News from Us at Long Last!

I know it's been far too long since I got on here and wrote anything! But here I am at last. Since I haven't been writing anything and they say a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll major on pictures and then maybe post a bit of the stuff from the letters home that we've written for those of you who didn't get it.

 These are two of the children from the school for Burmese children that we visited on our first ministry trip back the last time I posted.

We are doing very well, but we miss home and all of you! Some how staying another four months looks longer as we think about it now, than it did before!

The value of McDonald's takes a whole 'nother face when you are on this side of the world and haven't had a burger and fries in weeks! Johnny was delighted with our family visit to the local "joint" :)
  But because most of the food here is so cheap, it felt like we were really splurging to spend 300 baht (about $10) We did it on our last ministry trip when Darren needed a de-stress and some familiar food again.

Johnny has learned to ride bike with training wheels. Not with out a few bumps, one of which is visible on the picture of him with Ronald.

Christy and John love to play inside the cupboards at the play area. They are both growing up!
 

We've also found that, when it's not too sultry, the children have a lot of fun at the park close to our house. The play equipment is mostly made from re-bar soldered together.

A beautiful evening sky here...

There was a special evening at the English center here, and the had different activities for the children. Here they are looking at some slides and trying to identify the pictures in English

On Monday and Friday nights we go to the CMC church and while the others teach English to the children, I visit with the mothers. Here is one of the moms that speaks more English than most of them. She has discussed Christianity with me and explained to me some about what she believes as a Buddhist. It's hard for me to fathom the futility life would have if I believed I would be reborn for ten generations as whatever animal I had harmed, to pay for my sin!

We went to the Compassion Children's Home for one Sunday morning. Here are some of the children enjoying our visit

This is a Buddhist shrine. Pray for us as we seek to shine Christ's light in this dark country. Every where we walk, and even right outside our building are shrines to spirits, and each morning I watch the neighbor lady carry her offerings and burn insense before it,  as she bows and wais.

 

And here's some reading for those of you who want to read some more details!

    I haven’t posted or written any thing for a while...
Maybe that’s because life has settled down to a sort of normal abnormal. We are getting accustomed to life here and there doesn’t seem to be all that much to say. But we still want to keep in touch so maybe I should try to describe what our new normal looks like at IGo.
A typical day usually begins some time early in the morning for Darren. Sometimes he just wakes up at 2:30 or 3 in the morning and can’t get back to sleep. But normally he doesn’t really need to leave for the school until around 6:15 - 6:30. Then while the children and I get ourselves up and around for the day, he has breakfast and his first class of the day. I usually bring the children over for breakfast and chapel around 8:00. After chapel finishes at around 9:15 there is some free time for study and homework before the next classes at 10:00. After that I don’t see much of Darren until lunch. The children and I play, read books, or go for a walk. Some times I try to converse in a few phrases of broken Thai and English with the people we meet. Walks during the day are short of necessity, because it is so hot that we tire, overheat and burn if we stay out long. So most of our time is spent indoors during the hottest hours from 10 - 3 pm.
    Lunch and supper are always an adventure, waiting to see what unusual food we will have to test our American palates.:) Darren and I are usually fine with it, but John really struggles with the spiciness. The cook usually tries to have something available that isn’t too spicy, but sometimes the flavors and textures are difficult for children, so his adjustment has been a bit of a challenge. He LOVES when she makes chicken and french fries! :) One thing he liked better than Darren was the small fried fish - fried whole with their stomachs still full of fish eggs.
While the children nap in the afternoon, Darren and I study together, and this last term we listened to the recordings for the course  - Teaching to Change Lives. That was my way of getting a bit of study in. I’m not sure how it will look for this next term. I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there.
Since this term is finished and we are into our second ministry trip, there will be some different days for a bit. We are staying here in the city for this trip, and working along side of a missionary couple. Plans for the trip will be adjusted of necessity, because they just had their baby this morning. It’s a good lesson in flexibility.  Instead of helping teach English the other night, I stayed with Lisl and played the role of early labor support. I really enjoyed our visit between times :) and I think it was nice for her to have something else to keep her mind on til her husband returned.

Here’s is the report we gave on our ministry trip here at the school:

We spent our “trip” here in Chiang Mai, working along side of the CMC Church with Dru and Lisl Latin. We really enjoyed our time and feel like we learned some valuable lessons through it.
    One of those unpredictable, unchangeable features of our time that changed some plans for us and affected our stay was that the Latin’s baby arrived the second day of our trip time with them, and so they ended up being unable to do some of the things with us that we would otherwise have done.
    The larger part of our ministering lay in Darren teaching English on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, while I took care of the children visited with the mothers. God blessed those times with some profitable conversations. Darren also had the opportunity to teach the bible study.
    CMC church has church functions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights as well. And there was also some extra functions going during our week with them, like the City Wide Pastors Meeting, and the City Wide Prayer Meeting. We attended the bible studies, discipleship classes and prayer meetings with them, worshipped with them, and got a feel for what Dru’s ministry with them looks like. Besides this, Darren and Dru also shared some time with Lee Mummau,  and we had the opportunity to visit some with Deanial Yoder's and Duff Brown's family and learn more about what they are doing and their visions for the work here.
    I think that one of the things that our trip did for us was to drive home the need for discipleship among those who are Christians here in Thailand as well as around the world, encouraging those who name the name of Christ to live lives that are true to God’s word, and to grow in their understanding of the scriptures.

Lastly just a bit of a personal word - We are all doing well. Right now the change in weather is predisposing us to colds, but we haven't caught anything too serious. John is still getting SO many bug bites, and I just pray he doesn’t get dengue fever from them, because the mosquitoes that bite in the day often carry that infection.