Photos- as promised!

We we are home and getting our bodies re-accustomed to western time and digesting the trip, all we saw and all that we did. The trip was a life changer that reaffirmed how much a handful of people can do. On a personal note, I am now so happy to have local friends in Vietnam, including: Manus, Son, Vincent, Linh, Hanh, Huan and Quoc (I will confirm and correct the spelling)as well as the school principal, teachers, kids and others we met along the way. Our transport to the school was a mini bus as there were about 13 people in our caravan headed to help with the project including three in my family, Hannah our friend, Bonnie and her family, translators and a very safe driver.

Here I am with my daughter Natalie. Needless to say, she fell in love with the chicks- I must admit, they were pretty cute!

People came to pick up chickens by bike, by foot and by scooter. We could feel the joy from the families. I cant even begin to tell you how proud we all were to be giving these chickens away knowing what a hand up they would be for these families.

pick up by bike, chickens are in the box in the front and the feed is strapped onto the back.

After all of the chickens had gone to thier new homes, just the school flock (which was 140 birds!) remained. The chicks will stay in this room until they are big enough to go into their new chicken coup. Winter is cold in Lang Son so the coup must be built to keep them warm. In many homes we visited, the livestock would be kept in a room off the kitchen- I thought that it might be for warmth.

Here is a picture of one of the chicken caretakers that we provided funding for.

Here is the (almost)finished chicken coup. There will be a yard fenced in with chain link fencing for the chickens to roam in.

This is the inside of the coup while it was being built. Bamboo was used to brace the walls. They would also use it as scaffolding to reach the top of the walls during construction. The guy in the door, is Lester, one of my friends loooking like he is ready to defend chickens against any foe that comes thier way!

Through the NGO Families in Vietnam, some of these kids are sponsored by families in north america (and perhaps elsewhere). For these families, we had lots of stuff to drop off at the homes of the kids including: blankets, rice, cooking oil, clothing, treats for the kids etc. Hannah and I went to about 5 of the families homes. While we were there we collected information about medical needs, birth control needs, and indicators of how the family was doing financially: any livestock we saw, any glass in the windows, presence of scooters or bikes. The government pays childrens school fees until they are in grade 5. All families told us that they hoped to keep the kids in school past grade 5- hope is the key word here! This is a picture of the room that we used to keep the donated items for the sponsored families. See the little faces at the door, the kids were so excited and curious to see what we were doing in there!

After dividing up all of the donations, it was delivery time! On to the backs of scooters we went, driving on those little motorbike roads through and area that it so poor but so beautiful at the same time. These families are all farmers. Depending on the season, they grow corn, sweet potato or rice. This is me on the back of the scooter with my friend Son driving.

One of the sponsored families received 3 pigs. The first thing I was surprised about was how the pigs were wiggled into little bamboo baskets so that they could not move much making it easier to pack them on the back of a scooter. Also, the mother of the sponsored child was so happy to receive the pigs (the father has passed away creating an extra hardship for this family- but the daughter is in school -YIPPEE!). You can imaging how happy they were to be wiggled out and stretch! The second thing that surprised me was that the mother came to the school and walked 2 out of 3 of the pigs home. the pigs must have been 40 lbs each. We delivered the thris pig.

Here is Hannah helping to carry the little pig to its new pig pen.

These are the kids in the family that have received the pigs and other much needed items from thier sponsor including a bike so that the oldest can get to school- ok..funny story....we bought the bike, wanting to buy it a bit bigger so that the child could grow into it. We did not see how tiny she was before buying the bike. So, we show up with the bike and some people are snickering but we did not know why...until we saw her. Happy to report that we did replace the bike we brought with a smaller bike.

This is an example of the motorbike roads that weave through the country side. They are wide enough for 2 bikes to pass each other but that is about it. It some spots, they are baely fit 1 bike. I did close my eyes once or twice but then decided that it we were going over, I needed reaction time to be able to adjust my weight, catch myself or just pray. That being said, I loved every minute of it and am so grateful for the life experience that I have gained on this trip.

Here are a few pictures of the beautiful country side that we rode through.

now a few pictures from the school- we had such a great time here. the kids treated us like rock stars when we would drive up and you could see how happy the teachers and support staff were to have us there. I look forward to the next trip back and continuing our work there.

this is the garden at the school.

Here are the kids all sitting outside to greet up and get candy, soccer balls, skipping ropes, sidewalk chalk and frisbies and other fun stuff.

Check back in a few days, on the final day we had a big party at the school. Us, teachers, school support workers, officials, kids...food....rice wine...beer...dancing.....so much fun!
(it was the first time some of the teachers had ever danced!)