Tsunami Orphanage

A friend introduced us to a mutual friend, a Thai man and his wife who run an orphanage just 35 minutes away from us in Nam Chem. We've known them for about 3 months now, and Kennedy visited the orphange. He is Southern Thai and has been a Christian for over 10 years now. It is always so encouraging to meet a Southern Thai Christian who has been a believer for a long time. Anyway, I made a blog for him. I can't upload the pictures for some reason, I'll keep trying. I am happy that we know someone who is legitimate and has a real heart for ministering to others. His name is Samruam Promkiri and his wife's name is Somkit. They have 3 children. The foundation they are with, Covenant Foundation, is Thai run and going through some really rough times financially. They were being supported $750 a month for their personal expenses and $1,250 for running the orphanage, which is pretty good. Their foundation has told them they will only be able to give them $750 a month total support and they have to raise the rest of the support themselves. They have never done fundraising before and are feeling a little desperate. They came from another part of Southern Thailand with a team of Thais right after the tsunami to work with mothers of infants and young children. They lived in one of the volunteer tents for almost a year helping out. After that funds were provided to buy land and build houses for the orphanage.
We have some friends coming in January as a team to help for a week and one of them is interested in fund-raising for tsunami orphans. So we hope to help.
They also organized a group of tsunami survivors, mostly wives of fishermen, to do crafts. They showed me the skirts, scarves, rattan handbags, & other things they do and I was surprised how nice they were. They want to sell them to support themselves, but have no idea where to market their products. There are only a few tourists that come through Nam Chem. So I am trying to figure out how to help them. I just don't have the time or know-how to help them sell their products via the internet. So I am praying someone else will come along that would love to help. There was a couple here visiting from England and the husband was all excited about marketing products, but I didn't know the Thai couple very well at the time.
When they came over we prayed for them. I know they are discouraged and worried about how they are going to make ends meet.
If you'd like to visit the blog, it is Southern Thailand Orphanage, just do a search on the top of this page to find it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Helpful Worldview Chart

Brief initial thoughts on Jayson George's book, Ministering in Patronage Cultures

American versus Thai Worldview