Lance and Kristen Baker

This past weekend the Da Nang Street Children’s Program put on a special two-day camping event for 6 orphanages in the Da Nang area and they invited Kristen and I to join.

Each orphanage or “family” had a special tent that they set up and decorated.  These tents were set up around a main stage which was where most of the events and activities took place.  The whole event just had such a fun vibe to it.  Kristen and I felt like camp counselors and all of the children seemed so happy.

During the day they had cooking contests, drawing contests, sang songs and did fun games for all of the children present.  Because of the heat, there was a lot of down time were we would just sit and hang out with the Promise House kids in the tent.

Lai (left) and Minh (right) made a new friend with this girl from another orphanage.

Afternoon swimming in the river.

In the evening, they had a special sort of talent show.  It started off with the lighting of a huge bonfire and we enjoyed an opening show by a Vietnamese illusionist who was really good!  For the following two hours, various groups from the different orphanages performed songs, dances and fashion shows.  The theme of the weekend had to do with protecting the environment.  The kids from Promise House did a fashion show and wore costumes that were made out of materials that should be recycled rather then thrown on the ground.  We were so proud of them, they looked so good!

Lai and Long in their newspaper outfits.

Waving to the crowd.

Girls from the Dai Loc orphanage performing a dance.

Lai from Promise House also sang a song.

I can confidently say that our night at the camp was the worst night’s sleep I have ever had.  The picture below isn’t that great but it shows the general sleeping condition.  The sides of the house were open, we had no mosquito nets, for safety the overhead light was left on all night and we didn’t have anything to sleep on.  Most of the children didn’t seem to mind and fell asleep rather quickly.  Kristen and I on the other hand… we probably slept about 3 hours total.

This is a picture from earlier in the day during nap time.  Those wooden slats don’t really help with getting a solid night’s sleep.

Despite the rough night, Kristen and I were so glad that we were able to share such a special and unique event with the children.   It was fun to have a lot of down time and sit together enjoying the day and we were so proud to see them up on stage performing.

Sorry we haven’t posted in a really long time! Life has kept us busy here.

Our good friends, Bridge and Hilary, visited us for 10 days, and we had so much fun exploring, driving, eating, and living together.

One of the things we did while they visited was host a party for the kids in honor of International Children’s Day, an important holiday here.

After much planning and preparation, we were able to have games, crafts, and prizes for all of the children. We arrived to Promise House around 1:30pm to prepare for the 2pm party, but the children were still sleeping at 2pm, so we had to wait for them to slowly wake up. In the meantime, Lance and Bridge we out to buy Nuoc Mia (sugar cane juice) to give to the kids when they woke up.

The party was a lot of fun, and we got to play a lot of games the children have never played before. The water balloon toss was especially fun, we had 3-4 rounds of it. Two boys, Vu and Long, won two times in a row, so for the third time I added soap to their balloon! They laughed at it, then continued to roll their balloon in dirt to make it easier to grip. Very smart.

Another game was a bean bag toss (well, bean bags filled with rice!). We collected boxes a few weeks before the party. Bridge and Hilary prepared the boxes for the game by cutting holes in the tops for the bags to fall into.

The final game was a drawing contest. We put the kids in pairs, gave them 3 colored pieces of chalk, and asked them to draw a pictures. The winner of the drawing got candy. The pictures were all so beautiful!

We had raffles for the kids, just like we had a Christmas. It was fun for them around Christmas time, and they seemed to really enjoy it again.

We ended the day with a beads project. When we started the project, the beads were in their bowls so nicely and the kids were so diligent. By the end of the time, beads were all over the table and floor! A few of the kids made necklaces for Hilary and Kristen.

It was a beautiful day, we’re so glad that Bridge and Hilary could spend it with us!

(Lance writing)

Well we normally try to keep our blog focused on our work with Orphan Voice and relationships with friends but I had a couple fun adventures that I thought would be fun to share with you all.

Mountain Sunrise

A couple weeks ago my friend Robin and I decided to drive to the top of Monkey Mountain here in Da Nang to attempt to get some good photo and video of the sunrise.  We knew it would take about an hour to get to the top of the mountain and decided that we needed to leave about 4:30am.

At 4:30am we meet on our motorbikes near the beach and began our ascent in the still pitch black morning.  It was actually quite a rush winding up through the wide open mountain road, our small headlights illuminating the way and the atmosphere silent except for the sound of our motorbikes.

A good portion of the drive was along the coastal road but toward the end of the peninsula the road takes a sharp turn to the left and becomes insanely steep.  I know our motorbikes aren’t the most powerful things in the world, but even in first gear we barely had enough power to climb the steep and narrow road.  After a few minutes of climbing the narrow road that weaves through the dense jungle, a heavy fog began to set it.  An already eery drive became even more so between the darkness, the fog, the narrow winding road and the sounds of the jungle on each side of us.

Since it was so foggy, this is the only picture I was able to get from the mountain.  This is about halfway down.

This story is a classic example of “it’s about the journey, not the destination” because when we finally got to the top of the mountain, it was too foggy and we realized that we were actually in the wrong part of the mountain to get a good view of the sunrise anyway.  We continued to drive across the top of the mountain and back down the other side.  We had a great time despite our disappointment in not catching a beautiful sunrise.

The Swimming Hole

The second adventure occurred last Saturday.  Friends Robin, Jeremiah and I decided to drive an hour or so north over the Hai Van Pass to try and find this natural park preserve that we had heard about.  Driving over the Hai Van Pass is one of the most beautiful journeys I have experienced in Vietnam.  It just continues to climb and climb continually boasting HUGE vistas and gorgeous views of the ocean, rice fields and forests.  By the time we drove up and down the other side of the Hai Van Pass it was already an amazing trip.

The Hai Van Pass Road

We stopped for ice-coffee at the top of the pass.

After asking a few locals in the city of Lang Co about the park, we realized it was quite a bit farther than we had planned to drive that day so we decided to explore a local road that led us through a beautiful water-filled valley basin.  We stopped to visit with some water buffalo who very uninterested in us and quite content bathing in the cool water.  They must have inspired Robin because it was just few minutes up the road that he decided he needed to go for a swim.  We stopped on a small bride about 20 feet above the river water below. Robin, perhaps a little unwisely, decided to jump into the river below without knowing how deep it actually was.  (See the video here: Bridge Jumping)  Thankfully, it was plenty deep and he proceeded to jump a second time at which point a young man drove up on a motorbike and told us about another swimming hole nearby.

We followed the young man off the main road and onto a series of smaller, rougher, dirt paths and through some small villages and rice paddies till we finally came to a small house in the middle of the countryside. The family came out to greet us and seemed friendly enough.  They told us to park our bikes there and that we had to walk the rest of the way.  We continued to follow our new friend through a field and a small forest, not really knowing what to expect, when we suddenly came upon a beautiful river decorated with massive grey boulders.  It didn’t take long for us all to jump in and enjoy the coolness of the mountain water on a hot, sunny day.

We swam, relaxed for a while and talked to a few people who were also there for a swim.  To me it was just the perfect picture of beauty, not just the river but the whole days journey there.  The motorbiking through the mountains, the adventure of following some random guy down some difficult dirt paths, the rock jumping and swimming and community of friends (both Robin and Jeremiah and the people we met along the way).

Water Buffalo – Who’s looking at who?

Beautiful countryside.

This is how the road was for a good 15 minutes.  A guy in front of us got stuck while carrying a load of pots and pans on his motorbike.

A house we walked by- much like the one where we left our motorbikes.

We had to walk for about 15 minutes to reach the river.

The River.

Jumping in.

I didn’t think about this initially, but I guess both of these stories have to do with failing to reach an intended destination or to accomplish a certain task.  We never captured the sunset that we had planned all week to photograph and film and we never made it to the nature preserve- but the process of “failing” actually turned out to be a series of great stories and experiences.  I don’t know how to tie all this together into a final finishing statement… but I guess I am just reminded that there is a lot of life that we will never experience if we don’t set some goals and at least attempt to pursue them.

(Lance Writing)

I know that we’ve been getting a bit lax on keeping up with our blog posts and we are sorry about that.  There is plenty happening, we just haven’t made time to write about it and keep you up-to-date. This is a brief overview of what’s been happening the last week.

The Dentist

We’ve started the big task of getting all 22 children to the dentist.  We can only take about 3 children each visit (because of time restraints) so we try to do two appointments per week.  It is the same dentist that Kristen and I have gone to in the past so we know that the standard and quality is very good.  The dentist and the receptionist speak English very well and have been such a pleasure to work with.  Every time we go, the receptionist sits down with the children and uses a plastic model of teeth to demonstrate and explain to the children how to brush and care for their teeth.  So far we have 7 children done and 15 to go!

It has been a really good opportunity for us to spend more individual time with the children.  It’s also a glimpse of parenthood for us!  The dentist always calls Kristen back to tell her when the children need fillings or a tooth pulled.  Afterward, we have to go to the pharmacy to get any needed medicine and we do our best to comfort them before and after.  For many of the children, it may only be the second time they’ve been to the dentist so it is a very new experience.

Depending on how much work the children need done, the appointments can be up to two hours. We do our best to entertain the other children while we wait in the small lobby.

The dental clinic.

Last Saturday, a medical team came to give MMR vaccinations (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) to all of the children. The medical team was very professional and sweet toward the children. Some of the children were really nervous but they were brave and did just fine.

The children nervously waiting their turn.

The look on his face says it all.

A couple weeks ago we noticed that one of the boys at Promise House was drawing pictures in black crayon and then giving them to the other children to color. So this week we decided to print off a bunch of pictures that we knew they would like and had a big coloring session. Our friend/translator had the idea of making a fun contest out of it. It wasn’t anything official, we just held up all the colorings at the end and had the children cheer and clap for their favorites. All the pictures got hung on the wall either way.

Hard at work coloring.

Nam displaying his pictures on the wall.

So that’s an overview of the last week.  We’ll try to post more often in the near future!  Thank for reading.

(Kristen writing)
Sunday evening we had our 1st annual Christmas Party at the Promise House Orphanage. After many weeks of planning, preparing, buying, setting up, shopping, running errands, the party was not only a success, but a blessed time for the kids.

We began set up early Sunday  morning. We arrived around 9:30am to fill the bulletin board with colorful paper and recent pictures of the children. While we were doing that, one of the caretakers had all the children help clean the grounds. Some were sweeping, others moved stuff around in the gym, and others decorated. By the tine 10:30 rolled around the gym was beautifully set up with posters from Orphan Voice and signs that said “Merry Christmas” in English and Vietnamese. We left for a few hours and came back in the afternoon to finish preparing.

We began the evening with games. The children played a bean bag toss game, a “pop the balloon” game, and had a relay race. The balloon popping game was especially funny. We tied balloon’s to a two-foot long piece of yard, then tied the other end to their ankle. When we said “go” the children had to run around and try to pop other people’s balloons. After that was the relay game. I especially liked this game because it was so sweet to see all of the children running back and forth wearing my clothes (which were way too big for them).  The children got a kick out of this game. They hurried around, trying to help their teammates put on shoes, a scarf, a helmet, and even a hoodie that was too big for them.

Lai racing back to her team

(from left to right) Ngan, Diep, Nghia, and Trieu on one team.

After the games ended it was time for crafts. We had two special crafts planned. The first was to make an ornament. The children could color or glue decorations on each ornament. After they were finished, they took it to the Christmas tree in the gym. Another part of the crafts was cookie decorating. The children have never done anything like this.  We bought cookies at the Big C (a grocery store) so luckily I didn’t have to make them (my original plan, which would have taken so long!).  Using confectioners sugar, milk, and a little butter I prepared frosting at home. After they frosted it, they put on m&m’s, gummy candies, and even mentos to make their cookies beautiful. Luckily we bought extra cookies because many children were coming back to make a third and fourth cookie!

Diep coloring her Christmas ornament

Nam and his finished cookies

During crafts the children also got to enter our raffles. We set up six different raffles where the kids could put their name in an envelope to win one of the prizes. Some of the prizes were socks, watches, chips, pop, candy, and binoculars. Such a treat for them! Another part of the raffle was a guessing game. We had two jars filled with candy. The children had to guess how much candy was in each jar. The person who was closest won the whole jar of candy! Though only 6 kids could win, there was a lot of candy and snack to go around.

Y won a raffle

Just after this we had a lesson which Cindy helped us with. We were supposed to show a movie first, which Cindy’s lesson was based off of, but the DVD player just wouldn’t work (we even brought in a 2nd one, but still no luck). So, thankfully Cindy was able to have a lesson for the children off-the-cuff! She told the children how unique and loved they all are. She explained that if they fill their life with good things, good things will come out of them. The children were all ears. While Cindy was talking to the kids, some volunteers helped us hide a surprise gift for each of the children. The children had no idea.

We handed out gifts before the end of the night. This is Kristen giving Thue her gift.

After Cindy’s talk, we went to the gym and the children opened a gift from Orphan Voice. Each of the girls got a cute top with a beautiful hair clip. Each of the boys got playing cards and a polo shirt. They opened it and seemed very happy, but then came the surprise. We told the children that we had just one more thing for them and to run over to the library (the Promise House “library”) to find their gift. They all ran and stood outside the door. One of our volunteers stood blocking the door and helped them count up to entry: “Mot, hai… ba!” The kids ran through the doorway and all started grabbing toys. We had put names on all the toys (to keep this chaos from happening) but that was totally overlooked by the kids. Perhaps next year we’ll make sure to tell them to look for their names! We soon were able to sort out the gifts to make sure everyone got something.

The surprise gifts waiting for the children in the library.

All the children poured into the library to see their new toys.

The girls were all smiling and shouted for joy when they realized that the giant stuffed animals were all theirs. For the rest of the night they were just hold, hugging, and dancing with their new stuffed friends. The boys shouted “yay!” when they saw the cars. However, when they realized that these cars were RC (remote control) cars their “yay” became a high-pitched scream. Near me some of the boys were jumping and screaming while holding up their new RC car! Their joy and excitement was contagious. We were all yelling and jumping with them!  The boys tore open their RC cars and started driving them everyone. There are 10 boys, so 10 cars were racing around. The funny part was that every remote controlled every car, so many of the boys were teasing each other by steering the other boys’ cars. It was funny to watch as each boy wondered why his car was going without them driving it, and then seeing the laughter on the boy’s face who was actually steering it.

Lance and Lai (hugging her new stuffed turtle).

Dung and Kristen. Dung was especially happy about this gift and didn't let go of her toy all night.

It was a blessed and happy night. What a way to start off the week before Christmas. I am not a mother yet, but in a way I can imagine this is what it must feel like to make your kids happy. It’s all the joy you could ask for. Shouts and screams for joy; giggles and laughter; hugs and “I love yous.” The love I feel for all the children, and the joy and love they give us in return is worth every ounce of preparation and more.

I encourage you to find your joy this Christmas season in giving joy and happiness to others.

Merry Christmas.

For more pictures, check out the Orphan Voice flickr site by clicking here.