Stickywrites

Chris and Tang are here! We are so excited to see them here in Bangkok. Chris, Andrew, and Tang all used to work together here in Bangkok at a joint venture group of a couple big companies – about 5 years ago. Now Chris & Tang live outside of New York – they are visiting her family that lives here.

We were able to enjoy a great Thai dinner together at an old favorite place of theirs, AdMakers. We also passed through a big mall, where there is this display of punching bags hanging down in the middle of a circular passageway. I have been dying to jump in there and punch away – so Tang helped me out….

We will all be going to an old co-workers wedding in a couple of weeks, and I am very excited to go to my first Thai wedding. Apparently it is very offensive to wear a black dress to a Thai wedding (every other color is permitted, but black is reminiscent of sorrow and funeral garb), so I must now find something else to wear since the only nice dress brought here is black. Can’t wait!

We found a place to live and are very excited about it! It is only a 5-minute walk to the office, or as Andrew likes to think, a 2-minute motorcycle ride. (I’m adamant about us NOT getting one, and he is very keen on the idea….)

The only issue with it is that there is no kitchen. Here in Thailand many people enclose their back patio and make it into a room – a utility/kitchen area. This is what we have decided to do as well, and the landlord was okay to split the price of building the enclosed room and electrical wiring with us. We will be responsible for furnishing the entire place and renovating the place with certain improvements…adding air conditioning units, plumbing, water pump, stove & gas, phone line installation, cabinets, storage, drawers, appliances and the like. Suddenly I feel like a homeowner…something I have never been before, especially not in a foreign culture where communication is limited and difficult with our broken Thai!

Right now outfitting this place seems overwhelming for us to tackle, but we are overall SO GRATEFUL for this place the Lord has provided. It is a huge answer to prayer and we feel very comfortable with this landlord. Here you must be very careful about landlords and their honesty and trustworthiness and our guy seems to be very invested in this place and honest with his dealings. Thank God for this as this is also a direct answer to our prayers for someone we could trust!

Please continue praying for us with this situation – we need patience as we look for appropriate furniture and cabinets and outfitting an entire room which must become a kitchen eventually. Pray for us to be good stewards of our finances with which we’ve been provided so that we can cover all the bases with making this house livable. And praise God for His provision, timing, and Thai staff that have helped us negotiate and acquire this townhome.

Our team was privileged to have the opportunity for a team retreat at a beach resort this past weekend, in a town near the island of Phuket, a great follow up to our big Pray & Plan meeting a few weeks ago. Four Thai staff and all 5 families came with all 13 kids in tow. We were thankful and grateful to our interns, Tori, Irene and Catherine Rogers (teacher at ICS) for watching the kids and doing a kids program while we had all of our meeting times throughout each day and evening. They did a great job and the kids performed some songs for us towards the end.

Andrew and I met a waitress at the resort who witnessed the tsunami at our resort almost 2 years ago. She said that when the water receded way far back, that there were tons of fish flopping on the bare ocean floor, so people were all running out into the dry ocean to pick up all the fish! About 15 minutes later the first wave came. Five people died at that one resort. It was strange to hear a firsthand account from someone who experience the tsunami.

Thanks to our supporters who made this trip possible. It is a key time for all five families, interns, and Thai staff to come together and learn from Dave, each other, and have important workshops for planning & praying about the next year, 2 years, 5 years and 10 years of this ministry here in Thailand.

On our way home from the new HUUUUUUUGE Bangkok airport, Suvarnabhumi (pronounced Soo-von-uh-boom) we got a little turned around in the parking lot. PJ got a free ride while we searched for the Henry’s car. This airport just opened recently, after building it for a couple of years…the old airport just completely shut down one day after 90 years! All the airplanes flew themselves 13 minutes across the city from the old airport to the new on the day of the Suvarnabhumi opening. Andrew & I flew into the old airport one last time before the new one opened a week later. The great thing is that our area is developing very quickly because of it’s proximity to the new airport, and also suburban sprawl.

Last week Andrew & I had the opportunity to visit Dang’s house in the countryside, in a town called Phetchabun, about 4 hours north of Bangkok, in the mountains. Dang has a scholarship to attend Bangkok Bible College and is one of Dave’s students there. She also is working as an intern (one of 4 thai interns with us this year) here at New Community and spends most her weekends with us here in Prawet.

We were excited for this chance to travel with her, get to know her better and spend some more time with her after seeing her work with kids in Nong Khai and work with our team’s ministry in Bangkok. She is so talented!

As we were driving to her house in Phetchabun, we stopped the car about 30 minutes away and sat in the bed of the truck so we could see the stars – it was incredible!! Being outside of Bangkok is truly amazing…you can see stars and get some fresh air. We saw two blazing, magnificent shooting stars within 15 minutes in the vast expanse of uninterrupted blackness above us.

We also have fallen in love with a country singer from the Northeastern Province of Thailand…he sounds a little bit like Alan Jackson but with a little more twang! We listened to his tape in the car about 5 times before we had memorized all the words. Learning songs and rymes are especially helpful to learning a language.

Another particularly sad part of our tip was seeing Dang’s church in her village. There was a bulletin board loaded with pictures of children and sunday school activities, but she explained with sadness that now there are only 4 people in the entire town worshipping there on Sundays. The pastor who lives across the street must move to Bangkok and work there to make money as a bus driver. And there is no one to teach the children anymore, so no children can learn or attend the church anymore. Another reminder that the laborers are few.

We also saw the massive flooding that her village has experienced and walked down to the new river created by the floodwaters. Here is a picture of local fishermen wading & netting in the floodwaters.

After spreading out a huge morning meal for us in her home, Dang and her aunt and older sister took us up into the mountains to walk through some gardens, buy some produce specific to that area (passion fruit & avocado!!), and see the amazing scenery.  It was such a treat.

We are so thankful God has blessed us by her presence in our lives. Dang is truly a humble, selfless and wonderful person and friend and I’m excited to get to know her even better.

One thing I have noticed here in Thailand is they really soak up dramatically graphic advertisements. By this I mean they have billboards, TV commercials and signs that can be, by American standards, very cheesy & dramatic. (Thai daytime soap operas fit right into this category as well.) One such ad illustrates Clinique’s 3-step face wash program. Each step is represented by 3 sequential frames – the first is the Soap Bar, which shows a close-up of a woman’s face and thick soap suds streaming down one side of her face: forehead to chin, plastering her eyes shut. Step 2 is the same scene but with the Astringent pouring violently down, and Step 3 is, yeah, you guessed, the Yellow Moisturizer caked and dripping down the same side of her face, eyes shut. Americans would never be attracted by this ad, but anyways….coming from an advertising agency for the past 3 years, I have taken note. I saw another funny one the other day with a Swiss women eating a container of yogurt, and the little plastic spoon is glued onto the side of her lips, tip down, as if she just swabbed her mouth with yogurt. Interesting if not a turn off.

So, here’s two pictures I took of some: one for Tropicana and one for the Grudge 2, a horror movie coming out soon. Tori (intern with our team) and Yu (Thai staff) graciously posed next to the horrific stand-up ad in the movie theater.

My dad sent me this article.

Okay, it’s not actually bread and it’s not actually daily….but a couple times a week we visit the massive food market near the office for our meals. In a covered pavilion there are tons of stalls lined up next to each other, with every kind of Thai dish. Thai food is so diverse and there are so many dishes that I feel I could never eat the same thing twice…but I’m sure after two years I will have changed my mind about that. I could always eat Som Tam, my favorite…a salad made of thin strips of raw papaya and carrots with peanuts, long green beans, lime juice, and of course, chilies!

Here’s Andrew (can u see him?) sitting waiting for our food at one of the stalls. Notice the tons of yellow shirts? Every Monday Thais wear a bright yellow shirt in honor of the King of Thailand since it is his 60th anniversary on the throne.

Tonight Andrew & I had the privilege of driving over a 6 foot long python on the way home from the Cunningham’s house, a mere mile from their home (nice thought).  Since we were sitting in the bed of the Henrys’ truck it was a special treat to witness the nifty POP!ping sound he made when we hit him.

Something a little different about our lives here in tropical Bangkok…especially since it is very swampy and extra wet right now during the rainy season, all kinds of lovable amphibians and reptiles show their face on occasion around here.   I found a turtle walking along the road in the park the other day, have seen those komodo dragons (monitor lizards) on occasion, and see various snails, worms & snakes frequently.  Since our apartment building is next to and across from overgrown, empty, swampy lots, I would not dismiss the possibility of seeing some hissing friends around here.