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We are a family of New Zealanders based in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Please do not reproduce any of this newsletter without our permission. Thanks. |
| Tentmaking |
| For a while, we have been pondering, and praying about putting some business ideas into practice. It’s mentioned in Acts 18:3, Paul spent time making tents to help make ends meet. 2 Thes 3:9 tells us this practice is also a model for us to follow when support from other sources is not covering everything. Recently a few of these ideas have begun to take shape and become functional … and nearly functional. Thailand produces many wonderful, unique and saleable products, many of which are marketed internationally in small and large scale businesses. We have been praying for direction as to how we might find the ‘right’ products to market. One friend offered a great idea that we have been working on building a business model and website for. Primarily Portraits is an internet based business that people can email in favourite photographs to us and have a beautiful black and white or coloured, photo-realistic drawing made of the image. My co-worker, Win, is a very talented artist and has drawn some sample work for us to help market this idea. We will get Win to do as much of the work as he can manage, which will help support his family who live a pretty basic life in a village. As the business grows there are other artists in town who are equally skilled who we will be able to hire. We are not quite ready with the website yet, but will email again to let you know when it is up and running. We are open to ideas for other products we might be able to market overseas, (so please let us know if you have any ideas!) Before I left New Zealand I’d made arrangements for a few thousand colour slides to be placed with a photo library, with the aim of having them marketed and the right on them managed for me. Unfortunately this never happened and I have only recently received the slides back and had them scanned. The stock photography industry has changed dramatically over the last five or so years and I am now able to submit and load images from here relatively easily. During the last few months I’ve been researching and submitting portfolios of my work to various stock agencies. I’ve also been introduced to the concept of producing stock video clips and am currently researching the viability of doing this also. Sharon is signed up as a distributor of Mooncups – ‘ladies only stuff’ so won’t go on about it here in this newsletter! If you want to know more ladies, look at www.mooncup.co.uk/wc.php.?u=942 – if you order one through this address, Sharon gets a commission. She is also going to be trying to sell them in Thailand to expats and Thai women. Have a good look at the FAQs especially about environmental issues involved. As we develop these ideas, we hope to involve the boys in as many ways as we can, so they will truly be ‘Family Businesses.’ Please pray: |
| Teaching Journalists |
Generally the news media – and the world - doesn’t pay much attention to happenings in a nearby nation (who’s name I cannot mention as I wish to travel there again someday,) a nation run by a most oppressive and paranoid military government. The media within the country is strictly censored and controlled, as are the few foreign journalists who are allowed in. Certain groups are set up outside to help bring awareness and attempt to inspire action to bring about change in the nation. A number of groups are based here in Chiang Mai, made up of a mixture of exiles and foreigners with a heart to help. I was invited recently to go along and help with some training sessions for journalists who are active in different areas of media concerning the problems in their country. I taught on how to build a picture story to illustrate an article so the message is more clearly projected. After the classroom session we all headed out to a local street market to put the lesson into practice. This was a very ‘soft’ assignment for most of these journalists who are the hope of many to affect change in their nation. |
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Here's some of Win's drawings and the original photos. |
Isaac with Mac Powell of Third Day at Parachute '05 |
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 Win's drawing of a tiger from a magazine photo. |
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