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Northern Thailand

Posted by Brian on 3:07 AM
We drove about three hours north of Chaing Mai yesterday, through beautiful mountain ranges, headed for Mae Sai, the northernmost town in Thailand, right on the Burmese border. We are filming another ISV partner project - DEPDC, Development Education Program for Daughters and Children. Most of the children here at considered "at risk", and have come from situations where they were either in abusive or exploitive situations, or would have been had they been left there. They have around 40 kids in residence, and the rest are brought in by bus or walk in from the surrounding community.

It's been great to film the ISV teams interacting with the kids, learning the language and culture, and generally being challenged by a way of life much different from their own.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they have wi-fi in the office, so I'm able to post today and might even be able to Skype with Lynn and the girls tonight!

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Talk About History

Posted by Brian on 7:16 AM
I, obviously, am not a Buddhist. I'm not even sure they'd let me be one if I wanted to be. And I know I would look suspicious in the bright orange robes they wear, assuming I could even enter the priesthood. But I am looking forward to learning more about the religion that more than a billion people call their own. The temple above is right behind our hotel and is more than 2000 years old.

From my roof top I can see "novices" shuffling around the courtyard, going about their daily routine. Every day, people have the opportunity to bring gifts of food to the monks in exchange for a blessing. Even today, I saw some monks selling flowers to buddhists who would in turn present them as offerings to the buddha statues that are on almost every corner.

No matter what I think about Buddhism and other world religions, I can't help but admire their devotion and commitment to their belief system. I'm pretty sure most people who call themselves Christian aren't this devoted to the One they call "Lord".

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Chiang Mai

Posted by Brian on 1:02 AM
I’ve been in Thailand for three days now, and it’s unlike an other place I’ve been. According to my Facebook travel map, I’ve visited 8% of the world’s countries, so Thailand’s uniqueness shouldn’t surprise me, I guess. The world is a big place.

I didn’t have much of chance to deal with my jet lag when I found myself up in the mountains north of Chiang Mai. ISV is working with the Elephant Nature Park this summer, an organization which rescues mistreated elephants and rehabilitates them on their private reserve of several hundred acres in a serene river valley. In the morning we awoke the sound of elephants trumpeting in the distance, walking through the tall grass in their family groups. They are incredibly intelligent and social creatures. But in Thailand, and many other asian countries, elephants are nothing more than beasts of burden. Mahouts, or elephant owner/operators, often beat them with iron hooks, using negative enforcement to train them to fulfil such tasks as pulling wagons and farm implements and carrying tourists up and down mountains. Most elephants are scarred on their heads from the regular beatings they receive. The ENP exists to provide a refuge for more than 40 elephants of all ages. They are fed daily, often with special diets to deal with their various ailments, bathed twice a day in the river, and given shelters to sleep in in their family groups. Volunteers visit from all over the world and help with the daily chores of mucking out the stalls, bathing and feeding the elephants, and assiting with building projects on the property.

After two days at the ENP, Kieran drove me back into Chiang Mai. Kieran is Thailand’s ISV country director, and has a full plate overseeing all of the projects running in the country (three at present) and the adventure tour, fourteen high impact activities, from whitewater rafting the Mae Taeng river, sea kayaking around Phang Hga Bay and climbing the limestone cliffs of Railay Beach. I’ll be blogging on all that as we do it the week after next!

I’ll be here at the Parosol Inn for two more nights, a neat little hotel just a few blocks from the Silver Gate and the old city. I went for a stroll this morning through the gate and saw a marching band going though it’s drills, and a dozen or so Buddhist “novices” – monks in training – on their way to the temple in their bright orange robes. Temples are everywhere. Right next door to my hotel is the one of the oldest “teak temples” in the city. I’ll see lots of these during my three weeks here, and they are a focal point of the tour. I bought two 300 baht phone cards this morning – that’s a little less than $10 each – and called home to talk to Lynn and the girls. I really needed to talk to Shaniah as she struggles when I’m gone. The cards only last 5 minutes each, so our conversations were a little short but sweet. Was good to hear familiar voices, even if they were a little tearful. I’ve often said, this is the only downside of what I do – being away from my wife and girls. I hope to tale Shaniah with me on my next trip, whenever that may be.

Just in case I can’t blog much this week, I’ll be here until Monday morning, at which point we’ll be driving back up into the mountains to the Mae Sai area of northern Thailand. ISV is working with an organization that has rescued children from exploitation in the huge sex trade industry. Many times parents sell their kids to work in sweatshops, and then they are moved into the sex trade. ISV’s partner organization takes these kids off the streets and moves them into secluded mountain villages where they will be safely rehabilitated and educated. On Thursday night, I’ll be joining another group of students who are doing volunteer work among a remote hillside tribe, and will be there until Sunday when we return to Chiang Mai to begin the two-week adventure tour.

You’ve seen a few pictures here, but you can see more over at my Facebook page (link on the right). I’ll post several albums there during my trip.

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Touchdown

Posted by Brian on 11:37 PM
Just a quick note to let you know that I am safely in Thailand, after a smooth flight across the Pacific last night. I'm now officially 12 hour ahead of most of you - the next day. So it's 11:38am on Thursday.

I'm off to film the Elephant Nature Project today and tomorrow, and will have a few stories to tell and pictures to show then.

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Off to Thailand

Posted by Brian on 8:58 AM
After a nice lunch with Lynn and the girls yesterday, they kissed me goodbye for the fourth time in 12 months. It's hard to believe: Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, back to Australia, and now three weeks in Thailand. This trip will be the last for this year we're hoping. We'd like to get nicely settled back in Canada before I do any more international travel.

After a bit of a delay due to severe weather in Miami, we finally got off the ground, arriving in LA around 1:00am. Fell into my bed at the hotel around 2:00am. Today I need to pick up a few filming supplies, and then head to LAX to catch a late-night flight to Bangkok, Thailand. I get in there at 6:10am tomorrow, and then fly immediately to Chiang Mai where the filming will begin.

I really enjoy filming ISV. They do really good work with community-based organizations, and the students are really challenged to make a difference. You can see where I'll be going by visiting www.isvonline.com and clicking on Thailand. My first three days will be spent filming at the Elephant Nature Park and a hill tribe that ISV works in. From June 27-30 I'll be filming the Development and Education for Daughters and Communities program - an organization that works on the prevention side of trafficking of women and children in the sex trade and exploitative labour situations. From July 1-15 I'll be filming the exciting Thailand adventure tour.

So, here I go again. Please keep Lynn and the girls in your prayers during my absence. My separation from them is by far the hardest part of what I do, and I am so grateful the strength God provides to Lynn, especially as we're looking forward to our move home on Aug.1.

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Raving Fans

Posted by Brian on 6:28 AM
Ken Blanchard (author of One Minute Manager and numerous other business books) tells a great story about Ritz Carlton and their commitment to customer satisfaction.

Solving a customer's problem is paramount to the Ritz's operation. Any employee can immediately spend up to $2,000 to solve a problem without getting any ones approval. A businessman checked out of the Ritz Carlton and traveled to Hawaii to make a important scheduled presentation. Upon arriving in Hawaii he discovered he had left his laptop, complete with the presentation, back at the Ritz. He called the hotel. A housekeeper had found the computer. The businessman needed the computer absolutely the next day. She took the computer to the airport, and her and the computer took off to Hawaii. She didn't turn it into a vacation, she returned on the next flight back. When her boss ask her why she flew the laptop to Hawaii rather than shipping it, she simply stated that there was less margin for error if she took it there herself.

Blanchard, in his book called Raving Fans, talks about a method of management that sets as an objective turning your customers into "raving fans" about your business. The successful company of the future will be relying on their customer base as their marketing department. The goal, says Blanchard, is to give your customers an experience that far exceeds, rather blows away, any expectations they might have had when interacting with your business. When the customers start bragging on your company, you've created "Raving Fan" customers.

Blanchard boils it down to three steps:

1. Decide what you want. Think so far out of the box that you can't even see the box anymore. How extreme can you take your vision when it comes to customer service?

2. "Discover what your customer wants." Simply, ask them. Stay in touch with your core customer. See what their needs and wants are. Blanchard explains that there may be wants from the customer than don't fit your vision. These customers need to go elsewhere. You can't be all things to all people.

3. "Deliver what you promise, plus one." Exceed your customer's expectations when you perform.

Over the past two days, I have been asked by four people to describe my Apple Computer experience. They are in the market and are looking for advice. I'm not a technical guy, but I know how to use my iMac, my PowerBook and my iPod to do what I need to get done. Do any of you have a three year old PC laptop that's been around the world twice, subjected to sand and salt air from exposure to a coastal environment, and has never crashed, caught a virus, or needed repair? I am constantly under pressure to finish projects on time, and unlike the PC I used in the beginning, neither of my Apple products have ever let me down.

I'm not exactly a Mac "evangelist" - I rarely talk about it unless asked - but I am definitely a raving fan.

And as an aside: I know the church is not a business, but how many have "raving fans"?

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Not for the Faint of Heart

Posted by Brian on 8:46 PM
These guys were my heros back in 1983. Stumbled on this while searching out Bryan Duncan on YouTube and well, let's just say I didn't accomplish anything else tonight. Be patient and endure the opening remarks. The music is so worth the wait!

PS Remember, this was shot in the 70's. Pretty progressive stuff then, and still is.

UPDATE: I may have been a little harsh to use the word "endure" in relation to the intro remarks to this song. What he said was actually very relevant and true. I was just really excited about the song. Sorry. Please listen to what the man has to say!

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Sunrise

Posted by Brian on 7:34 AM
The view from our patio at 5:55am. Thanks for waking me up, Dear.

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Out of the Mouths of Babes

Posted by Brian on 7:58 AM
Though Maddy's tribulations were somewhat eclipsed by the more traumatic events of last Tuesday, there was some humour at the end of the tunnel.

She had decided that she was going to fire the tooth fairy because she didn't get enough money for her infected tricuspid. She figured it was worth at least $50RD instead of the usual $25RD (that's about $1CAN. I remember being thrilled to get a quarter). I then reminded her that it had cost us $800RD to have it removed, so in effect she owed us $750RD. She replied, "Yeah, but it hurt me 100%."

Couldn't argue with that logic.

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Two-wheeled angels... Four-wheeled Devil

Posted by Brian on 9:55 PM

An e-mail sent to my folks, describing the events of the day.

"Lynn took Maddy to the dentist in Puerto Plata, and discovered that one of her molars was badly infected, so it had to be pulled. I was filming at the dump with Shaniah, so she called me there with the update. We left the dump on the motorcycle around 4:30 and headed for home. Just past the Coastal gas station, Shaniah's hat blew off. Someone behind us had stopped to pick it up, so we did a U-turn and went back to meet him. I pulled over on the shoulder opposite, and was waiting for him to cross the road, when a pickup truck drifted onto the shoulder and hit us. Glanced off us, actually, but hit Shaniah's left foot, my lower leg and smashed the mirror off my bike. He didn't even slow down. Maybe he saw that the bike was still upright and figured we were OK. Shaniah was screaming in pain, I was lightheaded and nauseous, and the dominican guy was still holding Shaniah's hat, not sure what to do.

My head cleared enough to drive back to Dr.Bob's clinic, just a kilometer or so back. He put Shaniah's foot in icewater and gave her a tylenol, which helped. I called Lynn, who was on her way back from the dentist (a story on it's own - took three shots of novocain to pull one of her tricuspid molars!). She stopped at the clinic, we left Maddy with her friend Rosie, and headed back to the private hospital at Puerto Plata. They x-rayed her ankle and discovered she had a point fracture on her foot, so they cleaned her up and applied a cast to just below her knee, which she'll have on for at least a month.

There are a few blessings in all of this. First, we are both alive and home safely. Second (and really the first one is the only one that matters), it only cost $5700 pesos for everything - xray, cast, medicine, tetanus shot. That's less than $300.

So that's all the news I feel like sharing for now. My calf and ankle need some ice and tylenol, and my minor abrasions need some cleaning.

Have you ever wondered if those "Lord, keep them safe" prayers work? They do."

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Iraq News

Posted by Brian on 8:07 PM
To good not to share...

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Does wanting this watch mean I have affluenza?

Posted by Brian on 5:38 PM
Or am I just a survivor at heart? This baby (Breitling Professional Emergency) has a built-in microtransmitter than acts as a locater beacon in the event of an aviation or boating disaster. It broadcasts on the 121.5 MHz aircraft emergency frequency for 48 hours, reaching over 100km in all directions. Pretty sweet, eh? And only $4,480. Start saving up for this stocking stuffer, honey!

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Nazareth Village

Posted by Brian on 8:00 PM

Some footage I shot this week of the work an ISV team was doing in a Dominican village.

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