ช้าง (elephant)

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!