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Top Shelf Staff
January 13, 2012 | 
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Something that never ceases to amaze is the astonishing range of abilities of our ZOE staff. In a day and age when so many individuals in the West have become specialists in their jobs, our ZOE workers seem to be able to do anything and everything. From animal husbandry to auto repair, caulking to cooking, welding to woodworking, they do it all!
Being able to call on our staff to handle a vast variety of our needs at ZOE is not only convenient but cost effective. If something leaks, breaks, or stops working we don’t have to wait for the repairman to show up – if we can even get one to make the one-hour drive from the city. Nor do we have to spend precious funds on repairs.
It’s not only repairs that we depend on our wonderful ZOE staff for help with. Often, when they see a need, they take matters into their own hands (literally!). Fancy a fence? Cut down some bamboo and put it up. Short of shelving for the storeroom? Get some wood and bolts and build it. Gotta have a grill? Grab a 50-gallon drum and weld one.
Barbeques made from old bunk beds!
We are very thankful for our incredible ZOE staff. They are always ready, willing and able to do whatever needs to be done!
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A Happy Heart
It is very traditional in Thailand for young boys to spend several weeks or months as a monk apprentice as the local temple. They will shave their head, beg for alms, and study Buddhism. After the prescribed time, the boys will return to their homes and resume their normal lives.
So it was rather unusual when a Buddhist monk brought a young boy to ZOE Children’s Homes earlier this year asking us to take care of him! Dteeng was about 13 years old and had been sleeping around one of the local wats (temples). He was homeless, apparently parentless, and stole whatever he could to eat. The monks could not control him and asked us if we could help him.
Now, when children first come to ZOE, we do not immediately integrate them into our main children’s home. We have several safe houses where we take them until we feel they are ready to integrate. Dteeng did not want to stay at ZOE. He was determined to run away! We had to have three of our house fathers watch him 24 hours a day (each in an 8-hour shift). At night, the house father had to sleep outside Dteeng’s bedroom door on the floor blocking the door so that when he tried to open the door to escape, it would bump the father and wake him up! After a week had passed and there was no indication Dteeng would agree to stay at ZOE, we were wondering what to do next.
The house fathers were at a loss and were praying for wisdom. Then, a group of three teenage boys who had been at ZOE for some time, approached one of the house fathers. They had overheard what was going on with Dteeng. The three boys asked to be taken to Dteeng to talk with him. They said “We know exactly how he feels. He is scared. He doesn’t trust anyone. Let us talk with him and we’ll let him know that ZOE is a good place.” So the fathers took the three boys over to meet with the new boy. After spending a few hours together, Dteeng opened up to them and began talking. Oh, I didn’t mention that for the whole week at the safe house, Dteeng never said one word! The next day, he said he was ready to visit the Children’s Home. He was so overwhelmed with all the greetings and smiles and hugs that the very next day he told the house fathers he was ready to stay at the Children’s Home.
When he first came to the Children’s Home, Dteeng stuck very closely to those three boys and they really watched over him like big brothers. Whenever we adults spoke with him – or tried to talk to him – he would avert his eyes, not say anything, and get away as fast as possible. Recently, we had a special talent show at ZOE and there he was, up front, singing with his team. Afterwards, Dteeng came and sat down on the arm of the couch where I was sitting and laid his head on my shoulder. This boy’s face has literally taken on a new appearance in the past few months! As the proverb says, “A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.”
Aloha Means Love
“Aloha” in the Hawaiian language means “love.” Over time, it has also come to be used as a greeting and a farewell, much as the Hebrew word for peace (shalom) has also come to be used for “hello” and “goodbye.”
ZOE was blessed recently by a 9-member short-term mission team from Word of Life Church in Honolulu, Hawaii. The team definitely brought their aloha as they shared God’s love with our ZOE ohana (family) through fellowship, worship, preaching the Word, elective classes, and sports.
The Hawaii team also participated in evangelistic outreaches to a remote hill tribe village and a local school in Doi Saket bringing the Good News to the wonderful people of Thailand and helping to educate against the dangers of human trafficking.
They also brought a taste of Hawaii to the ZOE Children’s Home! The team prepared the ono (delicious) traditional Hawaiian coconut dessert haupia for us at the barbecue dinner they sponsored. During our worship services, the wahine (women) shared several beautiful hula worship dances while both the wahine and the kane (men) performed a modern interpretive dance. Before leaving, the team blessed the ZOE staff with colorful lei for all.
It wasn’t all work for our Hawaii friends, though! They enjoyed a traditional northern Thai khantoke dinner which in some ways is similar to a Hawaiian luau. They also visited the Maesa elephant camp and it is rumored that there may have even been an evening spent shopping at the night bazaar!
We were so happy to say aloha to our brothers and sisters from Hawaii when they arrived and sad to say aloha as they left to return home. But we will never forget the awesome aloha they shared with us while they were here!
Mahalo nui loa and ahui hou!
To see more photos from the Word of Life team click here.
Keeping Culture Alive: Part of ZOE’s Fabric
The thread hangs in a thick twisted bundle of various colors.
The Karen people have been weaving beautiful fabric for hundreds of years. They cultivate cotton and from the harvest they spin their own thread. To create the many vibrant colors on display in any Karen village, the women explore the nearby jungles and forests for a variety of things with which to dye the thread.
Only the women weave; the girls learning the skill beginning at about age seven. A skilled adult can weave up to four feet of material per hour and an expert will weave from 1 to 3 hours a day. However, weaving is no one’s primary job in Karen society. It is one of many tasks that fall to the women along with working in the fields, washing, preparing meals, and tending to the children.
Operating the loom requires a high level of coordination and agility, manual dexterity using both hands and feet, and a strong back! Hundreds of individual threads — the warp — are stretched out horizontally side-by-side over the length of the loom. There are about 50 threads per every inch of cloth width and the widest material possible is approximately one meter (39 inches). These threads run through a “harness” of vertical strings which keep them separated and also serve to support a mechanism that allows the horizontal threads to be spread apart vertically through the operation of foot pedals.
Horizontal threads are spread apart vertically through the operation of foot pedals.
The weft — the thread that is to be woven — hangs from the top frame of the loom in a thick twisted bundle of various colors and is fastened by a single thread to a large wooden shuttle. The shuttle is pointed on both ends to facilitate passage through the vertically spread threads and is hollowed out to house a quill upon which a quantity of thread is wrapped. As the shuttle passes back and forth through the warp, the thread feeds from the quill out of a hole in the shuttle. As the weaver passes the shuttle through the warp from one hand to the other, she must simultaneously reach with her free hand to pull back the reed to batten the thread tight against the material that has already been woven. To the uninitiated, it is nothing short of dizzying to watch new material being created with blinding speed.
The shuttle is pointed to ease passage through the spread threads.
But what is truly remarkable is the beautiful cloth that emerges from the old-fashioned loom. Each weaver is an artist, deciding the pattern, colors, and width of her material. To get a consistent pattern, she must continuously count the number of shuttle passages so that she can stop and change thread color at the appropriate place in the material. Once enough material has been woven it is sewn together to make shirts, skirts, pants, and handbags. A top weaver can make a handbag from individual threads to finished product — weaving, cutting, sewing — in 30 minutes. An elaborate man’s shirt will take about 16 hours of work.
ZOE Children’s Homes is dedicated to ensuring that our children know their culture. We encourage our house parents and staff to pass down to the children the customs, history and traditions of their people.
A top weaver can make a handbag from scratch in 30 minutes.
A Heart to Teach
Do you remember your favorite teacher? The one whose encouragement and patience made a big difference in your life? The teacher who made you think that you could accomplish anything? That teacher undoubtedly had a heart to teach. And a heart to teach is birthed out of a love for children and a passion to see every child armed with the knowledge and skills necessary to lead a successful and productive life.
ZOE Children’s Homes has such a teacher.
Better known by her nickname “Milk,” Duangcheewan was born the middle child of a middle class Christian Karen farming family in Northern Thailand. During the week, Milk attended the public school in her village through 9th grade. Because the village school only went to the 9th grade, she was sent to live with missionaries in the city of Mae Sariang to attend the last years of high school. During this time away from home, Milk felt sad and lonely. She missed her family and friends and, like all youngsters, wondered “What should I be when I grow up?”
The missionaries she lived with wanted to send her to a Christian university in Bangkok. Her pastor encouraged her to apply for Bible college in Phayao. While applying to those institutions, she also took the exam for the rigorous academic course of studies at Rajabhat University in Chiang Mai hoping to major in English or social studies.
She was soon accepted at Rajabhat, but to her dismay was enrolled as a Thai language major. Having no desire to study Thai, Milk decided that rather than show up at school for classes, she would go back to her home village and get a job.
After just a few days back home, she became very ill. The entire church gathered to pray for her and she recovered. That very night, Milk insisted that her uncle take her on the five-hour drive to the University so she could be in class the next morning. Because she hadn’t begun classes on time, she had to meet with the University president to get admitted. She spent four years learning to teach the Thai language and a required additional one year practicum in the field where she served her home village as a teacher in the school she attended as a girl, teaching grades 4-6 for a semester and 7-8 for another semester.
In retrospect, Milk is grateful that she decided to study Thai. For it was while she attended University that she met a fellow student named Witt. After this fellow graduated, he came to work at ZOE and encouraged her to apply for a job here as well. She did and was hired in May 2010. (While we may never know if he had ulterior motives in steering her to ZOE, Milk and Witt exchanged wedding vows on January 28, 2011.)
Her first assignment at ZOE was to teach the kids Thai. And what an important job! Many of the children at ZOE have only a rudimentary grasp of Thai when they arrive and are unable to speak it clearly or properly, having come from villages where the primary language is Karen, Shon, Lisu, or one of any number of other tribal tongues. And who better to teach these boys and girls than a university-trained professional with in-class teaching experience who is fluent in Karen, English, and Thai?
Since then, Milk’s portfolio at ZOE has expanded to include serving as chief liaison between ZOE and the public schools that ZOE children attend. Integrating a rescued child into a new school can be a very challenging process. Some have had very little formal education while others have never darkened a schoolhouse doorway. For older children, the challenge is magnified. ZOE has a number of children older than 10 whose first time at school was only after being rescued and safe in the ZOE Children’s Homes.
Ensuring that ZOE’s children get a high quality education is a priority for us.
To make certain that our children have assistance with integrating into school and with their school work after hours and on weekends, we hired Milk.
Teacher Milk has worked tirelessly with ZOE’s children and the results “speak for themselves”. When she started, Milk did initial assessments and within three months there was significant improvement in test scores with an average increase of 10 percent in reading and 13.5 percent in writing. Though it is a big challenge, Milk takes encouragement from her favorite Scripture: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)
Milk tells us she is impressed with the healthy, loving relationships she sees at ZOE, how everyone helps one another, and our family worship. She loves ZOE’s mission, leadership, staff, and most of all, the children.
For our part, we couldn’t be more impressed with Milk. And we’re glad she has a heart to teach!
