Stickywrites

While it’s not quite the blustery winter many of you are experiencing States-side right now, it has been quite a whirlwindy week for us…(it is the Cold Season here and just yesterday the High was only 84º F!)  ……Nong Khai on Monday – Wednesday, then back to Bangkok for Thurs & Fri to prep for our Friday night Christmas Party for the English teaching ministry, then prep for our Sunday night Christmas outreach.  We have to praise God for His provision – we were praying for all our students to come on Friday, and almost all did – we had about 50 people!  Andrew worked very hard on preparing a short testimony in THAI for the group, about the meaning of Christmas and what Jesus did for us.  He was very impressive and we are excited to have had the chance to boldly tell our students why we are here in Thailand!  We sang Christmas carols in English & Thai, ate a huge meal, yummy sugar cookies (that we spent 2 days making & decorating) and played a White Elephant-style Gift game…here’s Andrew passing out numbers.

Som & Ning, 2 of my students,

and Dana with 3 other students, Nat, Phaa, and Gung.

Sunday we also had a wonderful group come to our special Christmas party – about 80 children and some adults that we had invited, mostly moms.  Our Thai interns led the huge, chaotic group in songs, games, gift-giving, skits, and the Christmas story re-enacted.  Andrew & I did our second run as Mary & Joseph too;)  We ended the evening with about 100 take-away boxes of Fried Rice and other delicious Thai meals from the market.  The children that came, many from the neighborhood, many from the English classes, many from the slum area, many walking in from the streets or children of the vendors we meet in the local shops or markets everyday, seemed to love the presentations, songs & games, and the Gospel was shared.  Our team really pulled together to have these events work out, and we are thankful for the people that came through our doors this past weekend.  Pray for all of them that we would be able to continue seeing them, loving them, and making relationships with them.  Pray that their hearts would be opened to what we have to share with them going forward.

The women on the team had a fun cookie and ornament exchange party too – we sat bedside with Kim so she could enjoy it as well!  It was such a treat to be able to hang out with Kim since she is now on bedrest, pregnant with her third child, and having some problems with a tear on her placenta.  She can’t get up or go anywhere, even downstairs in her own house, so it was great to see her and have fun with her.  We sang carols (The 12 Days of Christmas was my favorite since we acted out all the motions in parts), pigged out on sugary delights, and exchanged ornaments….one fun, very unexpected thing is that all the girls surprised me with gifts for Andrew & I, since we didn’t have many ornaments (we just got married a year and a half ago).  This is our 2nd Christmas together…so it was like an ornament shower surprise!  Our sad tree looks a lot better now with the fun special ornaments.  Red & Gold balls were just not very festive or home-ey!

Recently we have said goodbye to 2 wonderful short-term interns, Tori, an intern from Edmonton, Alberta, left a week ago….much to our team’s sadness and dismay. She has been a wonderful asset to our team and went home to her family for Christmas and will start college in this next 9 months or so. We have also recently said goodbye to our 3-month intern, Irene, a Washington DC resident, who has also truly been a blessing for us…both have taught English, disciplined unruly children, and been troopers as they make contacts and establish relationships with students in our community. They have helped us with Friday night Game Nights (among many other things) and have been companions and neighbors to us after we moved into their neighborhood recently.

As we said goodbye we also celebrated in the arrival of a new intern…we have welcomed Dana, from Highland, IN last week as well. She is also going to be teaching the children’s English classes, helping the Cunninghams at their house while Kim is on bedrest (pregnant with her 3rd child), and a multitude of other things.

Tori’s goodbye party – complete with Pumpkin Curry, veggies and Guacamole, what a combo.  Guacamole is a special treat here since avocados are especially hard to find and very expensive once you do.

Also, Dana and Tori below. Our team is so blessed to have a stream of interns coming here. They help so much with ministry and keeping our English school going! 

Someone in my family recently commented that they had forgotten what we looked like, so this is what you get unless you come see us here in Bangkok!

We get enough sun here to keep my face very freckly.

Fa la la la la…la la la la!  We are getting geared up for a very busy Christmas season here in Thailand.  There are Christmas trees for sale at local malls, peppermint mochas at Starbucks, glittery gold streamers on our neighbors patio,  and Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas” playing at department stores. (If you don’t know this song, you should). Prep time has begun – Andrew and I are playing Mary & Joseph in a lip-synching Christmas story this Saturday at Mahathai, a slum area our team has been involved with in our community.  Our Thai interns have the Christmas story tape in Thai that will play while a big group of us acts it out silently…this should be interesting since when we did our first run-through I will still moving my lips when I was supposed to be acting surprised the angel had appeared to tell me I would be pregnant with baby Jesus; then Andrew and I were still “travelling” to Bethlehem when we were supposed to already be talking with the innkeeper.  Oh well.  Hopefully the families at Mahathai will understand.  Most of them will be hearing this story for the first time – so pray that even through our acting blunders they will hear the true reason for Christmas!

We are also having a Christmas party with our English students at our Friday night Get-Together.  We will have Christmas cookies, carols, a White Elephant gift exchange, and Andrew will be sharing the true meaning of Christmas and why we have moved  here – not entirely to teach English – and he’s doing it in THAI!  Yay.  This is a huge endeavor, so pray pray pray for this as usually our Friday night Game Nights are fun and superficial as we still get to know many of the attendees and students.

We will also have a Thai worship service on Sunday, the 17th, for Christmas and have invitied basically all our contacts in this area  – friends, fellow Christians, street vendors, food vendors, former colleagues…it should be big and great and we are praying God will work through this service to share the Gospel with those who haven’t heard it.

We are also going to Nong Khai this week, for 2 days, to discuss our plans for the coming year with the pastor there, Samran.  Please pray for these plans to be made and for us to have willing, servants hearts as it is hard to think about being away from our team and Bangkok for an entire week each month!

My basic theme for this post is (da da da da DA!)= PRAY.  For the Christmas outreaches, services, parties, interactions, relationships developed, EVERYTHING that will be happening in the next 2 weeks.  Pray for us as we miss our families, friends, the Christmas-ey feeling here in Bangkok heat, the decorations, music, everything.  It’s not my first Christmas to be out of the country & away from my family, but it is Andrew’s and it’s STILL very hard for me and him.  Thank you that we have each other and our team around us.