Mike has sleepless night caused by trapped dog in well!

I just talked to Mike again and he was able to send pictures of the new road. What amazing technology to send pictures from southern Thailand to northern Thailand and across the ocean within a few hours! Anyway- funny story here…… He told me that he was exhausted and going to bed early tonight because he didn’t sleep much last night. It’s hard to sleep in the village anyway because of the heat, hard cement floors, bugs, strange sounds, etc—but last night he was abruptly woken up in the middle of the night with a new story this time. A DOG HAD FALLEN IN THE WATER WELL AND WAS YELPING, MOANING, CRYING FOR A HALF HOUR- until someone finally came to rescue him. Poor little doggie—and why didn’t someone just go rescue him sooner? Tonight they’re back in town enjoying the luxuries of air-conditioning again.

First road built through the village

Mike called from the south and he gave a great report on the team working this week. There are 13 Americans and 1 Canadian working with our Thai team down there, and he said they are working like slaves. They’ve been working in the sun a lot and the temperatures are real high. No one has thermometers to give you a weather report—but Mike said it feels like 110 F. He has been encouraged to see them sacrificing their time and volunteering to do this hard labor of work in such difficult conditions. The little village now has a cement road running almost all the way through it, and they were able to get a lot of it accomplished in the last few days. Hopefully he’ll come back with a picture for me.

Hanging around the house........

My plan was to go with the project this week, but the day before they left- Mike suggested I stay home. I really wanted to be together with this team and sort of felt guilty to not be a part of them. However, I have a much higher need in my life for being organized, getting things done, and just spending time in our home. I think it has something to do with most women having a higher “domestic” instinct. For many months, we have been either traveling out of our home, or had guests here with us – so although I really wanted to go—it also sounded like a dream to be “home alone” for a week. I honestly think it’s the first time in my entire life that I have ever been in my home alone for a week—and I have to say I’m really loving it. It does seem though that the more I get done—the more I see that needs done. Anyway… my goal is to get enough “out from under the pile”—to be able to relax with Mike when he gets back. Not sure with my personality – if that’s possible—but I’m working on it.

Refreshing

This week, the thing that I think I have enjoyed the most—is more uninterrupted times alone with God. It has been so refreshing to be in His Word, have more alone time to pray as I do things, and to read. Oh, how I wish I could be more consistent in long hours with him. Weeks like this are so satisfying, so I’m going to enjoy this as much as I can while I have it.

I read this in a book this morning that says it well:
“If we do not spend quality time alone with God, we will not know his voice when he speaks in a crowd. We must guard theses times of intimacy well. It is here, in the secret place, that we can speak in our own special languages of love to the One who cherishes us most of all.”

Stint Team Tsunami Project

This week these two teams are working in southern Thailand on two different islands getting hot, dirty and sweaty for Jesus. They are putting roofs on some homes, finishing a new road, and helping with whatever other needs come up in the villages. Pray for safety, God's protection, and a great spirit of work in the midst of our hottest season.

Chiang Mai Stint Team

Bjorn, Jonathan, Andrew, David, Candice, Shana, Tricia, Emily

Chiang Rai Stint Team

Ramsey, Vinnie, Cristen, Amanda, Tabitha, Jessica

Stint Teams

Stint team is an acronym for "Short Term International". For the past 15 years, we have been having Stint teams come to work with us here in Thailand. They are usually a team of 4 to 12 Americans (or other nationalities) that are either taking a break from their university studies, just graduated, or on staff with Campus Crusade. They are young people who have a passion to go to another country and have an impact in national’s lives, but can only make a commitment for 1-2 years. This past year, we have had two stint teams working in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. They have built relationships with our staff and students, worked on learning the culture and language and are indeed having an impact on reaching Thailand with God's love. The Chiang Mai team lives in the neighborhood right where our offices are- so we get to see them more often.

Here's a picture of us eating lunch with them at a nice hotel as a special team outing.

The Chiang Mai team in our home for dinner.

The Chiang Rai team lives a three hour car drive north of us. Last month, we were able to go up and spend some time with their team. It was exciting for us to see how they have settled in and built relationships on campus.

The entrance to one of thier campuses, Chiang Rai University. Fun because in the USA, we call our groups on campuses "THE CRU"!

Lunch with the team near one of the campuses in Chiang Rai.

When we visited thier homes, we were impressed with how simple they had learned to live. This is thier full kitchen, adapted to be alot like a Thai kitchen might be.

Visitors from Home

This week has been a change of pace for us as we have been “home alone”. Ever since our return to Thailand, 10 weeks ago, we have either been out of our home traveling or had visitors here with us. With no daughters, no grandchildren, and no visitors—this week, our home has seemed very very quiet. Some of you have asked “who were all those visitors anyway?”. They all came to do a variety of projects and we enjoyed each of the visits and help. Here is the scoop on most of them:

January
--There were 23 from the Waterloo, Iowa area in and out of town, running a childcare program for missionaries.
--A the same time 5 men joined Mike to build that 31st home on elephant island.
--We got to have Mike’s brother and wife, Dick and Joy here with us for a month. They taught at the childcare program, Dick did Tsunami work and they visited their friends from their two years of living here.
--Pastor Jim Bauer from Finchford, Iowa and his family of 9 were here this year to visit and were involved in many peoples lives.
--Cornerstone Church from California brought a team of 12 to work here with us.
--Friends from China stopped through.

February
-- Brent and Amy Moen from California visited and
-- Chris and Katie Torres from Atlanta did their photography project.

As you must imagine, our city is a great place to visit and do some short term missions. Here’s a collage of photos of some of our visitors. Y’all come back now!

Fishing trip to Mae Ngat Dam

It is summertime here in Thailand and now that our Thai staff just got back from their project in villages, they had a few days off. Some of them asked us to go to a National Park dam fishing for relaxation last night. It was a very peaceful place that we love to visit, but a continual reminder that we are still in Thailand.


Its good that we went more to just spend time with our dear Thai friends, than to actually catch fish-- because this is one of the biggest catches of the trip, caught by Dew. We love spending time with them.



Meal times consisted of fish,rice,hot peppers and a few other things.

Rambo IV filming location

continuing from the fishing trip.... ...this is the view that we had looking across the lake. The Rambo IV movie was filmed on this lake and in these hills. We went to this movie and recognized many of the scenes filmed right here. The movie was very sobering to us, because it is not just "a movie" but reality of life for the people in Burma.

These were our sleeping rooms and dining area that were actually bamboo rafts on the water.

The view out our little window when I woke up early in the morning.

No Place Like Home

"Mid pleasure and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."
John Howard Payne

Thai Summer Project- March, 2008

After being out of our home for three weeks, I was looking forward to this week just being at home. But somehow- it seems that hasn't happened yet. Everyday has been a full day. Saturday, soon after we got back in town, I wanted to finish a bullentin board at our church that I had started. While my niece, Katie, was here, she took some photos of our church community and we wanted to get them up for people to enjoy before church on Sunday morn. Here are a few of them:

On Sunday night we went to a Celebration meeting for our Thai Summer Project. Each year during the Thai school summer break, we send our staff and students out in teams to unreached village areas. This year we had 7 teams go out that stayed with 40 different families. Many of the homes were the families of the student’s involved in our ministry, so this is a good way for the families to meet other Christians. During last week, as they visited the villages, the teams were able to share God’s message of love with around 470 people. It was a fun time for all the teams, and they were excited to reunite and made up skits to show some of the fun things they did while in the villages. Sometimes, they can be one big crazy group—as you can see…

We ended our time praying for all the new fruit in these villages scattered throughout northern Thailand and that lives would continued to be affected.

The Smith Family

Tonight we had our good friends, the Smith family over to our home for a "down home Texan meal." When we were in Texas last fall, they kept telling us that we had to eat at one of their favorite restaurants called Rudy's. We did enjoy our meal there and brought back some of their cups for the Smiths' as proof. Cooking American food in Thailand can sometimes be a challenge, but I did the best I could with an all American menu of pulled pork, potatoe salad, coleslaw, chocolate cream pie, etc. More important than the food- was the fun time together and conversations. Both of our lives are busy and we just don't get together often enough. We were neighbors with Greg and Becky in Bangkok, 15 years ago and with them during the arrivals of Audrey, Erin, and Peyton. We have lots of memories together of living and raising our families here in Thailand. My how those babies have grown!!! We love you Smith family!

Good to Great- in God's Eyes

I recently finished a book that I enjoyed so much and recommend to you for good reading. I took it a bit slow as there was a lot to absorb and even more to apply. Those basics are always good for me to keep reviewing. Hope it is as much of a blessing to you too. It is by Chip Ingram- and titled.....

"Good to Great- in God's Eyes".

Leadership Meetings in Bangkok

Today is our last day of leadership meetings in Bangkok. This week has consisted of…. lots of meetings… eating noodles, curry and lots of rice for lunches with our staff… discussions… times of praise and worship together… eating mangos and sticky rice during morning breaks… reports of the ministry from this past school year… a night of bowling together …strategizing for ministry in this next school year… papaya salad-sticky rice-BBQ chicken for lunch… casting vision… prayer for God’s direction…and more than 20 taxi rides to, from and around Bangkok.


A few reports that we are happy to share with you are:

--- this year we had 110 campus staff working on 49 campuses divided up into 4 regions throughout the country.

--- we ended this school year with 42 key students on 43 different campuses in our northern Thailand region

--- 5,795 students were personally shared with a plan of God’s salvation, and 12,000 students in groups and 100,000 were exposed to the message of God’s love for them. This made a total of 117,795 shared with in a variety of ways throughout the country.

Did I mention that Hanoi has 4 million people and 2 million motorcycles? That explains it, eh???

Final Images From Viet Nam

We are back home again in Thailand, and it truly feels good to be home- except that we won’t make it back up to our “home- home” for a few more days. This week, we have a week of leadership meetings in Bangkok. I wanted to share a few last pictures from our time in Viet Nam. Since we felt like tourists in a foreign country, I enjoyed taking photos of aspects of their culture that are different from Thailand.

For a haircut—just set up a stool in the middle of a sidewalk anywhere you choose.

The Vietnamese dish that is most famous is called Pho (pronounced “foe”). It’s a noodle dish served everywhere with either beef or chicken. We really liked it. This dish is served in noodle shops where you sit on a little stool in front of the shop. This is the shop that someone told us to go to because it was one of the best.
One of the handicrafts they are most known for is hand embroidered wall hangings with very intricate details. Many hours go into one piece.

We continued to be so amazed at the traffic the whole time we were there. They literally drove with an inch or two in between each other. Crossing the streets was incredible—we just had to walk in between them as they didn’t stop for us.

Since the main form of transportation was bicycles and motorcycles there was almost no limit to what we saw on these two wheels.

Trip into the countryside of Viet Nam

Getting to Halong Bay yesterday was a long 3 hour ride each way and our little van needed some shock replacements. We had thought it would be a good way to see the country side of Viet Nam and see more of the people and their culture.

Rice fields lined the countryside.

We came on an accident where a truck had rolled over in the road and it was full of live chickens in bamboo cages. This delayed caused us to sit in a traffic jam for more than ½ hour.

We visited a cave that was only discovered 13 years ago in the limestone mountains that come up out of the sea.

The boats waiting for us as we came out of the caves.

Halong Bay

Yesterday was a free day in our schedule- so we took a tour to the famous Halong Bay- which is one of the natural Wonders of the World. This has only been discovered as a tourist spot in the past 10 years. It was beautiful and once we survived the trip getting there we found it very relaxing to take in another beautiful creation of God – that we had never seen before. The boats we took were different than the ones in Thailand that we take out in the ocean.

The limestone mountains coming up out of the sea.

This is where we stopped for lunch that was cooked on the boat, mainly fresh seafood cooked Vienamese style.