Stickywrites

The mission field is ALL ABOUT CHANGE from what I have observed in the last 13 months of being here. On Sunday at 1:00 a.m., we welcomed our newest team member into the world, Adele Grace Henry, and on Monday evening we said goodbye to a MTW Thailand fixture in our lives: Dana Zandstra, who has been here for 11 months, arriving soon after we arrived in Thailand in Sept ‘06.

Sadly, I have no pictures of Dana’s going-away party because I lost my camera that morning, somewhere and somehow. That also means that I dont have any pictures of the Henrys with their baby Adele Grace Henry, but they sent me some of me & Andrew with her. She is beautiful and quiet (so far!) and just precious.

To include some pics of Mom Crystal as of late….we had a shower for her recently with all the women of our team.

With the diaper cake! from top left, clockwise: Catherine, Crystal, Jan, Pawn, Kieow, Me, Ying, Tang, Melanie, Yu, and Rhianna

Dana’s party featured her entire family (visiting for her last 2 weeks) and a feast of sorts, as well as her Thai (Christian) roommates singing her a beautiful song about what a friend means. Her party was very moving, seeing the testimony of what Dana has meant to the people around her here for the last year: the families of this team, her Thai roommates, her Thai English students, and her family from the States. We will truly miss her, her servant’s heart and willingness to serve others!

Here we are with Dana & Melanie recently on Khao San Road, a fun backpacker-ey area of

Bangkok with fun streetside cafes, vendors, and foreigners galore.

One of my favorites: doing a traditional Thai dance performance at English Camp last May…luckily I am hidden but Dana and Andrew are here in full view. We’ll miss you Dana!

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This thai word (tee-ow) translates as many meanings in English: to go on vacation, to go shopping, to go on a day trip/excursion of some sort, or to just simply go out, like to the grocery store or go shopping or see a friend. All in one word! It is used quite often, and its a great all-encompassing word. Bethany & Anne loved this word while they were here and thought Americans should adopt it. Well….I dont know about that but…

Anyway, Stacy and I got to go on a thiaw on my day off before she left to go back to America. We went to Ayuttaya, the ancient city and old capital before Bangkok. The funny thing about it being “ancient” is that actually it’s not that old…the ruins were really built in the 15th/16th centuries….so yes old but not exactly ancient. The ruins of old temples and palace grounds are so unkempt (purposefully-so) and decrepit that they seem older. We rented bikes for the adventure in Ayuttya, about a 2 hr train ride from Bangkok (no air – aaahhh!)

Here are some pics…

Where’s the Stacy-Waldo? At the train station waiting.

Our lazy riverside restaurant view

View of an old palace and ruins

The ever-present Buddha (with more recent clothing). Most of the Buddha statues in Ayuttya have been worn down by erosion, rain and ransacking. Most are missing heads!

Sweaty us after bike riding for 2 hours and climbing 100s of skinny steep steps

The coolest Buddha we saw. Made in and out of the roots of this ginormous tree. Those are people’s offerings laid in front.

Biggest candle EVER! Look at those intricate carvings. Candles or Incense Sticks are often used in worship and offerings in Buddhism, but this beats all. I couldn’t fit it in my camera viewfinder.

Avoid with a capital A. (falling rocks??)

Lions and elephants….

Our main purpose for being here as missionaries, and as a team, is to plant a church here in our area, Ram II, and eventually plant more churches following that, hopefully someday in other parts of Thailand as well. We believe that building relationships is what plants churches, so we spend alot of our time doing just that – building relationships with people and hanging out! We meet alot of Thais through our everyday life – our immediate neighbors, our extended neighbors, vendors in our area, our English students, our co-workers (who are all Christians with one exception). Outside of day to day interaction, we try to make plans with these people as much as possible, in an effort to get to know them and build trusting relationships with them, which of course could take years!! Especially with our basic Thai ability, which is growing but difficult to go deeper than surface-level most times. We pray often that God would be pleased to use as vessels for Him here in this area with the Thai people we know, and we pray for spritual interest among our friends and the Thais we have gotten to know well.

Here are some recent shots of such times:

Thais love posed pics…we had a barbecue at our house for some English students and friends.

Barbecue here is known as cooking shish-kabobs usually – with tomatoes, pineapple, chicken, squid, etc. Jean, your applesauce made an appearance, thanks to Andrew. Thais love it!

Here is Stacy with Tuum and Kim, two of the funniest people I know, after eating an all-you-can-eat Japanese buffet. (That strangely had American and Chinese food also, but whatever) Our stomachs are stuffed! Kim & Tuum are such a dynamic duo. They are inseparable best friends and are neverendingly silly and loud. When I teach them it doesn’t feel like work, just fun, because they are so fun to be around. Earlier this summer, Bethany and I went with them to the beach also!

Here’s another time we went kareoking with Bethany & Anne also! Catherine Rogers came too!

Sadly, one of the group, Phii Dam, decided to move away recently and has just left to go live with her husband in southern Thailand.  (It’s common for Thai families to split up for financial reasons, like parents will live in Bangkok to work while their kids go to school in the countryside and live with other family).  We were all really sad to see her go because she was such a sweet person and just so kind to all of us! We had a going away dinner at our house but I really miss her presence when we are all hanging out or in class every Saturday.

Andrew and I got to go to Kuala Lampur recently for the Asia Area Retreat – for all of our agency’s Asia-located missionaries. It was a nice, long week of hearing chanting out our hotel room windows (the mosque nearby broadcasted chanting during Ramadan) and hearing alot of great speakers, testimonies, and worship times. It was a such a huge encouragement to meet up with people we did some training with all throughout 2006 at different places, see them again and catch up with how they are doing after we all bonded in our preparation and training months. It was a nice breather to be able to speak English and not think hard eveyr second of the day to have the most basic conversation with people. 80% of Malaysians speak English! Unbelievable. There is so much Chinese influence there, along with Indian and Malay, of course.

We visited downtown KL, which boasts the Petronas Towers… pretty tall and cool looking. We went through the skybridge that connects the two and it was pretty breathtaking! Here it is from the outside….

Here it is from the inside!

Look at that storm we could see from way up high!

We visited a mosque nearby our hotel (the one with the chanting on the loudspeakers every 30 minutes), went to Chinatown - where I spotted this unidentified fruit (it’s not lychee or rambutan) – and mostly spent alot of time thinking and praying (not in the mosque) about our future and our calling, something we think and pray about every day. Here we were able to meet with some people we knew well throughout our training to pick their brain, ask opinions, and seek godly counsel.

And…we got to go to Chili’s!!! This may not seem like a highlight to most anyone who has their average Chili’s on any street corner in Citytown, USA, but to us, who have not had Queso in over a year, it was like an oasis of quesadillas and chips n’ queso. We used this as an opportunity to celebrate our one-year anniversary of being here.  I also found this sign on the wall – this town is about 25 miles from my hometown, San Antonio, so I found it funny to come across it in Kuala Lampur.

The funniest thing about going to Chili’s though, was that when we walked up at 6:45, there were no seats available, the hostess simply told me to return at 8:00. “Why?” I asked. “Because,” she explained. “It’s Ramadan. Don’t you understand? These people are fasting until 7:15. Then they will eat. Then they will leave. Then you come back for a table.” Riiiiiiight. So, apparently, during Ramadan, all the Muslims will not eat from 7:15 a.m. to 7:15 p.m., or sun-up to sun-down, and then absolutely pig out. From what we observed, at least. The people in the restaurant (we ended up getting a table, thankfully, so we could observe this feasting) sat silent and subdued, stirring their drinks and staring at each other, before, at 7:30, their orders began arriving from the overworked waiters and suddenly the restaurant came alive with happy chatter. They ordered several dishes: hamburgers, fries, nachos, drinks, and huge desserts. It was nuts. I have never seen Asian people eat so much because I’m so used to Thais and thai portions, which are nothing like huge, wasteful American portions. Thanks to Chili’s, a little bit of America is offered up to the Muslim people of KL during Ramadan.