquaponics. In this system the fish fertilize the water with nutrients and the water is pumped to the hydroponics portion and the produce extracts the nutrients as fertilizer. The cleansed water is then pumped back into the fish tank. A very neat closed loop system. A year or more ago we began considering building such a system. So we had a dream and prayed that this dream might come true.

 Over the next year following our dream, we began networking with various people. We found some people in Guadalajara that were considering installing aquaponic systems in orphanages in the area and they had already constructed some, such as barrelponic systems. They visited our facility and from what we envisioned they came up with a design. So now it was a matter of funding and, to minimize cost, find volunteers to help build the system. We had materials in the workshop that we could repurpose plus we had a large aljibe, which is a large underground tank, that was no longer used. So the first step was to cut the aljibe in half providing us with two tanks that would be perfect for fish. Our friends in Guadalajara contacted a group called "Adventures in Missions" or AIM, that sends out teams to various countries for 14 month periods to help in projects like this. Six of them were available to help. The group included someone from New Zealand and another person from Mexico City, so it became an international endeavor. Three days prior to beginning the project a gentleman from TN retired full time in our area. He too joined us. To help with Mexican construction we hired a local contractor to assist, which was a real Godsend. The team became even more international when a friend of ours, Phil Wang, felt led to bring a missions team from The King's Academy in Sunnyvale, CA, the week prior to Spring break. Phil is on staff at this school. This team consisted of 8 high school students and three staff. At Christmas we talked to our son Andrew and he indicated that the company he works for, Duarte Design, Inc., was looking for a place where the employees could participate financially to help an organization that takes boys off the street and gives them hope for a future - where else, but Hope House. We sent a planning document that went to the president of Duarte Design and the company not only committed to help but reached their goal in a very short period of time. We now had the volunteers and funding to see our dream fulfilled for the aquaponic system itself. However, we still had one item - the greenhouse to provide shade.  St. Andrews Anglican Church one  of the local churches in our area, has generously donated the funds for this last piece.  So now we are complete.  We are planning on building two systems but to educate ourselves on operating such a system, we chose to build only one and then operate it until we become comfortable. After this learning period we plan to build a second system comparable to the first.

 Below is a sketch of the system we built.

A "single" system consists of two grow beds, one with gravel for plants such as the non-leafy variety, tomatoes, radishes, onions and so forth, and the other a free flow for leafy plants, such as lettuce and spinach. The free flow bed will hold upwards of 200 lettuce plants. There are two fish tanks, each of which are anticipated to support 400 fish. The "Bell Siphon" is a unique mechanism to control a fluctuating water level from full to empty in a cyclic pattern.  It has no moving parts and operates solely on the siphon principle.  The greenhouse is shade material supported by a structure. This part still needs to be built. The rest of this blog will be a series of photos and videos showing the construction as it took place. Needless to say, given how a dream of a year or more ago became reality, God was in it the whole way - bringing a team together and providing funds and completing the dream in a period of one month. God is awesome! God hopefully is working on bringing another team sometime in the future and AIM has a new crew coming to Guadalajara in May for 14 months. We have several volunteers trained to maintain the system. Plus several other people have expressed interest.  So God is again at work getting things ready for completion of this project.  We are anxious to see how part 2 will go.

Day 1: Construction photos and video of taking repurposed pallets apart for concrete forms and felling a tree. 

Day 2: Construction photos and video of Hope House boys and The King's Academy team mixing concrete Mexican style. Also testing the "goodness" of the concrete and then The Kid's Academy guys doing what they  couldn't do in the US - riding in the back of a pickup truck. 

Day 3: Construction photos and video of fish tanks being placed in their holes. 

Day 4: Construction photos only this day. 

Day 5: We took The King's Academy crew to see the Passion Play in our village of Ajijic. This video shows Jesus carrying the cross, which he does half way up the mountain. 

Day 6: Photos of the final wrap-up meeting and what was accomplished while The King's Academy team was at the Passion Play. 

Day 10: It is coming together. Status photos. 

Day 13: Plumbing has gone in as seen in these photos, including the infamous Bell Siphon. This video shows the first operation of the plumbing system. Here is a video of the Bell Siphon working, give it a couple of minutes as it sets up and then it will be seen in its full glory. There are no mechanical, electrical or moving parts, it operates entirely on the siphon principle. 

Day 34: The intervening time was spent making the area look professional and culminating in a "planting party" with all the boys of Hope House and other visitors present. These photos and this video show the current status and first planting.

Nairobi, Kenya - March 2012

This blog consists of a culling down of 1,200 plus photos and a large number of videos. The photos and videos are grouped by subject and the captions will tell the story.


Flying from Amsterdam to Nairobi, we flew over the Sahara Desert. The first place we went to was where we were staying, Brackenhurst Conference Center, a very beautiful campus. On a later day, some of us went for a hike in the woods around Brackenhurst. One of the interesting things we saw was an ant trail crossing our trail. This video shows the ants in motion. The next day we went to Rosslyn Academy to meet the students we would be working with all week. Here are some team photos. We put on eight concerts, two at a church and the others in various schools in the Nairobi area. We were able to take videos at the concerts and the videos show the audience responses. In addition here is one video dedicated primarily to the orchestra. One of the places we visited was a childrens home where some of the acoustic instrumentalists were able to teach the children about their instruments. Here is a video of the kids singing to us. This video shows the children being shown some of the instruments. Like all other kids, they had to show off for the camera as seen in this video. We did more than concerts with the students from Rosslyn Academy, we also held Master Classes with the sixth grade band students and with the Middle School Symphonic Orchestra. Here is a video of the classes. As with any opportunity like this, candid photos are always good. When the team was not busy, other instruments were picked up, for example our drummer on violin and our sound tech (Nancy) on keyboard, for impromptu jam sessions. On the last day some of the Rosslyn Students had rugby practice, and visible on the practice field was part of our rhythm section. We always thought our kids were the only ones that messed around in pictures but we had one on our trip when photos were being taken. One of the most important parts of a GMP trip is food. In these photos food is the main feature. Here are some photos for Nancy's techno geek friends of various sound systems that we used. Every morning as we left Brackenhurst we went by huge tea plantations and some coffee plantations. The tea plantations were very well groomed, like a large lawn mower clipped them. Coffee trees were a little bit higher and were mostly hidden behind hedges. Both crops are very labor intensive. From Brackenhurst to Rosslyn Academy the main highway went through a number of villages. These photos show some of the store fronts and this is a video as we were passing through. One interesting feature along the main highway was nurseries that seemed to go on forever. Clearly, the plants cannot be put away at night so there is a real honor system at play. From time to time we would see some very interesting things along the road. These photos are a view of a few of them. One place that we were taken to see was one of the large slums in Nairobi. These photos show this particular slum. Obviously between the villages and on our way to Rift Valley Academy, we were treated to the beautiful Kenyan countryside. These are photos of some of the farming areas. On various days we did have time to tour some of the highlight areas of Nairobi. First of all was the Nairobi National Park as seen in these photos. One thing that was of very special to us was the elephant orphanage, because of the strong family orientation of elephants and the orphans require a significant amount of nurturing and care. These are photos at the elephant orphanage and this video shows the orphan elephants being fed. You can read more about this particular elephant orphanage in the October 2011 National Geographic, also online. We also went to the giraffe center where we could feed the giraffes. Here are photos at the center. On the last day we spent time at a Masai market where all sorts of Masai things could be purchased. The fun here was negotiating with the various people selling in the market. Here are photos of the market. And finally, one day we were treated to a view of the President of Nairobi's caravan.

Nairobi, Kenya marzo 2012

Cuando volamos de Amsterdam a Nairobi, fuimos encima de Sahara Desert. El primer lugar fuimos a fue el lugar donde hemos permanecido, Brackenhurst Conference Center, un lugar muy bonito. Mas tarde, varias personas en nuestro grupo pasearon en el bosque alrededor Brackenhurst. Una de las cosas inetersantes que vimos fue un rastro de hormigas cruza nuestra rastro. Este video muestra los hormigas en movimiento. El próxima dia fuimos a Rosslyn Academy para encontrar a los estudiantes con que estaríamos trabajando por todo semana. Aquí son algunas fotos de grupo.  Jugamos en ocho conciertos, dos en una iglesia y otros en varias escuelas alrededor Nairobi. Podimos a toma videos en los conciertos y los videos muestran las respuestas de audiencia. Además aquí es un video dedicado principalment a la orquesta. Un lugar que visitamos fue un hogar de niños donde varios de los instrumentistas acústicos pudieron enseñar los niños acerca sus instrumentos.  Aquí es un video de niños que nos canta. Esté video muestra los niños son mostrados varios los instrumentos. Como todos otros niños, tuvieron que presumir para la cámara como visto aquí en esté video. Hicimos más que jugamos a conciertos con los estudiantes de Rosslyn Academy, nosotros también tuvimos Master Classes con estudiantes de banda de primaria escuela y con estudiantes de orquesta sinfónico de secundaria escuela. Aquí es un video de las clases. Como cualquiera oportunidad como esta, fotos sinceras son siempre buenoas.  Cuando nuestro grupo no fue ocupado, otros instrumentos fueron recogidos, por ejemplo, nuestra persona que tocar bateria con violín y nuestra persona de sonido (Nancy) con teclado, para sesiones para improvisar. En el último día varios de los estudiantes de Rosslyn tuvieron práctica de rugby, y visible en el campo de la práctica formó parte de nuestra sección rítmica. Siempre pensamos nuestros hijos fueron solo niños que fueron malo cuando fotos fueron tomado pero tuvimos uno en nuestro viaje cuando fotos fueron tomado.  (Está persona fue nuestro director.)   Una de la mayor cosa importante en un viaje de GMP es comida. En estas fotos comida es primera. Aquí son varios fotos para los amigos de "geek" de Nancy de varios sistemas de sonido que usamos.  Cada mañana cuando salimos Brackenhurst fuimos por plantaciones de té y cafetales. Las plantaciones de té estuvieron muy acicalado, corte como un pasto grande. Árboles de café fueron un poco más alto y fueron en su mayor parte ocultado detrás de arbustos. Ambas cosechas requieren mucha mano de obra. De Brackenhurst a Rosslyn Academy la principal carretera fue a través varios pueblos. Estas fotos  muestran varios frentes de tiendas y esta es un video como fuimos pasando a través. Una característica interesante por la principal carretera fue viveros eso pareció pasar para siempre. Claro, las plantas no pueden ser guardado de noche entonces hay un sistema de honra en lugar. De vez en cuando  veríamos algunas cosas muy interesantes por la carretera. Estas fotos son una vista de ellos. Un lugar que fuimos tomada para ver fue unos los barrios grandes en Nairobi. Estas fotos muestran este barrio particular. Obviamente entre los pueblos y en nuestra manera a Rift Valley Academy, fuimos tratados al hermoso campo keniano. Estas son fotos de algunos de las áreas agricultura. En varios dias tuvimos tiempo para viajar parte de las áreas populares de Nairobi. Primer fue el Parque de Nairobi Nacional como visto en estas fotos. Una cosa que fue muy especial a nosotros fue un orfanatorio de elefantes, porque de la orientación familiar fuerte de elefantes y los huérfanos requieren una cantidad significativa de alimentar y el cuidado. Estas son fotos en el orfanatorio de elefantes y este video muestra los huérfanos de elefantes ser alimentado. También leer más acerca este orfanatorio particular de elefante en de octubre 2011 National Geograhic, también en el internet.  También fuimos a el centro de jirafe dónde nosotros podríamos alimentar las jirafas. Aquí son fotos en el centro.  En el último día fuimos a tianguis de Masai donde algunas cosas de Masai podría ser comprado. La diversión aquí negociaba con las varias personas que venden en el tianguis. Aquí son fotos de tianguis.  Y finalmente, fuimos tratados a una vista de la caravna de presidente de Nairobi.

Thailand, 2012

Since coming back from Thailand we have been very busy working at the carpentry shop, with Rotary Club, and a trip to Nairobi (blog to follow), and have only now had the opportunity for a new posting. This posting summarizes our trip to Thailand in January and February of 2012.First and most important are our family in Thailand. Here are photos of them and a video of all them doing things. Here is a video of our little princess just being cute. The kids all got together to help wash Daddy's car in this video. Every year Thailand celebrates Children's Day on a Saturday in January where they set up entertainment areas all over the place. It rained the day it was happening but we took them anyway. There are games for the kids, lots of food and prizes. Here is a video of the things going on at the place we went to. Opa and Nana also had birthdays when we were there and were treated royally. Here are photos of our cakes. A highlight of our Thailand trips is to take the kids to the elephant camp to see the elephants, see the elephant show and ride the elephants. Some of our grandkids had never done this so it was special for them this year. Here are photos of the show as well as a video of some of the events in the show. Here is a video of us riding the elephants, another video of feeding the elephants and finally a video of a few month old baby elephant.This year we went to the Chiang Mai Night Safari only during the day time. Turns out you can actually see more activity during the day so it was very interesting for all of us. Here are photos of our venture to Night Safari and a video. What you don't see at the Night Safari is a tiger resenting being stared at and charging at us. It scared Joel to death! (Nana and Adam were pretty startled too). Each year the Senior class at Grace International School have a Fair where they dress up and have activities for the kids. Here is a video from this year's fair.