Stickywrites

So the other night The Bronsons (Thais refer to themselves in the third person all the time, and i have lovingly adopted this method of speaking) had quite an interesting, unexpected exercise in marriage teamwork.  Coming back from Nong Khai we were tired and weary and decided in the cab home from the airport to make a quick, no-hassle spaghetti-from-a-jar meal when we got home.  Sounds nice, right?  Not so.  The scene went something like this:

(Sounds of hissing water boiling)…

Becky: mmm.  I love you sweet husband of mine.

Andrew: mmm.  love you too.

Becky: what’s that?

Andrew: I said, it looks like we’re locked in. (smug laugh).

Becky: huh?

Andrew: I mean, I closed the door and now we’re locked in.

Becky: what door?  where?

(sounds of the Gao Wao bird faithfully rise in the distance)

Andrew: Oh man.  This is going to be a long night.

Now, you may be wondering what would cause us to 1) have a kitchen door that locks from the inside of the house and 2) why we would close said door in the first place.  The answer to #1 is that our kitchen used to be our backyard.  Sounds weird, but we enclosed a patio-like backyard to become a very handy utility/cooking area, with roof, plumbing, sink, stove, washing machine, pantry cabinet, etc.  The answer to #2 is a mosquito, plain and simple.  Andrew patiently explained to his loving wife that the door was shut behind him because he spotted a zebra mosquito – the most deadly kind of night mosquito we have here in Thailand, arising at night from murky corners and their daytime slumber to torture happy sleepers such as ourselves – and was trying to keep it contained so it wouldn’t escape into the other more living-ish parts of our house.

Sigh.

We have 3 windows in our kitchen – 2 with heavy robber-proof bar covers (and therefore escape proof), and one that looks back on the inside of our house.  It so happened that this window was locked from the inside as well (why, I wish I knew), so in the end, after a botched doorknob lock-picking job (Becky cheered him on while eating spaghetti on the floor), Andrew edged the sliding window off it’s track as far as he could and I reached through with my faithful duster with a hooked handle, enabling the lock to be pushed down.  SAVED!

I have newfound respect for my duster, which I have deemed the Bronsons’ Utility Player.  Take note: it clearly serves many functions besides just dusting, it could even save your life!  So ended another day in Bangkok, Thailand

I found out what cold feels like in Thailand this past week. We returned to Nong Khai for our first full week there, and little did Bangkok “Live in a Constant Sweat” Becky know, it was quite chilly in Nong Khai (a town on the MaeKhong River, directly across the river from Vientiane, Lao). We came totally unprepared clotheswise, and I shivered and drank hot tea alot! It was only about 60 deg F, but the blustery winds made it feel much colder.

Here we are journeying out on the church’s motosai for a quick errand. The church (behind us) is on the highway which leads to the Friendship Bridge into Lao, and is kind of on the outskirts of the town, so we borrow this occasionally to go to an internet cafe, make copies, buy groceries, etc. Since Andrew doesn’t yet have his driver’s license, we can’t go too far away, like downtown where there are policemen, so as not to be arrested. Behind us on the left is the church Tuk Tuk, which is basically a wheeled cart attached to a motorbike. These are more common in smaller towns where there aren’t taxis…you hire these guys instead to take you. We stay upstairs, on the upper right you can see part of the window of our guest room.

Kannika (the pastor Samran’s wife) and Becky in front of the church Tuk Tuk. They told us before we could borrow it to go into town, but we would never be brave enough to drive that thing! It’s looks pretty difficult to navigate!

So ended our first week. The staff there is so encouraging to us…so devoted to serving God and sharing the Gospel. Every week it seems there are people who, after the service on Sundays, say they’re interested in knowing God or understanding Christianity. We long for this kind of interest in our friends and contacts here in Bangkok, and to have a Thai worship we can invite people to on Sundays. Hopefully in the next couple months we will have that here – exciting!!

Our Thai is definitely better now – we are competent enough to read the hymns in the book, sing along, and read along in the Thai Bible, but sermons are still extremely difficult for us to get the gist of. The Thai language has an entirely different vocabulary, called “high language” for Bible, Christian concepts and ‘God’ words. We have yet to study this with Khruu Awe but are trying to teach ourselves and it’s extremely hard.

In other news, I finally figured out the English name of our neighborhood pest, the Gao Wao. I have a link. The descriptions are not too becoming, unsurprisingly: “The Common Koel is 39 to 46 cm in length, and is a member of the cuckoo family. Adults are rather shy and they are heard much more than seen. The male Common Koel advertises its presence by a loud ascending whistle “coo-ee” or “ko-el”, monotonously repeated; the call of the female is a repetitive “wook-wook-wook…”. Males often call throughout the day and well into the night.”

Click this linkto hear the soundtrack for the call if you are curious to listen: http://home.tiscali.nl/jvanderw/malaysia02/sounds/asiankoel.mp3 

You are lucky you can just turn it off whenever you want to….

I thought I would title my next entry by my favorite new bird call I have discovered….the Gao Wao Bird, appropriately named by its distinctive, extremely loud, and unfortunately annoying call.   Because our neighborhood is in front of an undeveloped swampey plot, there are some birds that perch in the few trees in this swamp, as well as one tree that hangs over our bedroom and roof of our 2-story townhome.  The Gao Wao bird has made himself at home in both trees,  and some mornings wakes us up around 5 a.m. – his idea of the day beginning, I guess.  I have newly learned the thai word for “slingshot” and “rock” just in case I might need to buy one in the near future.  Anyone know the Thai word for “B-B gun”?  Or “shotgun”?  I kid, I kid (kind of).

Besides waking up at 5 a.m. to the call of the Gao Wao, Andrew & I are newly attacking this new year with added responsibilities and quite a busy schedule.  Andrew has taken over the English school from another team member whose wife is now on bedrest (with her third child!) and needs to be at home more.  (All team members’ blogs are listed on my Links on the sidebar if you’re interested in checking up on other team members observations).  He also has, in the last 2 weeks, transitioned into the team treasurer/financial leadership role, which has been quite a complex and time-consuming affair.  We are both still teaching English, signing up new students during a 2-week registration period, and heading the internship program.  Currently, we have one 11-month intern, Dana, and just welcomed two 5-month interns, Fred & Jean Depp.  Our first week-long trip to serve Gennesaret Church in Nong Khai will be in a week and a half.  In theory, we are still studying Thai, but much less frequently – these days – as we get busier.

We are also trying to start a small-group bible study in our home or out of the office, as well as teach some free English classes through Bible stories, and finding a direction for my previous study with the Narnia books group.  So we have much to pray for as this year gets off to a bang and seeking wisdom in all these areas.  Please pray with us for these things!

I also found this funny picture from our Christmas play at the office- James Veldhorst as the angel Gabriel and me as Mary, just having found out I would be mother to baby Jesus as I cleaned my humble abode. Below, my family’s New Year’s celebration in South Texas.  Sad I couldn’t join them!

Not much else to report but just request for prayer as we make some decisions about ministry in these next couple of weeks, and attempt to make an English class schedule with the 5 teachers we have been blessed with as well as the students who have come in to sign up.  And of course, that the Gao Wao Bird might have mercy on us……

After a very low-key Christmas morning at our house, complete with Sausage Casserole, phone calls from the U.S, our Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and gift-opening with Dana, Andrew and I headed off to Phuket for a 3-day beach trip. 

We arrived on the 2-year anniversary of the tsunami, Dec 26, 2004.  It was baffling to still notice re-construction and refurbishing of residences, shops, hotels, and beachside resorts two years later.  There are now evacuation route signs EVERYWHERE along the beach should a similar situation occur again.  Once you see Patong (city on Phuket island), it is easy to see how the tsunami could cause such mass destruction when all the hotels & resorts are smack dab on the ocean shore, only a narrow street separating the water from the land.

Thai vendors there are also much more “foreigner-savvy”, if you will, as almost all vacationers there are foreigners, not Thais.  They really accost you on the street – for massages, taxis, tailor-made suits, you name it.  In some ways Patong really didn’t seem like Thailand at all…one look around and there are hardly any Thais in sight.

We enjoyed meeting alot of international travellers as you will find all over Thailand, especially this time of year as it is high season – the time between Christmas and New Years is the highest of the high season, so people come in droves from all over the globe – Europe, South America, Australia, Japan, China, India.

Other Christmas celebration pictures:  We attended Christ Church’s 100 year anniversary Christmas celebration at their downtown, beautiful church, with our friend Jawy.  She (2nd from right) lives in our neighborhood and is one of the first Thai Christians (besides our Thai staff) I have met in the Ram 2 neighborhood we live in.  Her church has a Christmas story show, carols, sermon, and huge feast with band.  We loved getting to see her church – 100 years old in Bangkok! – and get to know some of her friends too.  Pray for our relationship with her and her friend Bawm, as they have expressed interest in possibly helping us or doing a Bible study with us in Thai and other friends of ours.  We are hoping to have a small group Bible study started in our home.

We also attended a Christmas celebration at a former co-workers home, Joe, and his wife Ae (orange & white shirts in middle).  Somehow we were appointed to teach everyone the White Elephant present exchange game, and everyone was so intrigued by it and excited by it that the actual game only lasted about 5 minutes with all 20 guests….everyone was so eager to play that it was over before we knew it.  It was funny to see everybody getting so into it and stealing so eagerly.  Apparently a guy from a popular soap opera was there, 3rd from right.  Haven’t seen him yet on TV but apparently others there were excited to snap his picture.

So here we are welcoming 2007 into Thailand…we are praying about this year and all that the Lord will show us and bring to us through our team’s current ministries.  Pray for our endurance as we set out with goals for this year in mind and wisdom from Him as we try to figure out his path for us and this team & ministry this year. There are so many possibilities!

HAPPY 2007!