Back and Healthy!

Hey guys,

I just wanted to let you all know that I am back out at Forgotten again! It feels great to be here and in good health! It seems like it has been quite some time since I felt really healthy, and so far on this trip I have had no problems at all (aside from sleeping on the hard wood floor b/c I forgot my sleeping mat!!!) I expect that I will come down with malaria or something of the sort by the time I leave. Everything has just been going too good and it scares me!!! :)

This month 5 new families moved to Forgotten Land which brings us to a total of 37 families right now. It was really nice to talk with some of the new families and tell them a little about Forgotten and provide them with new mosquito nets. They seem very happy to have finally found a place to live that will provide them safety and refuge. It is always a constant fear for these people to be kicked off the land by land owners in the area, so I know that they are very thankful to not have to worry about this anymore.

On this trip we have also looked into providing electricity to all of the families on the land, but unfortunately, it looks like we are going to have to wait until a new transformer is available to meet the increased load. We are therefore going to look into some alternative ways to get electricity or at least a means of light (i.e. candles) to the families homes.

All day yesterday and today Manat and I worked on accounting trying to find ways to better our system and make it as easy as possible. It is great to see Manat using excel now and really developing a good understanding on how the budget works and how to track all the inventory properly. At first it was a big headache for him, but he seems to be coming along just fine!

Later today Manat and I plan to get an estimate done to do a little remodeling on the school. We have had to constantly replace the floor and roof of the school so we are going to look into ways and the costs involved to get better quality materials installed in these areas. All of the children and families at Forgotten seem to be very happy and grateful to have a school to call there own, so we are going to continue to put a lot of energy on providing the best quality facilities education that we can. It really is a blessing to see all of these children getting an education that they have missed out on for so long now. Oh yeah, and we just hired a new assistant teacher to help teach alongside the Karen Language teacher! His name is Jay-sa-daa and he is 17 yrs old. He loves working with the children and has been doing a great job so far! I’m really excited to see him aboard here at Forgotten!

Well, I just wanted to give you guys a quick update! I hope that you are all doing well and as always thank you for reading the posts and staying involved!

Much Love… Jon