Ministry Day 2013

We sang, we prayed, we listened to challenging messages from Monday through Thursday of Spiritual Emphasis Week at GIS. Then came Friday, the culminating event--app time! All the middle and high school students deployed to various orphanages, schools, and nursing homes across Chiang Mai to spread the love of Jesus.
My group, 25 students from the 10th grade and my sister Evangeline, loaded into songtaews (the truck/buses of Thailand) and bumpd our way to Hope House--a home and school that serves 50-60 orphaned children from various hill tribes. Hope House is run by the parents of one of George's classmates.
We spent the school day with this radiant bunch of kids--leading them in crafts, songs, games, and activities. As is often the case, most of my students commented, "We came to be a blessing but left feeling more blessed and thankful ourselves."
It was a privilege to play a small part in the amazing work the Lord is doing at Hope House, not to mention to see teenagers engaging in acts of love.

For more info on Hope House: http://www.projectsforasia.com/hope-house-childrens-home-thailand/

Thanks for reading!!!

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

Not every day you see a dragon in the store!!!  Happy Chinese New Year, from Thailand!

Happy New Year!!!

Since we last blogged, it feels like we've slipped into survival mode. We spent the Christmas holiday sick--pneumonia, stomach flu, colds, fevers. Perhaps we're still getting accustomed to a new set of germs. We recovered just in time to jump into a new school year. The weather is pleasant right now; it gets as cool as 55 degrees Fahrenheit at night, then back up into the 90s during the day. The rice farmers have begun burning their fields, so the air is getting a bit thick. Unfortunately, the smoke fills up our valley and just hangs around. Occasional winds and rain showers have been a welcome blessing.

At GIS, we are busy and time is flying! Finn celebrated his 100th day of school last week and we suddenly realized this school year is over half over. Tim has been pretty swamped with work--getting used to a new school and new curriculum--but it is a great place, and he receives a lot of support.

Jill continues to navigate her way around, getting the needs for life here, practicing her Thai  and keeping up with the kids,as well as spending time getting to know new friends and neighbors.

Here's a few pics covering the last couple months. Thanks for viewing!!!

Nice cool nights!

Jill experienced a big tire blowout on a busy road.  Thankfully, everything worked out and a good Samaritan stopped to help and only charged $10. 

The Mickey of Chiang Mai?

Juniper takes on Mount Pad Thai.

The kids were pretty good about hanging out while we were sick.

Happy New Year!  A gift from our good friends, candy and new plates!

This picture sums up our Christmas break.

Finn getting repeated shots for pneumonia.  Not the Christmas gift he was hoping for. He is doing tons better and declared, "I feel like a new man!"

Juniper turned 2! 

In the middle of running around the neighborhood catching critters and playing with friends.

High School Chapel at GIS! Scattered here and there are Tim's students.

All Lit Up

The Holiday:  Loy Kratong

This is such a pretty holiday!  With hundreds of lanterns floating in the sky, candles and incense floating on homemade flower boats down the river, fireworks lighting the sky and candles around the perimeter of each yard. LIGHT is important to this holiday.

A fountain of flames to rid the yard of evil spirits.

Interesting advice on a box of mini M-80s.

We learned that each flower boat in the river is symbolic of a prayer of forgiveness and worship to Buddha, and each candle on the property is keeping the evil spirits away from the dark corners.  The lanterns are released into the air along with the evil thoughts, and the fireworks are to scare away evil spirits.

Juni modeling traditional Northern Thai costume.

The floating flower boat made by our neighbors.

Ornate decorations around the neighborhoods. 

Finn holding the lantern, and getting ready to light the wax.

George keeping it steady and his face from burning until it's ready to float up.

Off it goes...adding to the hundreds already up and flying away.

The next day, these are all over the city!

We enjoyed learning about this new holiday with our neighbors.  We said our own prayers to the Spirit we don't have to fear, the One who has been invited into our lives and the dark corners of our hearts.  The Spirit we love to serve.  The Spirit we can call Friend, Father and King.

Top 12 of 2012

We just realized we've had Tim in the ER on our blog for quite some time...he got bettah! (Monty Python accent.) His face and neck have healed up and his stomach is settling down too. Thanks for your prayers and concern.

We live with basically three seasons year round; all of them are HOT!  It's hard to tell when the holidays are approaching.  There are no big sales, no inflated turkeys, no snow globes.  Yet Thanksgiving is this week, and it's time to start searching for the flavors of home and paying quadruple the price...but it's worth it.  Once a year. 

In honor of the holiday, here are:

12 Things We're Thankful For in 2012 

 (in no particular order)

1.  You--the readers, the encouragers, the supporters.

2.  "Fish and reptiles."  -George

3.  The wonders of creation all around us. 

4.   Two sets of parental units who have been and continue to be great role models.

5.  "My brother and sister."  -Finn

6.  Freely given and richly lavished Salvation.

7.  The privilege to live in Thailand to share the gift mentioned in  #6.

8.  "Rice!"  -Juniper

9.   Mercies that are new every morning.  

10.  "Clothes dryer, indoor plumbing, rat poison."  -Jill

11.  Caring neighbors & superb friends in each country we have lived in.

12.  "Spicy Thai food, antacids, more spicy Thai food."  -Tim

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! 

His faithful love endures forever." 

Psalm 136:1

Things That Go THUD In The Night

THUD.

I thought I had heard just about every sound in the middle of the night...but this one, this THUD, was a new one.  It was the sound of a face hitting the tile in the bathroom.  I flew out of bed and found Stew, face down, with blood beginning to puddle on the floor from somewhere on his head.  

 It was the culmination of two weeks of not feeling well, and followed by some herbal tea to help it out.  The THUD was him passing out from the intense abdominal pain. Needless to say, I was a little freaked out.

We have amazing neighbors and coworkers who came to help us, Stew got in the ER right away, bottom line was that he was lucky and needed lots of medicine but no stitches. Luck?  No way.  God.  He protected Stew from what could have been a very nasty fall.  But even if Stew would have more injuries...we serve a God who is still good, even during the rough times.

What we expected?

We have been asked recently, "Are you finding things to be the way you expected them to be?"

I guess to answer that, we will do a blog!  First, rewind six months.............. It became obvious God was moving us to Thailand in March, and we decided to trust Him like never before. He did the amazing and we just followed His obvious leading. We kept saying, "Well, God, you will have to make it super clear and do a bit of work if we are to get there by July!"  And boy...did He ever!

So, from the start, our expectations were really put in the Lord.  He is still the one to whom we are looking. Easy?   No way!!!!  Worth it?  Oh yeah!

As far as the school, yes, it is what we expected! GIS is a great place!  It's a very supportive and caring community, always looking for ways to encourage the teachers and staff. We'll blog more about it later, but Tim and the boys are enjoying the school environment.

 We didn't expect such a great place to live. Our neighborhood is amazing!  Affordable rent, not a lot of traffic, and the neighbors are wonderful too. Next door is an American family who is serving with SIL, and they have kids the same age as ours, two older boys and a younger girl.  On the other side our Thai landlords reside. They have nicely slipped into the role of the kids' surrogate grandparents. Complete with voicing many concerns, enjoying the 'children' sounds  from our house, and coming over with tasty treats (such as the bagged lunch pictured above--bagged then bowled).

One thing we didn't expect is the amount of familiar food items we can get here, and how relatively inexpensive they are.

 Above we have:

1/2 Gallon of milk - $2.80

 Fresh German Rye Bread - $2.30

3 Organic Cucumbers - $.80

Can of Tuna (not super fishy tasting) - $1.60

Peanut Brittle - $. 40

Coconut - free from our tree

Bag of Pretzels - $1.90

We did expect to have great tasting Thai food, and at an affordable price!  Woo hoo! 

We didn't expect to be encouraged to fight! In a mandatory Thai Culture Module we learned how to release pent up stress on each other. Or maybe this was practicing a traditional Thai fighting style...either way.

Also unexpected, the fact men must say ***minor inappropriate language warning*** "crap" (pronounced more like car-ap) at the end of almost every sentence to make it respectful and polite.  Having our boys taught this in Thai class was unexpected.  What do women say?  Its much nicer, "kah". 

Need we say more?  We didn't expect all the 7/11's everywhere; they can be right across the street from each other.  We can buy our basics there; diapers, dried squid, ramen noodles, a Slurpee. And also pay the bills, recharge our cell minutes, dodge the chickens in the parking lot, and practice our new Thai. 

All in all, we have been pleasantly surprised at how we have adjusted to life here.Of course, it's early yet, and yes, there is the language barrier, the culture stress, the kids feeling insecure at times, the price we had to pay for a used car (don't even ask!!!),  and the new school culture to get used to.  Not to simplify the depth  of difficulty for any of those, but we expected and have prepared ourselves for them. 

We also expected to have voids in our lives; the loneliness for family, the longing for the familiar faces of friends, our amazing church families, even zipping to Trader Joe's up the street.  But again, we said goodbye knowing the pain for those would come.  We serve a mighty God, and He is so faithful to stand in the gap and even provide unexpected blessings in the midst.

Thanks for the prayers and love.

-JKS-