pictures from the Akha Youth Development Center (AYDC)
The kids went crazy for digital cameras. I think we have about 500 pictures exactly like this!
Athi - A pastor of a local village. He lived with us just so that he could learn english. He has to be the most energetic guy I've ever met in my entire life. Here he has menthol strips on his face for a headache. Demonstrating some cultural/medicinal differences.
Our Thai teachers kids. Probably some of the cutest kids ever.
One of the girls I was close to - Bebe. This isn't her given name, but the only name we ever knew her by.
This is Ampon. She and I got on very well. She would wave to me frantically until either she or I were out of sight. I would always hear her calling my name from down by her dorm. (we lived up the hill from their dorm) We would sit on the swings and sing songs and try to figure out how to translate from thai to english and back again. She knew maybe 10 words in english ... I probably knew about the same. But we somehow managed to figure it out with a lot of sign language and laughing!
AKHA YOUTH DEVELOPMENT CENTRE - CHIANG RAI, THAILAND
The Akha Youth Development Centre is a youth hostel for Akha children. It is a place for kids who live too far away and have no way of getting into the city for school. A lot of them come from broken families, or drug addicted parents. This is a very healthy and safe enviroment for them to live as Akha's have less opportunity and rights than Thai citizens. If it weren't for this program many of them would get a very limited (if any) education, which could eventualy lead to the young girls ending up as prostitutes, or the boys growing and selling (as well as becoming addicted to) opium. It is a Christian Centre run by Luka and Ghan Chermui. Luka's parents were the first Akha people to become Christians as a result of a missionary named Jean Nightengale and her husband many years back. Luka was the first known baby to be dedicated to God. Jean Nightengale later wrote a book about it called "Without A Gate".
.... for the first 6 weeks of our outreach this is where we lived (AYDC). As you can see, it was an absolutely gorgeous place to wake up to every morning. Here we invested in the childrens lives, taught much english, became masters at mixing cement and paving roads, sang, spoke, gave testimonies, etc in church.
When the children went to school during the day we were either working on the road, teaching english in the local schools, teaching girls basic cooking/baking skills, and sometimes i was busy re-typing "Without A Gate" - a book about how the Akha hilltribe found Jesus.
Our evenings were spent eating with the kids and playing with them. We also learned had 2 lessons per week where we learned both the Thai and Akha language.
During our time at AYDC we also had a few interesting village trips and eating some very interesting dishes!
Our time at AYDC was memorable, and it was very hard for our team to leave. We built some really sweet relationships with the children and the leaders there. The story of the Akha people is incredible and one I will write more about as well. It's amazing to see what God is doing in these people, how he is redeeming their culture, freeing them from addiction and giving them more opportunities in a country where they are widely unaccepted. There were may tears when we left, and a few of our students were so moved, they are planning on going back at some point.
