Bad news but good Christian support
It is with sadness I share that, due to new rules, the government has decided that the orphanages must restrict the children’s going out and visitors coming in for the next three months to make strong efforts to protect them from the Covid 19 virus, due to the vulnerable nature of many of the children’s health.
This means activities involving children who go out to schools, trips and non-essential events outside of the orphanage are to be cancelled. This includes our wonderfully planned holiday 20 minutes down the road to the expat community.
This is likely to affect the planned study tour also. Although it’s far off, it is not going to be permitted for the Thai staff to go to England until the virus is finished.
This virus is significantly more disruptive than other years’ viruses and is having a massive impact globally. It’s affecting my plans dramatically. The planned finishing well and in stages seems impossible now and adapting my thinking to make the best of a rough deal is what I’m working on now.
For the children’s holiday alternative, I’m seeking permission from the orphanage to bring some of the planned activities to the children instead of bringing them out. Obviously, some won’t be possible, but I’m thinking out of the box and aiming, if permission is granted, to bring the bouncy castle, the bowling, the disco night to the children in a sort of Holiday at Home. The idea is to have one activity per day. Please pray that this will be permitted.
I had intended to break the year into task focused spells to make all the tasks manageable.
Jan to April – plan and implement the holiday
May to August- plan the study tour with regards the UK end of it
August to October – plan with the Thai staff and implement bringing them for the study tour.
Oct to November maybe back in Thailand to complete closing up the rented house in Thailand.
Now with this Virus mayhem and the risk factor of international contacts when flying, I have been rethinking returning in August to Thailand as there would be little to no work I could do, because my visa and work permit would have expired and the project I aimed to come back for would not be possible to implement anyway. This means I’ve under two months to completely sort the emptying of my house here and get all I need to do done.
This became a reality on Monday afternoon and it took much of the evening and a late night to cancel the promoting meetings, contact 1Step2Step committee in the UK and change the PowerPoint slides for the event that was planned for today. Tuesday I stayed at home to work much out and today was, as expected, a day not in at the orphanage, because of doing a talk for the women’s group, which was originally to rally a team to help with the children’s holiday.
Instead I had chance to share about the situation, rally them to pray and make mobiles as requested by the ward mums to brighten up the ceiling to stimulate and entertain the children. I was blessed by being prayed for by the whole group and their praying for each of my children too. This helped me loads to release some of the emotion that was being bottled to hold it together.
After this we shared a meal together and got on to making the mobiles.
They all looked great and were varied themes of numbers, rainbow, under the sea, butterflies, stars, hearts, birds and one that was prayers in little bottles with angels. The ladies were rightfully proud of their creations and I know they will look wonderful.
I want to thank the encouraging women of CCC church, because this was a blessing for me right in the hardest days. Thank you to them for their kindness, friendship and encouragement to keep going. One lady has offered for her whole large family to come and help me with the house packing up on a week of bank holidays. I’m so grateful for this offer.
Thank you all, both here and in the UK, for your prayers and kind words on hearing the disappointing news we are dealing with.
God bless,
Nicola Anderson