A Day in the Life

Well, folks, I am just around hitting the 3-month mark of my time spent here in Thailand, this time around, so I wanted to do a quick update of kind of a day in the life here and some of the cool things I’ve been able to be a part of since arriving!

On an average week at Agape Home, I work the “Split-Shift” being the early morning hours and evening hours. Days are usually pretty similar during shifts, we start the day at 6 by bathing the kids and getting them breakfast, then we get the bedrooms cleaned up and ready for nap time. The kids will have downtime where there is obviously lots of playing, watching the Wiggles and Teletubbies of course, and all the good Thai snacks. At 8 all of the kids on our campus come together for worship, bible study, and time of encouragement before the day begins. When I arrive back in the evening we do a similar routine, get the babies dinner, get them bathed and in PJs, and settled for bed by 7! I am usually working in the baby room which is ages 0-2, but can also be found in the toddler room from time to time which is ages 2-4! Routine is obviously important when it comes to trying to keep a room of 20 babies in some kind of order, so days can look pretty similar for that reason. However, in-between shifts look different every day! From coffee shop runs to email sponsors and blog, to cleaning and cooking in my apartment, to adventuring, to Thai class, to working in the office, you never know what the afternoon holds which I absolutely love!

Aside from my normal schedule, I had a special opportunity recently to help Agape in a slightly different role that I’ll begin by saying was probably the most exhausting and humbling few weeks of my life. Our 10-year-old twin boys were being adopted to America and I was asked to teach them and help prepare them before they transitioned over to their new family, so we moved them into my ministry host's house and I spent each day with them from morning to evening for 2 weeks! Setting the stage a bit, these boys have lived at Agape their whole life and did not know what life outside of that looked like so it was crucial that we helped them get at least a little picture of what “western” life was going to look like. On the learning side of things, we practiced lots of English, did science experiments, played math games, watched bible videos, and so much more! We also got to do a lot of fun activities throughout our time together, like going to the zoo, trying many new restaurants, shopping, lots of fishing and even chopping open some coconuts right in the backyard! I got to make them lots of western food, a few of their favorites being pancakes and burgers of course! A not so favorite… hot chocolate… apparently it’s just unheard of around here to heat up a drink instead of putting ice in it, guess you gotta learn some things the hard way. Our boys left with their parents at the end of our time together and it kind of felt like I was giving away my own kids. As tired as I was from trying to entertain and quite frankly, keep alive, these kids, I was so sad to see them go, but also so excited for their new chapter to begin! What a gift it was for me to be a few pages in their book!

Another thing I have enjoyed outside of my normal shifts has been my work in the office helping with sponsorship! Agape is completely run off of donations and our faithful monthly sponsors. It’s been really special to be able to help people choose a child that fits their family and get to send them photos and updates of them throughout my time here. I think it’s so incredibly important to put a face and a reality to where people are giving, so I genuinely feel honored to get to do that for them. $35 a month might not seem like it can make much of a difference to some, but over here it goes a long way. I am in the process of hopefully taking a bigger role in helping with this program that I would then be able to continue in the states upon my return this July.

As for Agape, we are currently in the process of remodeling our buildings: new paint, new electricity, new playground equipment and even hopefully installing solar panels in the near future. As we receive the money we take small steps in the direction of revamping our space to be more efficient and just overall nicer for the kids to call home. We are also redoing our website to achieve a cleaner look and better set up to make moving around the website a little easier. In the next few weeks, I will also take on a bigger role in updating the website with current information more often so our sponsors and supporters can feel more in the loop of what's going on here at Agape Home!

Well, that was a lot, but I wanted to take the time to kind of paint a picture for those of you who have been keeping up with me and supporting me in my work over here! Volunteering at Agape is so incredibly special, I can’t even describe how rewarding it is to love on God’s children every day, that being said, it’s just as exhausting, as I’m sure you can imagine. I really do think it’s such a gift though, to be able to humble myself to dirty fingers in my hair and sticky snacks on my feet knowing the Lord holds a special place in his heart for these kids just like I do. If you have questions about where I am, what I’m doing, or how you can be a part of our work here I’d love to chat with you!