Video of Mason

Cute - unedited - video of Mason talking about Thailand and tuk-tuks and monkeys and dogs... he is quite the chatterbox these days!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FstdVwN0LsM

Home of the Open Heart - construction

Here is the empty site where we poured a massive driveway. It wasn't just concrete work, we also had to dig out 6" and level the whole area first :-)

You can see on the right where the digging out and leveling is taking place

The first concrete pour

more digging out (see Ross in the dark gray shirt?)

Me doing what I did a lot, carrying Mason away so he wouldn't mess up the concrete or taking him to clean the sand out of his eyes

the kiddos trying out the concrete

little by little it got poured, eventually we realized we couldn't be done by Sunday at this rate and a cement truck came Friday and Saturday and poured the rest for us. All we had to do was level the land, stake the forms and level the concrete after the pour. Sounds easy, but it still took a lot of work.

Journal Entry

It is January 5, 2013. We've been in Thailand almost 4 full weeks. The kiddos are finally eating well - well, at least about 5 meals - omelets, rice, hard boiled eggs, fruit, chicken, pork on a stick, sticky rice... New Year's Eve was super fun. We had dinner together with the boys house and then had worship and set off paper lanterns - like in Tangled. It was beautiful and amazing! I'm not sure if any of the pictures turned out. There are many more pictures to show, but a pain to download them. I'm not very good at blogging because I don't like hooking the camera up to the computer and downloading the pictures... Anyway, the kids were wiped out, went to bed early and didn't get to see the lanterns, I feel a little bit bad about that, but after full days of playing in the sun and the heat, they are ready to sleep by 7 or 7:30, especially Mason who isn't napping every day.

Today is our first free morning in over a week and it is much needed. We've been working all day, then having team meetings at night. Today we don't have a meeting until 1. The meeting will lead to planning the outreach tonight (worship, games and Jesus film), worship with the kids and staff here, prayer for the outreach... Ross and I got to go for a run this morning because one of the girls on our team watched our kids, it was a precious date for us.

Wednesday, we will move to our final ministry location. I think Wednesday, Thursday and Friday will be spent inviting university students to an exchange camp and then the weekend will be the exchange camp. I'll tell you more about this camp after it happens. I'm thinking tents and sleeping bags - the kids are super excited!

Mason has hit another milestone - it is so sad and yet rewarding to see him grow up before my eyes. Are you ready for it? He can chew gum without swallowing it! Isn't he a big boy? Well, if he were potty trained we would all be jumping up and down, but even this is a rite of passage out of being a baby, he's even working his way quickly out of toddlerhood.

I miss everyone and hope this note finds you well.
love,
lane

Weekly Round-up - 12/27/12

Oiy and Taay. Oiy was our translator in Ratchaburi and Taay was our YWAM host. They both loved our kids and helped us with them a lot!

Our team at the base of Monkey Mountain

Selah with a monkey at Monkey Mountain

Mason posing with a monkey at Monkey Mountain

Inside a Buddhist temple, along with real Buddhist monks.

Inside Beautiful Cave (the really hot and humid cave)

Selah making friends with the Koren kids at the Koren Christmas Party.

House in the Koren area

Our team (with lackey kids leading the way) across a tiny bridge!

Ministry Time

The first ministry that our team was part of in Ratchaburi was the prison ministry that YWAM Ratchaburi is involved in. They have actually just completed the first YWAM prison DTS (PDTS) - isn't at awesome? They had so many men and women in the prison start believing in Christ, that they offered a DTS inside the prison. It was shorter than a regular one, but it gave the inmates an intro to Christianity and a christian world view. Two of the men on staff with YWAM Ratchaburi became believers in prison through this ministry and once they got out of prison, they went on staff with YWAM Ratchaburi - cool, huh?

The top picture is of Noiy - the YWAM Ratchaburi leader speaking at the prison Christmas celebration. The picture directly below is of Zac "preaching" and Noiy translating. In the background you can see Brent, Christian and Ross. I wasn't at this because we couldn't bring the kids to prison, so I don't know a whole lot about what they did, but I do know there was preaching, a skit, testimony and worship music and in the end, 6 men gave their lives to Christ.

 Skit at the prison

 praying for men at the prison

This is a picture from one of the churches that we worked at. We went for a day and leveled their land with 3 large piles of gravel, the next night we went back for a Christmas Party Outreach event. It was super fun to see how the manual work we did helped the outreach event be so much nicer. This is the church that served us chicken, rice and coagulated blood for lunch - yummm, right? The kids got in on the action and spread gravel, too.

The following 2 pictures are from an evening "Christmas Party Outreach" event. There were at least 1,500 people there. The streets were blocked off and there was so much food, ice cream and music! Our team performed a skit and worship music as well as shared a testimony. At the end of the night they have a raffle where hundreds and hundreds of prizes are given out. Our team left at 11:00p and only 1/2 the gifts had been given out. Two hundred people gave their life to Christ that night.

Another Christmas Party!!! This one was geared more towards Christians - a Koren hilltribe about 1.5 hours from Ratchaburi, close to the Burmese border. We lead worship, did a nativity skit and prayed for healing for several people there. One man's knee was healed, we don't know if the other people were healed because language was a barrier - but not for God!

Mason, Kids Church and Squatty Potty

 

Mason really likes the reindeer nose. He has already broken his, but he just takes his sisters now :-) (a christmas present in his goodie bag.)

Mason found a little spot in the van that we traveled in for more than 12 hours in - from Ratchaburi to Chiang Rai.

Last Sunday we went to a bilingual church. The kids (all ages 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10) were all in the same class - there was a Thai class and an English class. I think they liked doing something that felt "normal".

And now, the famous squatty potty... You stand on the outside rim and squat. Once you are finished, you take the bucket (pink) out of the bucket or trough of water and "flush" the potty. 2 to 4 bucketfuls are needed. Both girls have gotten the hang of this and really like the flushing part :)

Meal Time in Chiang Rai

Here are a few pictures from dining experiences the past week. The first picture is from the "rice shop" that we frequent. There is also a "noodle shop". We can walk to each of these restaurants, so for lunch we alternate between the two. Today was "rice shop" day, Selah's preference - she likes the omelet over rice. Mason and Kiera prefer the noodle shop - "meatballs" (or pork balls) with an amazing broth, rice noodles and the adults have shredded cabbage and bean sprouts in theirs. The kids LOVE the "meatballs" and noodles. Did I mention that at the noodle shop no one speaks English, so they just ask us how many soups we want. There are different soups at this shop, but we always get the same one because we don't know our other options :-)

Here is a picture of Mason as star of the show. The Thai's love Mason's fair skin and blond hair. They also really like Kiera's cheeks. I may have said this already, but while the Thai people are mostly into Mason and Kiera, Selah is the most interested in them and the most tolerant / wanting to engage with them.

This is Mason's friend "Nuk". She works at one of our favorite restaurants that we can walk to - it is a little farther than the rice shop and noodle shop, so we tend to go here for dinner when we have more time. Nuk speaks English well and helps us order as well as plays with the kids and shows them the fish in the ponds out front of the restaurant while we eat :-) One night she tried to keep Mason and trade me her daughter for him. Mason would have stayed with her, but her daughter wouldn't come with me. (Don't worry, Mom, I won't trade him :-)

A meal from the above mentioned restaurant (Yellow Curry with Chicken and Rice - so yummy!!!)

 

Tonight for dinner I got the kids "Kow Mung Gai" (I have no idea how to spell it, but it loosely means rice and chicken). It is one of the meals the kids really like. I did kindly refuse the coagulated blood that she offered me to go with the chicken and rice. Another truly Thai experience.