Covid-19 relief for families in remote area

1. This month we really had a big problem with Covid. 3 people who live at the church got Omicron. We needed a very strict quarantine for 2 weeks in order to prevent the spread of the pandemic. When the situation seemed to be better, a family of a pastor from Chiangmai stopped over to visit us and we found out that their 16 years old son got Covid. All the family had to be under quarantine in our church for 1 week. In that same week, the family of our volunteer got Covid. They asked to stay at our church to separate the infected from the uninfected. Therefore, for three weeks we could not allow the kids to have any activities at our church.
2. Parents’ meeting
   As this month, we really wanted to hear from the parents about our project. When the situation of Covid in our church was better, we managed to have meetings with parents at 3 different times to allow most of the parents to join. Praise God that we could meet and talk with almost all the parents (only 3 were missed). Their feedback was very helpful. They thanked us, especially the mentors (volunteers) for taking good care of the kids. The volunteers asked the parents to help encourage the kids to communicate with them. The parents were pleased with what we had done. They said their kids enjoyed the program and that the food care packages might seem little but that was a great relief and encouragement for the family. We talked about the ineffectiveness of online schooling. Our kids learn much less though their grades seem satisfying (most of our kids got very high grades). It was wonderful to have the opportunity to listen to them sharing ideas of what we can do to help our kids grow in the right way. Then we brought the ideas from the parents to the meeting with volunteers where we set out a schedule of activities for the coming year.
3. Kids’ activities
   
   3.1 Hearing of the concern about kids’ manner and behavior, we decided to bring back the Boys’ Brigade activities which we had been using before Covid-19. We asked the parents to send their kids to church on Saturday. The activities.
           
   3.2 Online activities
         We still do Chinese teaching (Wednesday 19.30) and English teaching (Thursday 19.30) online. This is meant for beginners to learn how to read and pronounce words. Some kids are learning and they are happy to be able to read.
   
   3.3 Mentoring time
         From the parents’ meeting, we concluded that we need to meet kids in person at least once a week. Therefore, we asked parents to send their kids to meet with their mentors once a week (at least) to help them with their problems in their learning and also in their lives.
   
   3.4 Food Care packages
        As we could meet with our kids only 1 time this month, we had enough budget to give a food care package for the family which consists of 18 eggs, a pack of sausage, 3 kgs of rice.

Links:

• https://www.cbnthailand.com/mission/1