3.18.2009
So, Forefront's first Vietnam Team of the year is on the ground and moving. Here is an update from Bruce Fraser (missions team online guru):
So today was our second day at the Ta Phin secondary school and it was just amazing. Jessica and Ann got to spend time teaching the kids more English lessons and they love the songs that help them remember things like "Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes" and of course they still love to sing the "Hokey Pokey".
Patti spent the day showing what looked to me like a Ren and Stimpy video on brushing your teeth and hygiene. Afterward, she updated data cards from last year with height, weight and general health notes. One of the sad things is that many of the kids have either stayed the same or lost weight during a time when they would normally be growing. Not sure if this is typical or is the result of all of the crops lost during the flooding last year. Hopefully we'll know more next year.
Rhonda spent a good deal of time working on updating the Microsoft Access database that the teachers will use to keep additional information on the kids. She also helped out in the class room.
Billy was doing the back breaking work of moving large piles of sand, rocks, and bags of concrete from one location to another so that they could be mixed together to make the concrete to finish paving the lot. They were very nearly finished the lot by the end of the day today and tomorrow we will be paving the path to the new dorm building. We were commenting on the fact that it would have taken all of 5 minutes to move the piles with Billy's backhoe. But here the labor is cheaper than the machinery.
I spent the morning fixing the computer that we broke yesterday. Fortunately, a new power supply took care of everything. We also picked up a new case, power supply and motherboard to replace the dead computer. We moved the hard drive and CDROM from the old one to the new one to help cut the cost. We'll have to get the operating system reinstalled tomorrow and then they will be back to full strength on computers. I made a friend name "Hi" who I worked for the last two days on the computers with. Even though we didn't have a translator, we didn't have much trouble communicating. Afterward, I joined Billy for some of that back breaking work.
Toan, the headmaster continued to be quite friendly with us, joining us in a game of Frisbee with the kids. Most of them had never seen a Frisbee and weren't quite sure what to do with it. We ran into our old friend Tau, the assistant headmaster. I also made some new friends Pwa and Hi who helped me with the computers.
At the end of the day, we had another really awesome story to tell about some other things that happened, but that will be the subject of my next note. 
