View and Download here: Legacy Letter April 2012
[pdf legacyinstitute.org/letters/1204.pdf 604 700]
Update from Taungoo, Myanmar
Gloria and I are together here in Taungoo, Myanmar (Burma) with 33 Church of God brethren and children to keep Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. We have been able to come together from different parts of Myanmar. One graduate of Legacy Institute in Chiang Mai came all the way from the China border bringing two friends to see us. She had to cross into China via mountain trails and come around into Kachinland by a circuitous route to avoid the fighting between the Burma army and the Kachin Independence Army.
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| Group photo of those gathered at Taungoo, Burma |
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| Children gather with mothers and grandmothers soon after the “Blessing of the Children Ceremony.” |
She could not take the train from the China border because trains were being fired upon. It took her three days to reach us. So far, we have been able to keep the Feast in peace and safety, but not without trials. The evening of the 1st Holy Day (the evening we call the Night to Be Much Observed) a heavy storm blew up and saturated the facility where we are staying and the surrounding rice fields with heavy rain and fierce winds. The day after the Holy day, several members returned to their homes located about 10 miles away to find four of their roofs had blown off and one member’s house was tilted onto its side. Gloria gave Tu Mar, our Burma deacon’s wife, funds to buy roofing and building material, and today (Monday), several members left the festival site to begin making repairs. Please pray that the repairs will last as we are now entering the monsoon season in Myanmar.
Elections are being held now in Myanmar and it looks as if Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Gyi’s political party has gained a significant number of seats in the new parliament. The people of Myanmar are hopeful that this will bring about improvements in living conditions in the country. Inflation is rampant and the local currency is not worth much.
We will be returning to Yangon (Rangoon) right after the Last Holy Day and then fly back to Chiang Mai. I am hopeful we will miss most of the Water Festival in Burma where riotous celebration, drunkenness, and throwing dirty water all over everyone is rampant. Gloria and I look forward to getting back to Thailand and seeing our grandchildren once again.
Happy Feast of Unleavened Bread,
Leon Sexton
View on Blogger: http://www.legacyinstituteorg.blogspot.com/2012/04/update-from-taungoo-myanmar.html
Visiting One of Queen Sirikit’s Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Farms
For over 60 years, the king and queen of Thailand have worked almost without a break to raise the quality of life for the poor of Thailand’s rural minorities. King Bhumibol has concentrated on agricultural development and water resource management. It was his idea to teach the opium growing hill tribes to grow peaches and strawberries instead of poppies. These replacement crops allowed the hill tribes to earn more money and have a better life than if they would have continued in their illegal way of cultivating opium as a cash crop.
The king’s idea worked and, with the assistance of Queen Sirikit at his side, he virtually wiped out opium production in Thailand. Now when you go into the mountains, you see cut flower gardens and organic vegetable plots and fruit orchards.
But now the king is elderly and contends with health problems. He cannot travel into the hills and remote border areas like he used to. Queen Sirikit picked up the torch and continued to visit mountain villages and border projects until the king became confined to 24 hour medical attention in the hospital. He is undergoing physical therapy and the Queen has chosen to stay with him in the hospital to help take care of him.
But the royal initiated sustainable agriculture demonstration projects continue under mainly Queen Sirikit’s supervision. The king remains as active as possible using his hospital meeting area as a command center. Recently, the Prime Minister and other government officials were seen on television asking the king for advice to solve the terrible flooding problems that occurred recently in Bangkok.
I should mention to you here that, had they listened to the king long ago, they would not have had the flood disaster in the first place. Upland forest destruction and poor management of water resources have caused a cycle of drought and flooding. Perhaps they will listen to him this time.
Meanwhile Queen Sirikit has trained skilled assistants to carry on. We visited one of Queen Sirikit’s “Farm Dua Yang (Demonstration Farms)” about one hour into the mountains from Chiang Mai. Abigail Syltie and two Legacy students accompanied me. I asked “Abby” to write up something for my blog about the visit. Here it is below:
Leon Sexton
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| From L to R, Legacy Driver Surachai, Katree, Abigail Syltie, Adja, Leon Sexton |
Visiting Queen Sirikit’s Project
Visiting the Queen’s project several weeks ago reenergized our goals for organic sustainable agriculture at Legacy Institute in a number of ways! Khun Kiatipan, the manager of the farm who works for the Queen, gave us a tour of this project which demonstrates what can be done if the right tools and approach are taken. These farms show a way that is contrary to the world’s current agriculture system but closer to what God designed from the beginning of time in the Garden of Eden.
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| Ripe Mulberries |
After an hour of driving up into the mountains, switch back after switch back, we arrived at the Farm Dua Yang Queen’s project. Our tour began with the sweetest strawberries and mulberries I had ever tasted. Ajar and Katree (two Legacy students) that came along helped me eat as many as we could stuff in our mouths until our stomachs hurt. Next we moved on to passion fruit which was being tended for much like grapes.
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| Dragonfruit |
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| Project Manager Kiatipan(L) and Leon Sexton inspect strawberry plants |
Star fruit, guava, avocado, pomegranate, and dragonfruit followed, so you can imagine when they called us to lunch our stomachs were already quite full. That didn’t stop us from enjoying a delicious Thai style meal with a bowl of white rice paired with a fish soup, white radish soup, grilled duck, and sauteed vegetables. We finished with fresh mulberry fruit juice, more fresh fruit, vegetable puff snacks, and coffee.
After lunch our tour resumed in the terraced field at the front of the property which showed how to properly grow many types of leafy green vegetables, broccoli, radishes, and many kinds of herbs.
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| Lettuce and herbs growing together |
One of the interesting things we noticed was that they planted a variety of vegetables together as they would be foundin the wild. For example, they grew leaf lettuce with red Thai basil because basil is a natural insecticide. This is just one example of how great and marvelous God’s creation is if we would work according to his plan. We finished looking around the property at the various tropical flowers, plants, and trees each having a purpose at the farm.
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| Adja picking fresh strawberries |
Thankful to see as much as we could in the few hours we there, we wound back down the mountain. We all talked about how excited we were to see a farm that worked and abundantly produced more than enough food to use there as well as sell at the market. Also we got to learn about so many different varieties of plants and their uses. It made me want to get out in the garden and start planting!
Graduation 2012
This past school year has already come and gone. It’s amazing how fast the time flies. On March 18th six of the Legacy students graduated. Two were from last year – Uaorawet and Fon; and four were from this year – AhJar, Atiwat, Samuey, and Peto.
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| 2011 Graduates: Uaorawet and Fon |
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| 2012 Graduates: AhJar, Samuey, Peto, and Atiwat |
It was special for me because I was able to see these students, who I have known from 2-5 years, graduate.
We wish them all the best for the future!
Erika
View on Blogger: http://legacythailand.blogspot.com/2012/03/graduation-2012.html
Final Legacy Leader for 2011-2012 School Year
This past year has flown by and we just finalized our last issue of the Legacy Leader. We used a really interesting journalism book hosted here. It outlines the basics of writing articles and focuses on Southeast Asia. After learning about interviewing people, the students had to find someone to interview – and what better place to start than the employees of Legacy! This issue of the Legacy Leader incorporates those interviews along with submissions from the 2nd year English class.
Click here to read Legacy Leader Issue 3 PDF
Click here to download Legacy Leader Issue 3 PDF
View on Blogger: http://legacythailand.blogspot.com/2012/03/final-legacy-leader-for-2011-2012.html
