Wa Pi Patuum- The Village Mission Trip

The top picture is Sterling hanging out with all the guys. He thought he was big stuff. Before we left we gave two soccer balls to the village kids as gifts. The other picture is two boys from our church that came- Rak and Ben. They were cute little guys and really loved to play with Sterling.

That evening we invited all the kids and their parents back for dinner. We had a great time hanging out and the adults that came with us from church were able to give their testimonies.

While we were at the village, the youth group got to put on a skit of the prodigal son; Sterling wanted to be a part of it too...although we're not really sure what kind of hat this is! They also told the kids the story of creation and the kids all listened so closely. It was so neat to watch them hearing the Gospel story for the first time. After the skit and teaching, they went out to play games. The losers had to put baby powder all over their faces.

There is flooding going on everywhere in Thailand right now- it's the worst it's been in 25 years from what we've heard. The people in the village were telling us that if the flood stays for a day or two longer, their entire rice crop will be ruined. The pictures above are the kids, Luke and Sterling in the rice field. As you can tell, the water is high and goes on forever- it seems like they will lose the crop. While we were driving home the roads were flooding and sandbagged because it just continues to rain day after day. The only benefit is that they all put fishing nets out and can catch fish to eat.

Luke just had to take some pictures of the cows. They are pretty different from what we see in Indiana and Iowa...any ideas about the kind of cow these are?? The top picture is one of the men that keeps these cows. How many farmers do you know that wear flip flops out to check the cows? :)

This is the room we stayed in for the first night, the night Sterling was up crying. The second picture is a house in the village to give you an idea of what the houses looked like.

As soon as we arrived the kids found the cows and started feeding them- Sterling enjoyed it too! The top picture is Am and Ploy, girls in our youth group. The village we went to is Am's grandparent's village.

A Summary of our Trip

Well, we made it back safe and sound this evening around 6 pm. I'm too tired tonight to get all the pictures on, but I promise to do it tomorrow. They are some great pictures and we are excited to let you all see a totally different part of Thailand. We live in Bangkok and it is similar to any major city in America-- it's got a subway and a skytrain, traffic jams and malls everywhere. The place we went to had outhouses and cows in the middle of the road- it was quite a contrast! We had a great trip overall, but it took 8 hours to get there, which was much longer than we thought. Sterling did well on the car rides, although he was definitely tired of his seat by the end of the trip. While we were there we were able to meet lots of people in the small village where we stayed. They all loved Sterling and wanted to touch him. It is very rare for them to see white people, especially white babies. Sterling did pretty good with the heat and conditions (we stayed in a barn-like house) but he did wake up at 1 am the first night and he cried for about 2 hours. He actually woke up the entire village because no one has good walls, air conditioners, or anything to keep out the noise. We felt terrible, so we went on a drive to get him back to sleep around 3 am. We spent the rest of the night sleeping in the van because we didn't want to take the chance of waking everyone up again. The next night we stayed in a "hotel" about 20 miles away. It was nothing like we would have in America, that's for certain, but Sterling slept much better.
We've never been happier to see our neighborhood or our house than tonight. We feel like we live in paradise after having spent those 2 days in the village...It definitely teaches you that life can be much simpler, much slower and more relaxed. We learned that we can survive on much less than what we think we "have" to have. And we re-learned the lesson that there are so many people out there that God created that are so different than we are- that live so differently, that believe so differently, that eat so differently... And they are just as valuable and lovely in His eyes.

Mission Trip

We wanted to let everyone know that we are going to be going on a 3 day mission trip to a province north of Bangkok, so we won't be posting anything until we return. Pray for the kids as we minister to the people of Mahasarakam. We will post pictures when we get back on Wednesday. And while you're at it, you might pray for Sterling to be well behaved while we're on this trip- we all know what a little trouble maker he can be!

Update on Rachel.

Thank you all so much for your prayers on behalf of Rachel and her family. Rachel was allowed to come home this morning. The doctor said the seizure was most likely due to fatigue and stress. She will go back to see the doctor in a month for a check up. Thank you for your prayers and responses; we all greatly appreciate them.

Prayer Request

We would like for you all to be in prayer for our teammates, the Parsons. They have been sick for the last two weeks with colds and then the flu (unfortunately, we passed the flu on to them.) Today Rachel had some sort of seizure and then passed out and was rushed to the hospital. She's been throwing up all day and they don't know why all of this is happening. The CAT scan came back fine, so now they will meet with a neurologist and wait for blood test results. We are with their two kids. It has been a really rough time around here with everyone being so sick, so pray that we could all get healed quickly and completely, especially Rachel.

The time-out chair

The other day Sterling did something he wasn't supposed to do-- I can't even remember what it was now, probably something like pulling on the electrical cords. So anyways, he just kept doing it so Luke decided to put him in this chair and tell him he was "in trouble". I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of the little criminal enjoying his first "time out". For all you disciplinarians out there, don't worry, I won't always make a joke when he gets in trouble...it was just too cute to pass up this time though.

Sleeping

We took this picture of Sterling sleeping today because he just looks so big in his bed! He's almost as long as it is. It's hard to believe he's getting this tall... He kind of looks like a football player in this picture, I think. He's just such a solid kid and with that jersey on, you could mistake him for a real lineman. Never mind the fact that the jersey is actually a basketball jersey- he doesn't really look like a little basketball player.

Bandana Boy

Luke decided yesterday that Sterling needed to wear a bandana on his head...I don't know exactly what prompted this idea, but it's cute! Sterling's new thing is sticking out his tongue like he's doing in this picture. I think it might be because he's feeling his new teeth. He does it all the time though. He is feeling much better today- thanks for the prayers.

All Kinds of New Things

In the last few days Sterling has started sitting up and pulling up onto things...We are going to have to start watching him very closely now! It is really fun to watch him try to get up on his knees and then stand up- this chair is actually one of the few things he can pull up on for now. I'm sure it won't take him too long to master the skill and he'll be standing up everywhere. In this bottom picture he had a book of Luke's and thought he might read through it. These pictures were taken yesterday, but today he isn't feeling well. He seems to have some little bug. He's thrown up and had diarrhea- so you might keep the little guy in your prayers.

The Movie Chair

Luke calls this Sterling's movie chair because when we let him watch his movie we usually sit him here. If we don't, he just wants to crawl up to the DVD player and chew on all the cords...So the movie chair was a great idea and obviously one that Sterling thinks is fun too!

We wanted to write once more to let everyone know that things around here are completely settled and fine. It seems as if a military coup is somewhat common in Thailand, in fact, they've had about 30 before this one. We actually read stories about people going up to the tanks to get their pictures taken with the soldiers, bringing them ice cream and pizza...it's nothing like what we would think of in America! It seems like the plan is to rewrite the constitution and bring in a new Prime Minister. The old Prime Minister seems to be staying out of the way and hasn't made any plans to return, so that is a great sign. Thank you again for all of your prayers, we are completely fine over here!

The Situation in Bangkok

Some of you might be wondering what is going on here in Thailand right now. Basically, the prime minister is not well-liked here and the military has taken over and declared martial law, with the support of the King. We are just fine, we live in the outskirts of Bangkok and nothing is being done out here. Everything is closed today, but hopefully will re-open tomorrow. We will let you know if we find out anything else.
You might check out cnn.com if you would like more details.

Day Out with the Girls

We took three girls, Am, Ploy and Jume, from the youth group out to the mall on Monday. We had so much fun with them. We shopped around for a while, then ate lunch, went bowling, and had Starbucks. The girls had never been bowling before so it was a lot of fun to watch them try! Ploy, the girl in the middle had trouble even picking up the ball, let alone rolling it down the lane since she is so little :)

Saturdays

On Saturday afternoons Luke goes to a nearby school and plays basketball. Sterling and I usually don't go with him, but this Saturday we decided to. Sterling thought it was all pretty interesting, but he quickly got VERY hot out in the Thailand sun. So I stripped him down and the top picture is how he ended up by the end of the evening. I don't think he's ever been dirtier in the entire 6 months of his life- he was covered in anti-mosquito lotion, baby powder, and dirt; from head to toe.

For the last eight Saturdays, Luke and the other missionaries have been doing an English Camp as outreach for the kids in our area. This past Saturday they had a party as a last day celebration and the kids all had a blast. We feel like this English Camp has been really good to get the youth center introduced to the kids and many of them have started coming during the week and on Sunday mornings. The top picture is a girl named Da...or Ta...they are twins and we can never tell them apart! They are such cute girls. During English Camp Sterling and I take a Thai girl from our church to her ballet lessons at a nearby shopping center. (Her parents are foster parents and can't take her because of all their other children). We usually walk around and look at everything and then get Starbucks :)

The First Cracker

Sterling has been eating baby food and baby cereal for a while now, but I just gave him a cracker for the first time the other day. He thought it was GREAT. He crunched on it with his two little teeth and had it finished within a couple of minutes! We don't have a high chair or any sort of feeding seat for him, so that's why he's in his stroller eating. The bottom picture is when he finished eating the cracker, but the picture definitely doesn't do justice to the mess that he actually made :) The picture does, however, do justice to his chubbiness.

Me and Sterling

Here are a couple of cute recent pictures of Sterling and I. One is just in our living room, the other was taken at a park at Central Rama 2 shopping center. It is a really nice park that is very "un-Bangkok" like because it is spacious and pretty and green. Unfortunately there aren't any baby playgound things, so we just walked around for a bit, then decided to go inside because we were all sweating to death.

Headbutting

At Sterling's age it seems like he is changing so quickly and doing new things every day. A couple of days ago we caught his newest trick on camera- headbutting. He is doing it to Luke in this picture, but he generally does it to anything. He also likes to do push ups with his dad. Anytime Luke gets up on his hands and feet to do push ups Sterling gets up too and just smiles like he's so proud of himself for copying his dad. And for those of you who are keeping up with his every move, he just started crawling on his hands and knees (instead of the army crawl) last night (Thursday). Today he is moving so fast and getting into everything!

Visa Trip

We took our visa trip to Singapore this time. We just went for one night, so it was a quick trip. We were exhausted by the time we got home, but it was still fun and as always, Singapore was beautiful. It is such a clean and spacious city/country and we enjoy it so much in contrast to busy and polluted Bangkok.

Books

I got tagged by Kelsey at www.mkmfam.blogspot.com Here are my answers to some book questions:

Book that changed your life: I'm going to have to agree with Kelsey on this one, the Bible has definitely been the most life-changing and the one that continues to be. Others that have challenged me and changed the way I think about things would be Seizing Your Divine Moment by Erwin McManus, Desiring God by John Piper, Prophetc Untimeliness by Os Guiness and all of Gary Thomas' books (Sacred Pathways, Sacred Marriage, Sacred Influence and Sacred Parenting).

One book that you have read more than once: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Favorite Book Ever: That's an impossible question. But I really liked The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

One book that made you laugh: Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller. I'm sure there are a lot funnier books, but that's the last book I read that I laughed out loud at.

One book that you wish you had written: I don't have the talent to write a book. BUT, if I could, I guess I would want to write something fiction, like The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan.

One book that I wish had never been written: Christine by Stephen King. I read it when I was younger and it scared me to death.

One book that you are currently reading: The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen

One book that you have meant to read: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Bangkok Call

This is at the Bangkok Call, the 2 day youth event for all of Thailand. They were hoping for thousands of kids to come, but we're pretty sure they didn't reach their goal. Either way it was an awesome time. On Saturday there was 12 hours of non-stop worship bands and on Sunday there was evagelistic preaching and more music. Our kids had a blast. Sterling and I went for most of the day on Saturday and we were suprised to find that he really enjoyed the music and the lights. Lukewas so proud to wear a "staff" tag for about an hour because he helped lead a prayer group.

Playing

Here are just some cute pictures we took the other day of Sterling playing with his toys. He is especially starting to like balls. He likes that it rolls away and he can finally chase after it!

One of Sterling's Favorite Passtimes

One thing Sterling likes to do is look at books. So we take turns reading his favorites: Dinosaur Roar, God Loves You Just the Way You Are, and First Words.

Ruminations on Our Internship

Well, Luke and I have been thinking a lot lately about our time here in Thailand and what it has meant to us. Here are some of the things we were able to think through while we were away on our vacation. Here is what we have learned:

1. What it means to go through culture shock and how to deal with it. There are so many things you have to go through when you move to a new country. There are a myriad of cultural differences that you must adjust to and incorporate into your lifestyle, such as different weather, food, transportation, etc. We made mistakes at times, but it was so valuable to have the missionaries here to learn from. We’re so thankful that we had these two years to learn cultural sensitivity, to learn how to contextualize and embrace the differences in the various countries around the world.
2. How to set up a home and acquire essential items. We wouldn’t have thought of it before we got here, but setting up a home in a foreign country is very difficult! Simple things like knowing how to rent a home, how to communicate about a contract, how to buy a cell phone and what numbers to dial…it’s all new and different! We felt like the missionaries came along beside us to guide us in these valuable lessons so that we will be able to do it on our own in the future.
3. How to work on a team. Before we came to Thailand we had never worked on a team before because we had just graduated from college. These two years have taught us so much about how to live, work and play with teammates, who become as close as family. We learned much from the missionaries in this area too, as they spent time teaching us about how to deal with team conflict and resolution, as well as having times of accountability and mentoring.
4. The need for spiritual discipline. This team of missionaries that we came to work under provided a context of prayer, fasting and meditation on God’s word like we’ve never known before. They have learned that without these key elements, missions cannot succeed. They have engrained this into our lives as well over these two years and we are thankful that we will take this into the next stage of our lives.
5. The value of strategic planning. The missionaries have been in Thailand for over 14 years and have tried many different ways to evangelize and reach the Thai people. The downside of this is that they feel they never truly nailed down the vision of what they wanted to accomplish, so that in the end, they’ve tried a lot of things instead of strategizing and focusing all of their heart and strength into that vision. This has taught us that we must pray with all our might as well as be strategic in our plans and goals.
6. Our capability of learning a second language. As Americans, we take one foreign language in school and most of us feel somewhat inept when we are finished. This can be discouraging. But after submerging ourselves in the Thai language for two years as well as studying, we’ve found that we really can learn a second language!
7. The importance of not creating your own “subculture”. As a coping strategy, we found ourselves wanting to retreat out of Thai life and only be with the other Americans we knew in our neighborhood, only going to American style restaurants, etc. We learned that those kind of actions cannot produce meaningful evangelism. We’ve learned that it is difficult to build true and deep relationships with the nationals, but we’ve come to realize how important it is.
8. How to be a family away from our family. When we left America two years ago we weren’t sure how we would handle being so far from home. We have learned that God gives us grace to do this and he also provides good gifts to keep us connected with them. We were able to find good phone services, emailing, webcams, and even visits from parents, not to mention the times He allowed us to come home.

As you can see, we feel that our time spent in Thailand has been time well spent. Not only did we learn all of these things, we have also had a lot of fun. It has been amazing to get to know the Thai people and having new friends, setting up the youth center, being involved in the church and the kids lives’, exploring a new country and trying new foods. We wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The Scooter

Mitch and Luke rented a scooter for a day while we were in Huahin, and we all had fun driving it. Linda and I only drove it around the parking lot, but the guys took it into town. It was only $4.00 to rent it for 24 hours!

Us and the Trusty's

During our vacation we got to meet up with our friends the Trusty Family. Sterling thought Havelah and Cosette were so much fun. They all had a blast playing together, and us adults had a lot of fun catching up and being mutually encouraged. We enjoyed eating together, swimming, and they even got to spend the night at our house for one night!