Soccer day.

Opening Prayer.

Lots of kids in the back.

Lots of kids on the right.

Lots of kids below

Lots of kids to the left

Soy almost got trampled several times.

Girls to the left and right of me.

Girls below me and in back of me. Sam is the center of attention.

Where would this blog be with out a picture of a bug or two.

This is a big leaf bug!!!

Tate and Rachana pose for the picture.

Savouen Wut and Engly.

Jake feeding rabbits with Kyo Savouen cleaning the trays out.

Rainwater storage area.

28000 liters of storage

Little bit about what has been going on last month and what is coming up.

Projects that have recently been complete.

We finished our rainwater storage area and we calculate it holds around 7396 gallons. Which is about a year of drinking water for the orphanage at full capacity.

That is about the same as $7322.00 of cheap bottled water in the States at $0.99 a gallon.

We also finished redoing the buildings electrical wires. Doing it ourselves saved us around $2000.00 and now every thing works great.

We put a shade over the children’s laundry area so the children who do their cloths in the afternoon do not get sun burnt anymore.

Projects we are looking at doing.

We are planning to add tile to the walls up stairs in the boys and girls room and repaint. Water damage from the hard rains and the children touching the walls all the time has led to this decision.

We are planning to increase the water storage on the roof from 1000 gallons to 2 or 3 thousand gallons. The increase in children means more showers and flushing leads us to pump water all day long, especially in the summer.

On and off we are having different problems with our plumbing and replacing more of it will be a possibility.

We are looking into making a methane tank in the front yard to replace or propane usage. All the pig manure we produce now will ferment causing a production of methane gas that we will cook with and then use the old manure for fertilizer.

We would like to put together a bike rack out front and fill it with bicycles. We would like to have one bike for two children to use.

Covering the bike rack, cars, and motorcycles we would like to put in a carport approximately 300 sq feet or 10 meters by 10 meters.

Buying items.

We are looking for a small car to get to town cheaper than the van.

We are also look to get one or two motorcycles. (This is the common mode of travel here.)

We are looking at buying 4 more dining tables and chairs.

We are look at buying furniture for the guardian rooms 4 beds, 1 small desk, 1 wicker shelf, 1 plastic chair.

We are looking at making a computer bar for the used laptop area with stools. It would be out of the way along the wall and they will not have to set up each time. We run the risk of damage with the set up each time.

We also are looking at getting a refrigerator and a separate deep freezer.

We are looking at a larger screen TV for their movie nights. Right now we have a 13 inch screen diagonal with 30 people trying to watch and it is a little disappointing in a good movie.

Events.

We again had a large group come and share our property. We had maybe 250 kids come to play in the grass.

A group from Australia put on a concert at the church and before that they played soccer with us.

We had a more professional group with jerseys playing another group from another orphanage all of these little groups where from the city and do not really have the place to come and play like we do.

It was great to have so many out here it gave us a chance to see what the property could be with 200 kids.

It was also great to have so many having fun together with out worry.

We really appreciated the Aussie team for coming out for some it was their second time being out.

To encourage better care of the animals the children are receiving a small portion of the proceeds from the sales generally from 5% to 10% depending.

Also we slimmed down on the pigs from 30 back down to 12 where we should be sitting. This should begin producing an income for us around April 2009.

Our goats are pregnant again both females this time.

We also plan to butcher a goat for Christmas this year. We will probably buy one to butcher since ours our not ready. But it is a far cheaper meal and the children really like it.

The younger children have some school scores in, the older children have to wait because they have been testing for a while.

Engly and Rosa are new to us so you can watch their improvements over time.

The children went home for a week because it was the boat-racing holiday again. They all enjoyed the time away and we also enjoyed the quiet. I got lonely real fast though. They will go home again in April for their new year. Twice a year they go visit what family they have.

It also helps them appreciate what they have here. I think 4 or 5 of them got sick probably from poor diet.

Sam will be turning 5 in December.

Jake turned 15

Savoeun turned 15

Channee turned 14

Young turned 13

Jon turned 13

Te-a turned 12

Engly turned 8

Ly turned 7

On is turning 7 in December

28 children will be celebrating Christmas with us this year. Six of them it will be their first Christmas.