Orphange

Upon exiting the van at the orphanage, you will be greeted by dozens of smiles on the faces of happy children playing and just excited to meet you. Baan Eurphon is the name of an orphanage/foster home that Vicky helps by writing grants for them. Baan means 'house' in Thai and Eurphon means 'blessings.' So they are literally the house of blessings. They also call themselves the 'house of love and safety.' They take in anyone needing sanctuary. There are women that are victims of domestic violence, some people with developmental disabilities, rape victims and some children whose parents cannot care for them for a myriad of reasons. The couple that runs it are Christian and are thus, not government funded. They have a lot of businesses and seem to find ways to support themselves. The grants help them to help themselves and extra hands are always needed. 

If people wish to, we can spend half a day there. There are babies that need holding, a vegetable garden that needs planting, a storage room that needs to be organized and many different ways we can help out. For people that do not want to go to the orphanage, we will plan an alternate excursion.

The orphanage also has land in a village about an hour away. They grow durian there. We can go out there and spend the night and take some of the kids with us. It is a beautiful place and is refreshingly cooler than much of Thailand as it is in a more mountainous area. The villagers welcome us with open arms. They have helped the orphanage quite a bit so we bring them extra supplies from the storage room at the orphanage.

Again, this is not a required part of the trip. We can also plan an alternate itinerary for those not wanting to go or not go if too many folks are not wanting to.