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….
