NightLight

Last Thursday we visited NightLight Bangkok, a ministry to women involved in prostitution. We were impressed with the ministry and the number of women they have been able to help. We met with a Thai woman named "Bang," one of the 5 founders of NightLight. The ministry was started by 4 American women (one of whom is our friend Natalie) and Bang. They all met through Rahab ministries, another ministry to prostitutes in Bangkok. Rahab is centered around the Patpong area of the city. These ladies had a vision to reach out to women in another part of the city, NaNa.

They originally started by going to the bars a couple times a week just befriending women that worked there. (That personally seems like a scary outreach to me. They aren't the kind of bars we go to in America if you know what I mean). The first night they went to the NaNa area a woman told them she wanted to get out of prostitution. They didn't have much to offer at the time but Annie, the founder, began meeting with her at McDonald's teaching her how to make jewelry. Annie made jewelry as a hobby anyway so it came naturally. Soon the ministry expanded from just one woman to 8 to 12 and so on.

Now the ministry is made up of about 75 to 100 women at any given time. They offer anyone a job that wants one or needs one in order to get out of prostitution. The salaries (which are fairly small) are paid from the profits made from the jewelry sold (which is mostly sold in the US or the UK) and through donations.

Through person-to-person relationships, NightLight's goal is to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of women in prostitution, their children, and those children brought illegally in Thailand to financially support their families by selling items in the bars and often through sexual exploitation. NightLight runs a center offering emergency aid, educational and employment opportunity, emergency child-care, language tutoring, literacy training, and biblical teaching and healing for their community.

Bang said the ladies work about 4 hours total everyday making jewelry. The quality of their work is pretty impressive. She said they have bible study every morning before work and that they all eat lunch together. In the afternoons they are learning English as well. The women I met were super sweet and loved Adelaide (Nong Lamai as they all call her). I didn't see her for about 30 minutes at one point; she was being passed around all over the building.

She said that even now not a lot of the women are believers but she said they just make the Truth known to them, love them, and let God work in their lives. Thailand is less than 1% Christian. Most Thais haven't even heard the name of Jesus so there are a lot of humps to overcome. Two women are available to counsel them if they want it or need it, and two Thai pastors work for NightLight full time.

Bang said about 30% of the women leave Nightlight. Some return to their lives of prostitution. Some find other jobs. Some go back to their home towns. The ministry no longer meets at McDonalds (that would be a tight squeeze). They now have 2 townhouses that they've turned into their headquarters. It was pretty cool to see how well run it is these days.

I was amazed that through every door there were more women doing different jobs-- making jewelry, taking inventory, silk screening jewelry bags, sewing, accounting, etc. Most of the women only have a 6th grade education so they would have a hard time finding a job in many places. It was great to see that NightLight has changed so many lives. They have a retreat every year and this year seven women were baptized!

I asked Bang about the needs and she said that donations are always needed to keep and help ladies out of prostitution. She said that the Thai government doesn't really allow them to have the same non-profit status that organizations have here in the States so all donations are run through America and sent on to Thailand. Buying their jewelry is also helpful. It's mostly sold through vendors but can also be purchased through these websites:
NightLight
Trade as One
Not for Sale

I was asked not to take pictures of the women's faces but I did get some pictures around their headquarters that respected their privacy.

A little better

It's now 10:50am and Adelaide's fever is way down. Now it's only 99.5! It's dropped 4 degrees in the past 2 hours. Thank you all so much for praying. She is still definitely sick but was up and calmly playing a little. She even ate a piece of bread. Please keep praying that she'll be totally well soon. I'm so thankful right now for friends that pray for us, a pediatrician friend that cares about us, and for the SOS insurance we have. SOS has already arranged for us to see a pediatrician at the international hospital should we decide we still need to take her. Well I think I'm going to take a nap now since our little girl is napping as well.

Fever

Things seemed normal yesterday morning but yesterday afternoon Adelaide began running a high fever. It was 103 and then rose to 103.5 even with Motrin and Tylenol. She became quite lethargic and irritable after that. Now it's 8am and her temp is 103.6. She woke up at 7 but immediately fell back asleep. We're bringing her to the doctor this morning. We don't really have any clues as to what is going on. Prayer would be much appreciated. We'll keep everyone posted.

Krabi

It's nice to be back in Bangkok with Rocky again. He'll be blogging about his past week on our other blog. Even though I was looking forward to being on the beach. It just wasn't the same without Rocky. I missed him alot, and it was alot harder to do anything. It was nice to have another family and my dad around so they could help occasionally. It's also nice to be in a country where people love kids, especially blonde kids. Because she's a magnet for Thais, I got alot of help from random people.

Well the trip did not get off to a good start. We loaded up in a taxi with all our suitcases, stroller, children, and bags. When we got to the airport I started unloading immediately and tried to do so one handed because it was too busy to set Adelaide down. In the midst of all the craziness I somehow left my wallet in the taxi. Of course I realized this just in time for the guy to be gone. Dang. Luckily I didn't have alot of stuff in there-- about 30 dollars or so, my driver's license, and a few random replaceable cards. My dad called the taxi company immediately but these taxis were independent owned so basically I was out of luck. I called Rocky and had him cancel all of my credit cards which was pretty easy. It really wasn't that big of a deal but I beat myself up about it for the rest of the day. I hate it when I do stuff like that.

So we head inside the airport to check in for our Air Asia flight, and I guess I've been to Thailand so many times now I'm starting to bump into people I know when I go places. (Just this afternoon we ran into someone we knew at the grocery store.) Anyway, the Air Asia employee was P'Eddie, a former CCC Thailand staff. It was so funny that of all people someone I knew would check us in. It was nice to see a familiar face when I'd just lost my wallet.

The flight and van right weren't too bad though Adelaide said "get down" I don't know how many times. She also started saying the sentence, "I want to get down." Her vocab has expanded even more I'll have to fill everyone in on that later.

The beach in Krabi was great. Adelaide LOVED it. She's not the biggest fan of being in her floatie in the pool (she can climb out of it now) but was totally content chillin' in it in the sea. The water wasn't as clear as I would have liked but it was still beautiful. Adelaide also loved playing in the sand. It was "low season" so there were never more than a dozen people on the beach at a time which was nice. Restaurants weren't crowded and it was generally quiet. Everything was within walking distance. Perfect for 2 moms with 3 kids and my dad and his girlfriend.

Here's some pictures from our first evening in Krabi:



Our hotel was only a five minute walk from the beach. A breakfast buffet was included and everything was great except for ants. There were always ants in our rooms with all the crumbs and juice boxes around. It wasn't really a big deal though and for the price was paid, I was totally satisfied. Below is a picture of what I think is a lemur outside of our room:


We hung out alot on the balcony of our room. Adelaide loved our place because she could climb on every piece of furniture in it.

While we were in Krabi, we typically ate breakfast then headed to the beach for a couple of hours. Then we'd come back to the pool to shower and play. After that was lunch followed by naps. In the afternoons either Liza or I would watch the kids while the other had some alone time. We also traded off in the evenings after the kids were asleep. It was nice to be able to get a coffee and read or go get a massage. While I was there I got a 1 hour massage, a pedicure, and a foot scrub all for $20 (and that's at a touristy place). I love Thailand!

Like I said earlier, Adelaide is a Thai magnet. She gets so much attention all the time. I feel like a celebrity or something. Here she is below surrounded by people. Someone even put their baby in the stroller to "be her friend."

There was lots of great food to be had in Krabi-- german, indian, italian, irish, american, thai, etc. We usually ate Thai food which could be found right on the beach for just a couple of dollars a plate, but we occasionally ate some Western food as well. One night we went out for pizza. Adelaide and I both thought it was tasty but didn't make us happy for long. That night we both started feeling sick.

Adelaide began throwing up in her sleep. She felt so bad she wouldn't even move out of her vomit. I moved her to change her clothes and clean the sheets and she didn't even move. I was worried she was getting extremely dehydrated so I made her wake up and drink some water. She drank some but then began vomiting that. After that she was dry heaving over and over. I think all in all she vomited about 8 times. It was so hard to watch especially as I was sick as well. I never vomited but I did have diarrhea all that night and the next day. It was pretty miserable. The next morning Adelaide seemed as good as new but I definitely wasn't. I took a 3 hour nap with her and took it easy.

Here's some pictures of our last day at the beach, a perfect day by the way. It was absolutely gorgeous.


The flight home was uneventful. Adelaide slept the entire way on my lap and the taxi ride home was smooth. I only had to wait about 2.5 hours before Rocky was home. We were so excited to eat dinner together as a family.

A week offline?

Well, tomorrow the guys head down to the islands to film the documentary about what happened after the tsunami. They've been training the Thai team here the past few days. Rocky taught this morning about lighting. While they are gone to the remote islands which really aren't child friendly-- long rides on small boats, no electricity, no running water, etc.-- the other family with be joining Adelaide and I in Krabi, Thailand for 5 days on the beach. My dad and his girlfriend will also be joining us. I have not met her before so I hope it goes well. I'm looking forward to some time on the beach with Adelaide. This will be her first trip since she could really get around.

I'm not bringing my computer with me there so I'm not sure I'll have internet access for awhile. I'm hoping it will be a restful experience and that I'd actually be able to sleep. Adelaide slept 10.5 hours last night; she's getting almost back on schedule (though she's pretty much like a zombie half the day). I'm the one that's having trouble now. I woke up at 4:45 this morning and could not go back to sleep. I've really never had this problem before.

Oh, dang was going to post more but it sounds like a jackhammer is about to come through the floor of our room and Adelaide woke up crying obviously. They are doing construction downstairs. I hope it will be done when we get back from Krabi. It would be nice for a overly tired baby (and an overly tired mom) to be able to nap in the afternoons.

Here's some pictures from yesterday. We went to the mall and played in the play area just to get out of our room. Needless to say Adelaide loved it (and the chicken nuggets from McDonald's for lunch). I couldn't enter the play area so a Thai girl took it upon herself to take care of Adelaide for me. She helped her up and down the slides.