Greetings from elephant country! That certainly describes our area of Thailand the past couple weeks! As it gets farther into the dry season, elephants have more and more trouble finding enough to eat in the forest and therefore come out looking for food elsewhere. Since we live right on the outskirts of a huge forest reserve, this makes elephant sightings an almost daily occurrence. The road we live on takes us right through the middle of the forest, so it is quite rare to ride through in the evening without seeing at least one or two elephants on the road. The also often come to our yard to eat the grass, or the sugar cane that we sometimes leave for them at the end of the driveway! (Last week we had a herd of approximately seventeen elephants visit at about 2am!!) They are usually quite polite and don't cause problems, but since they are so large it is smart to give them a wide berth! This can make driving quite interesting at times, especially when you have an elephant in your lane and another vehicle coming the other way! I have been working on catching them on video as we drive past on the road, so one of these days I'll see if I can figure out how to upload a video to this blog.
While we aren't busy watching elephants, there's plenty of (more productive) things to do around the Timothy House. The kids are back to school, and so are we. Been doing a fair amount of teaching, but also taking time off to visit churches in the area. Since Phimpha heads up two ladies' ministries, she is trying to visit many of the churches that are in those groups. This means lots of driving and visiting and meeting new people. I enjoy road trips, which is good, because I have certainly spent a good deal of time in the truck the past few weeks!
Some highlights from these last several weeks: elephant sightings, telling stories around the fire in the evening, singing the four-year-olds to sleep, spending time with the kids, getting lots of hugs from my students, getting the chance to skype home, good conversations with the adults at the Timothy House, and some good time with God. I also got the chance to preach at our church here at the Timothy House last week! That was sort of terrifying but pretty neat as well!
For those of you who are praying for us over here, please pray for safety on all the trips we take! And continued prayer for provision and direction and strength to follow God's leading. Thank you so much! :)
ps--I am hoping to post pictures up on this blog shortly, but if any of you who are not on facebook would like a link to my facebook photo album, please send me an email and I will get it to you!
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Happy 2014
Hello all,
Now that the Christmas season is over, I have a bit more time to breathe and therefore a bit more time to write an update for all of you! Life for the past month or so has been even busier than normal, which I'm sure most of you can identify with!
As I mentioned before, I have been doing a lot of English teaching, and that continued right up until Christmas day! Since then though, schools have been on a break for the new year. Since this is a Buddhist country, most people don't celebrate Christmas, but that didn't stop us! Teaching in the schools gave us a neat opportunity to teach students what Christmas is about--God's love for us! The Friday before Christmas, we spent the day teaching classes how to sing the first verse to "Joy to the World." Some of them were pretty good! And the first through third graders at one school colored some pretty nice pictures of Mary and baby Jesus.
Outside of the schools, there were many celebrations to be had! I think I ended up attending five Christmas parties in all. The Timothy House put on two parties--one at our house and the other at the house of a friend in our village. We also went to the parties at two other churches and one at the house of a lady who lives in a village that has never had a Christmas party. Thai Christmas parties are a lot of fun! They all involved a fair amount of food, some singing, games and prizes for the kids, and a short message about God. About 50 people came to the party at the Timothy House, which was pretty crazy! Lots of students from nearby schools, and a few other friends and neighbors. It was a lot of fun to watch the huge group of kids playing musical chairs together--I learned a new strategy: if you are one of the last three and there's only one chair left, you should grab on to the chair and run away with it so you can sit down first!
I was excited to also get to go Christmas caroling with a few people on Christmas night. we only went to a few houses, but it was still a neat experience!
During the kids' break from school, we also got to go to the beach for a couple nights as a whole family! This meant packing up about 30 people into several pickups and a car and driving three hours to the gulf of Thailand. Phimpha knows someone high up at a naval base near Pattaya, so we were able to rent a couple houses right on the water. That was a ton of fun. The water there is a lot warmer and saltier than back in NH, and there weren't real waves for body surfing, but we were able to play a lot of keep away with a volley ball and do a lot of swimming, and some frisbee tossing on the beach! It was a fantastic time to get to just relax with the kids and with Rodney and Phimpha and the other adults who help out and were able to come along.
I will admit it: it can get hard being away from home during Christmas time. But God is good--He sent along some new friends to get to know and talk to. I got to meet a few people my age from Cambodia and from America who have been serving God both in Thailand and in Cambodia. It's been great to get to know them a little bit, hear their stories, and learn more about what is going on in other parts of Thailand and in nearby Cambodia. I am hoping to get the chance to go visit Cambodia at some point when I'm here! :)
That is the basic overview of what is going on here in Thailand these days...we will see what the next weeks bring! I never know what the next day or the next hour will hold! (Though, realistically speaking, I didn't back home either, I just had more plans and expected that they would happen. Here we just don't have the plans!)
If you get the chance, please remember us in prayer! We could always use prayers for provision, for safety, for love for those around us, and for wisdom in dealing with new situations and the various people we meet, and for the strength to keep up with everything that needs to be done.
Now that the Christmas season is over, I have a bit more time to breathe and therefore a bit more time to write an update for all of you! Life for the past month or so has been even busier than normal, which I'm sure most of you can identify with!
As I mentioned before, I have been doing a lot of English teaching, and that continued right up until Christmas day! Since then though, schools have been on a break for the new year. Since this is a Buddhist country, most people don't celebrate Christmas, but that didn't stop us! Teaching in the schools gave us a neat opportunity to teach students what Christmas is about--God's love for us! The Friday before Christmas, we spent the day teaching classes how to sing the first verse to "Joy to the World." Some of them were pretty good! And the first through third graders at one school colored some pretty nice pictures of Mary and baby Jesus.
Outside of the schools, there were many celebrations to be had! I think I ended up attending five Christmas parties in all. The Timothy House put on two parties--one at our house and the other at the house of a friend in our village. We also went to the parties at two other churches and one at the house of a lady who lives in a village that has never had a Christmas party. Thai Christmas parties are a lot of fun! They all involved a fair amount of food, some singing, games and prizes for the kids, and a short message about God. About 50 people came to the party at the Timothy House, which was pretty crazy! Lots of students from nearby schools, and a few other friends and neighbors. It was a lot of fun to watch the huge group of kids playing musical chairs together--I learned a new strategy: if you are one of the last three and there's only one chair left, you should grab on to the chair and run away with it so you can sit down first!
I was excited to also get to go Christmas caroling with a few people on Christmas night. we only went to a few houses, but it was still a neat experience!
During the kids' break from school, we also got to go to the beach for a couple nights as a whole family! This meant packing up about 30 people into several pickups and a car and driving three hours to the gulf of Thailand. Phimpha knows someone high up at a naval base near Pattaya, so we were able to rent a couple houses right on the water. That was a ton of fun. The water there is a lot warmer and saltier than back in NH, and there weren't real waves for body surfing, but we were able to play a lot of keep away with a volley ball and do a lot of swimming, and some frisbee tossing on the beach! It was a fantastic time to get to just relax with the kids and with Rodney and Phimpha and the other adults who help out and were able to come along.
I will admit it: it can get hard being away from home during Christmas time. But God is good--He sent along some new friends to get to know and talk to. I got to meet a few people my age from Cambodia and from America who have been serving God both in Thailand and in Cambodia. It's been great to get to know them a little bit, hear their stories, and learn more about what is going on in other parts of Thailand and in nearby Cambodia. I am hoping to get the chance to go visit Cambodia at some point when I'm here! :)
That is the basic overview of what is going on here in Thailand these days...we will see what the next weeks bring! I never know what the next day or the next hour will hold! (Though, realistically speaking, I didn't back home either, I just had more plans and expected that they would happen. Here we just don't have the plans!)
If you get the chance, please remember us in prayer! We could always use prayers for provision, for safety, for love for those around us, and for wisdom in dealing with new situations and the various people we meet, and for the strength to keep up with everything that needs to be done.
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