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.

Christmas

Christmas Eve dinner at the Cowboy Cafe. They had Thai food as well as pasta, steaks, mashed potatoes, french fries and pizza :-) Lots of people got pizza, but cheese is hard to get here and pretty different, so they didn't like it all that much, it didn't taste like home. There were horses outside that entertained the kids after dinner and a little girl named Pearl, age 8, who was also dining there. She is from Oklahoma and we enjoyed speaking English with her :) At the end of the table are Oi and Taay - our translater and Thai host. They are both awesome!!!

 Kiera's christmas gift, a big sty on her eye :-)

 Christmas morning puzzle.

I've got to go, Christmas was great, our parents sent gift bags for us to open this morning as a surprise. It was a wonderful, thoughtful surprise. The homesickness kicked in today :-)

Tuk Tuk in Thailand

Merry Christmas from Thailand!!! It is beautiful, sunny and hot here - it doesn't feel like Christmas, but our team had a great Christmas morning together and Christmas Eve meal to make it feel a little more like home.

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, we had the day off. Our family took a tuk-tuk into town (about a 15 minute ride into Ratchaburi). The tuk-tuk is pictured below, it is a fairly slow open air taxi. The kids love it and so do I :) It only cost about $2.50 for all of us to travel this way.

Here is our family standing in front of the house we are staying in. While it looks pretty Western from the outside, there are many things that make it truly Thai. The washing machine and hand laundry washing station are both outside. Inside has a fan in every room because there is only air conditioning in the bedrooms. The toilets can't flush toilet paper and there are bucket showers :-) You can't drink the water and you have to clean up your food quickly so the little tiny ants don't get your food before you do :-) If I would have written this last week it would have been with sadness and missing our Western life, but this week, I'm starting to find these things endearing. Part of our Thai lifestyle. I like the simplicity here.

Here are some pictures from us at the market. In the first picture, we are looking at the live fish, toads, snakes, box turtles, goldfish and other weird slimy, slippery things. Mason loved it!

Banana break after a full day of sightseeing and shopping! The kiddos don't love the food here, so meals are supplemented with bananas, chocolate milk (because the white milk is shelf ready and tastes weird) and saltines :-)



Free Day and Miscellaneous

Three week round-up:

Before we left it was CRAZY - we had our last week of lecture, good-bye parties, no Eliza (so sad!), Christmas with grandparents, packing, shopping, returning... It was a great week, we loved spending time with 100 Fold and the Garrigans before we headed out and also our last lecturer - Dan Bauman (he spoke on having a real and simple and wonderful relationship with God, he was very encouraging, peaceful and inspiring). 100 Fold had a Christmas party - movie, hot chocolate, pjs and praying for us before we left. We love being part of 100 Fold - they have been encouraging and supportive. We look forward to being back in February and getting to be full-time 100 Fold and full-time family :-)

Thailand:

Bangkok:

We flew into Bangkok and were only there 12 hours. Long enough to sleep, shower, have breakfast (bananas, toast/jelly, pineapple and yogurt), lunch (3 different Thai stirfry dishes over rice and egg), an orientation meeting to tell us the do's and don'ts of Thailand, how to use the bathrooms, how to greet others and a few words. Then we were on our way to Ratchaburi in a van (2 hour ride).

Ratchaburi:

We got here on Wednesday, Dec 12 and we will leave on Thursday, Dec 27. So far we've participated in a Christmas Party - it was for the neighborhood and very evangelistic. The pastor preached the gospel, there were really fun Christian songs that the band played. Our team did a skit, sang two Christmas songs and shared a testimony. There was so much food and ice cream for everyone! Pineapple, rose apple, guava, pad see yew, a spicy curry dish, papaya salad, rice, rice noodles, spicy bean dish, orange noodle dish (?), ... This is the church where the day before we prepared the area by spreading gravel for them.

There have been two days of construction and site work for another church about 1.5 hours away, close to Burma. I went with the kids the first day, but it was so hot and dirty and slightly dangerous, that I stayed home with them the second day.

Sunday, we went to church and also the above Christmas party. 

One day, on our way to spread gravel / level the area at a church, our hosts brought us to the floating market as a surprise. Apparently, this is the original floating market. There are others in Thailand, but this is the first one - at least that is what they claim :-) We took a ride through the floating market. It was SO cool!!! Thankfully we went with two team members (Ann-Kristin and Brent), they helped the kids remember to not put their hands on the outside of the boat. So mostly their are vendors or shops on either side of the waterways and if you want to buy something you point and your boat driver pulls over OR the shop owner has long wooden sticks with a hook on the end and they will hook your boat and pull you over.

We had a day off and went to the "Beautiful Cave", which was beautiful, but also VERY HOT. Hotter than outside and with 100% humidity. It was hard to breathe, 95 degree weather never felt better when we got out, at least it was only 85-90% humidity outside. Perspective!  At the caves, we had lunch and shopped at the markets. Out back from where we ate lunch, there were these puppies, they were born that day!!! The store owner came over and pulled out the puppies for us to all hold. Good thing we couldn't get the puppy home because they all wanted to keep one!



Also, on our free day we went to "monkey mountain", where there are hundreds of monkeys that would like to be fed. Someone on a moto was selling corn on the cob to give to the monkeys. The monkeys would take the corn right out of your hand - if you wanted them to, but also if you weren't paying attention. It scared Kiera (and me, a little), but Selah and Mason really liked the monkeys. Then we went to visit a temple. It was huge, apparently the biggest in the area. The feeling of desparation and being lost of the people there visiting was evident. It was so sad to see them praying to statues that could do nothing for them. It is so hard because we can't speak Thai, but we can pray!

Around the temple, there were a lot of monkeys also, but these aren't ones you feed. Crazy! By the end of the day, I didn't think seeing a monkey was that strange. At one point, Selah and Kiera were looking through a fence (on a bridge) at a monkey sitting up in a tree - the monkey was 4 feet away and eye-level with them. Selah tried talking to the monkey, or maybe taunting it, and the monkey jumped onto the other side of the fence from them - the girls were SO SCARED and ran the fastest I've ever seen them!

We also went to a bat cave to see thousands of birds flying out of the cave at sunset. Ross and Joe hiked to the mouth of the cave, the rest of us watched from the bottom of the hill.

I'm sure I've missed stuff, but this is a good account for now. Next time, I'll try to remember and take pictures of and document squatty potties and bucket showers. I'll also try to write about the do's and don'ts.

Love to all!

Life in Ratchaburi

First morning, our team was gathered together for a team meeting.

(Ann-Kristin, Joe, Christian, Brent, Kamilla, Hillary, Johnny. Not pictured: Adam, Hannah, Zac, Ross, Lane, Ethan and the kids: Truss, Cole, Selah, Kiera and Mason)

Lane and Mason on the bike built for 4.

This is how we usually travel, 4 on the bike and one adult walking. I, Lane, prefer to walk if Ross is there because the bike isn't the easiest to drive, but I've done it a lot to today and I'm getting better at it. Mason has the best seat on the bike, by far :) The girls are squished and they get hot, but at least they get a free ride.We ride the bike back and forth from the house that we are staying at to the office where most of the team is staying. At the office or base, we have breakfast, meetings, get picked up to leave for outreach, hangout... Our house is an easy 5 minute walk for Ross or I, but more like 15 minutes with tired kids. Zac and Hannah and their kids are staying at a house another 5 minutes past us, so only the singles are staying in the office. At the next location, we will all get to stay in the same place :-)

A playground close to the house. Ross took the kids one evening while I was with the rest of the team at a ministry event that was late at night. I didn't get home until almost midnight.

We have an afternoon ice cream treat every few days, Mason really likes this "Thai Food".

Selah and Kiera helping wash dishes after breakfast. I think Kiera officially has a work duty, she loves helping the girls with the dishes and the girls (Hillary and Ann-Kristin) are great at showing her what to do and letting her help.

A family picture taken outside the base, you can sort of see the street we live on in the background.