Christmas At Our House.

This year we had a very quiet Christmas at home. For the last three years, we've gone to my parents' house for dinner or hosted the dinner, so it was strange to be at home. We did have a very sweet day, just the three of us. Reading the Christmas story, making cinnamon rolls, and eating an American-style meal (ham AND turkey!) with some good friends rounded out our day. 

Instead of individual Christmas gifts, we opted for one family gift this year and we are immensely enjoying this brand new water cooler!

We also had a visit to the doctor Christmas night, for a very good reason:

Peanut #2 is joining our little family in May! We were just glad to finally be seen by a doctor Christmas night. The timing didn't work out in the States with my doctor since we traveled to Texas and then of course we had the big move to Thailand and getting settled into a new house, city and country. Then we were on the hunt to find a doctor, got a recommendation, and tried to connect with her. Between our schedule and hers, that took some manuerving but all is well!! Peanut #2 is an active baby already and I think will give Paul a run for his money in terms of energy and activity.  Here we go!

A List.

In no particular order...

- A tumble down the last few stairs Wednesday morning left this Mama and son feeling sore. The bad news is Paul wouldn't put too much pressure on his left ankle until the middle of the day. I never got so many snuggles from my little boy before! The good news is he slept from 9 PM until 9 AM - which never happens in this household! We'll see how he does today, but I think a trip to the hospital can be avoided this time.

- Because of said tumble and concern over Paul's ankle, I decided to stay home from school Wednesday. Thankfully we have one more class on Friday and then a 10-day break, so I hope to catch up over the break on what I missed!

- My husband flys home today from a nearby country! We've really missed him around here, but I'm glad he got to take this trip. We are ready for the better half to be back. :-)

- After being with us for the last 7 weeks, my niece starts her long journey to the States on Friday night. The song "I'll Be Home For Christmas" has been heard around our house recently and in her case it's very true! We've had a wonderful time with her and it goes without saying she has been an immense help here. Our recommendation to any missionaries planning on settling in on the field in the future is to take a helper, especially if you have small kids!

- The lack of cooking taking place in this house sometimes amazes me. But then I think about it from the perspective it's actually cheaper to go eat at the neighborhood restaurant ($1.00 or less) than it is to go buy the ingredients. That's cooking Thai food. When we talk about American food, the expense really shoots up! With all the time and energy devoted to language study, I am so drained mentally after class that we often eat out on those nights. It helps having our neighborhood restaurant and a market just across the busy highway. There is always variety to be had! This trend is here until school ends. We won't be in school for ever.... it just feels like it sometimes. :-)

- Last week, at the request of the local pastor who has connections at a school, we taught English to two classes of 4th graders. At first it was pretty intimidating, but then I realized we are native speakers, so anything we would say would be an immediate help because these students and their schools don't have enough funding to compete for the elusive "trained" English teacher from America. We really had a good time and it made me appreciate my language teachers more, because I could hear the students saying the words incorrectly and know my teachers can hear me say the Thai words incorrectly. :-) It was fun to be able to do some teaching!

- Our plans for Christmas are to have a quiet day at home and maybe enjoy an American meal at a restaurant. There's a special program Sunday at the church we attend, but that's about it. Christmas isn't hugely celebrated here (although the commercialism is!) and New Year's Day is actually the big event. So I'm sure things will ramp up after Christmas!

- I've been reading through the book of Proverbs for my devotions, in keeping with the Sunday School lessons back at my home church, and have founds tons of gems in this wise book. I've also found tons of things to work on in my life, as those one-line proverbs really have a way of going directly to the heart of the issue. It's been a sweet study.

- I'm amazed at how much attention our little boy gets from Thai people. Whenever we are doing a more touristy-than-not activity, a bunch of people will come up and touch Paul, try to get him to smile, and even hold him so they can take a picture. Last Saturday we took our niece to another province to a white temple and no less that five different people wanted to take their picture with Paul! Such good opportunities to speak for Christ.

- I'm thankful for Skype, Magic Jack, blogging, e-mail, facebook, and snail mail. We've used all of them to keep up the communication back home, which makes home feel a little less far away. This is just a plug in that I am working on too: communicating with someone on the foreign field might not seem like a big deal to you, but it is HUGE to those on the field. Every email, Facebook message, phone call and note in the mail screams, "I do care and haven't forgotten about you. I'm extremely busy, but I wanted to let you know you matter." I've been trying to make my communication more meaningful, being prodded on by the verse to show myself friendly. I can sit around and wait for someone to call, or I can pick up the phone a and call someone. Simple! Like I said, I'm still working on this too because communication is definitely a two-way street. I recently read something that I thought was a little sad: a missionary on the field hardly ever heard from their sending church. What? I'm thankful for those in our church who have taken the time to drop us a note, because it means a lot. One man in particular even went so far as to call my husband a couple of times which was a big deal to Nat. He got off the phone and was excited for the spiritual "iron sharpening iron." I know men have a harder time communicating but it made my husband's day that this brother called. By the way, if you write, I will respond! My goal is to answer one email message a day, and that "usually happens! It just might take me time to respond to everyone. :-)

Time to get moving!

Counting My Blessings.

It's easy to count my trials and discouragements, especially when I'm in the thick of them. Towards the end of last week and the weekend, God has been impressing on my heart that there are many things that I can call blessings. The song "Count Your Blessings" is really a great reminder to do that very thing.

So in no particular order, here are some blessings from the recent past.

- Language study: As much as some days this can be a trial :-), I've noticed that in the 2.5 weeks of school, I'm speaking/understanding way more Thai than I did in the previous 1.5 years I lived here. That is encouraging! On the days I don't feel like going to school, I'm reminded that learning the language is part of our ministry because our end goal is communicating the Gospel. We're getting there!

- Driving: I'm a big fan of driving. When I was single (and gas was cheaper!), I would take weekend adventures and have no destination in mind... just drive, drive, drive! One of my goals was to learn to drive stick shift and here in Thailand we have the extra twist of driving on the opposite side of the road. Something came up to really motivate me to learn stick shift and I'm happy to report I've now driven to the store and back and to church and back to center-city Chiang Mai. I plan on driving to school today and trying to get in as much driving as possible this week, so by the end of the week I'll be confident enough to drive by myself on the road with other drivers and the crazy road gnats (motorcycles) all while shifting with my left hand. I've only stalled a couple of times and that's a big accomplishment!

- Living in a new culture: A friend and I wrote back and forth on email a little bit (I still have to answer the last one!) and she made the comment not only did we move to a new country, we moved to a new continent, culture, and and language. Once I read that, it really put it into a new perspective for me. Nat and I mentioned to each other how smooth our transition was to Thailand and how we felt "normal" right away, but we did in fact make quite the jump! It's easy to forget since we've spent so much time in Thailand, but this was kind of a huge deal. :-)

- My niece: Tiana joined us for a 7.5 week trip as we got settled in and I really don't know how we would've done it without her help! From watching Paul numerous times while we sorted things out to helping deep-clean our house, this gal is worth her weight in gold. Our time with her is coming to an end soon, but I would keep her if I could. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday she watches Paul while we study in the morning and then when we go to school in the afternoon. That right there has been a huge help!

- Our Sunday routine: The church we attend here doesn't have a service until the afternoon so every Sunday morning we do a Bible study on the same thing our church is studying back at home. Right now we've been going through Proverbs and the study has been so good. After the study, we'll listen to one of the messages our pastor preached the previous Sunday. Our church streams the services live, but we're (usually!) in bed by the time the morning service is streamed (10:30 PM our time) and we're still sleeping when the evening service is streamed (6:30 am our time). I did have a extra burst of energy a week ago Sunday night and watched the service, but that doesn't usually happen. :-) When the time change takes place in the spring, it will be easier to catch the service since it will only be 9:30 PM our time. It sure helps us feel a little more connected with what's going on back home, and one of the girls from my Sunday School table sends me the prayer requests each week, which is a real blessing. I miss my table and the fellowship, but at least we're still there in spirit! This is a side note, but I really miss our nursery!! Ladies who work in nursery, your labors are not in vain! Most services here, I end up taking Paul to the other room, although last night he sat through the entire service. Crackers work wonders. :-)

- Sleep: We dealt with a very jet-lagged little boy when we first got here, and I don't want to do that again anytime soon! Paul's had a couple of rough nights since then, but is basically back to his normal pattern. We don't take sleep for granted and even though we're not able to have *our* morning routine settled yet, we're getting there. Paul is in our room and Tiana is in the second bedroom, so when she leaves we're moving him out! This kid could be in a dead sleep and then the second we turn the water on for a shower (the bathroom is off of our room), he wakes up. Or one of us rolls over in bed and he sits up. :-) Sensitive little ears! So we're looking forward to having him in his own room soon, but we're very grateful for the sleep we have gotten!

There's a lot more I could list and I think I will in another post. But for now it's time to get ready for our language study before we go to class in a few hours. :-)

Happenings.

This morning was actually cool and I thought it was beginning to feel like Christmas... and then the sun rose higher in the sky. :-) I try not to have too high of an expectation when it comes to the weather in Thailand, unless of course that expectation is hot! Thankfully we are in cool season, because I know what's coming in April!

Humorous side note: an Australian man just walked by our truck, saw the (small) barking dog and said, "hello, Giraffe!" What a name for a dog. :-)

Our days are filled with a couple of key events: language school, studying for language school, and going to the grocery store every couple of days. Exciting, right? Gotta start somewhere. :-)

Language study IS coming along - and at a fast pace. I'm very thankful we're going three days instead of five days a week. Monday's class was learning about colors, reviewing what we studied on Friday, and our first quiz. Yeah, now I really feel like I'm in school! The Thai language is slowly starting to break down for us and we're recognizing letters everywhere even though we can't read the signs yet. Little by little, bit by bit!

Today's new adventure includes replacing the kitchen faucet and finding charcoal to grill out for dinner. Never a dull moment!

Riding The Elephants.

Today we decided to head to an elephant camp near us and really enjoyed the day. It wasn't our typical Thanksgiving Day, but since we were missing family, cold weather and the aroma of dinner cooking, we choose to do something that we wouldn't normally do in the States. :-)

We actually packed in a lot of things and the camp we visited was the best elephant camp we've ever been to, by far. So if any of you want to come for a visit to see us, we'll probably take you here!

We decided to do the all-in-one package which was well worth the price. We first enjoyed a Thai buffet lunch, followed by an elephant show. The elephants play soccer, move logs with their trunk and paint pictures. Very well, I might add! Always impressive. After that we took a ride on an elephant and returned to the camp on an ox cart. The day finished out with a very lovely and peaceful bamboo raft ride down the river. What a beautiful day!

I learned today that an elephant has 40,000 muscles in its trunk ... fascinating! As I watched the elephants, I couldn't help but marvel at the handiwork of God. What an amazing Creator!!

One of the 66 healthy elephants at the camp. 

Paul wasn't too excited about an elephant hug. :-)

Watching the elephants play

My niece (who is with us for another month) loved riding the elephant:-)

Paul and Nat on the elephant. Paul didn't make a sound the whole time we rode the elephant, but he definitely held onto the bar!

Just walking through the river

We had one tuckered out little boy at the end of the day! Here he is riding on the ox cart. 

Arrival.

We have arrived! In Thailand, that is and that happened a week ago. Oops. We have been slightly busy moving into our new house and getting acclimated to a new country. As an aside, going from a three room apartment to a two-story house has been a big adjustment!  There is space everywhere and it's all filled with furniture. :-) We've done some shuffling around to make hard, wooden furniture a little more cozy (if that is even possible) and we're slowly getting things put away. Actually I feel like we've accomplished quite a bit in one week's time.

Wednesday night was my first time cooking an actual meal in our kitchen (unless scrambled eggs and oatmeal count)! A few days ago we got the ingredients for chicken parm and then each evening we would be so tired, busy, or away from the house that we didn't get around to making it. Plus the Thai food here is incredibly cheap. Our first day in the country, we decided to go to the neighborhood restaurant for lunch. My niece, who is with us for several weeks, couldn't believe the three of us ate lunch for under $2.00! Let's just say it cost a whole lot more to make chicken parm, so that's going to be a recipe reserved for special occasions. :-)

We've been enjoying having a market just across the street... well, it's slightly more complicated than that because the "street" is a 6-8 lane road filled with busy traffic and we have to wait at the light for 197 seconds to make the u-turn. Yeah, it's always depressing to drive up to the traffic light and see it just turn red. That would be the perfect time to catch up on some reading. :-) Nevertheless, the market is always a sight (and smell!) to behold. Of course there are lots of things I haven't tried yet. :-)

A few months ago, a missionary's wife wrote me a letter as I was in the packing stage and said, "there are things you are going to pack that when you get to Thailand you'll ask why you brought it!" That has been very true on a couple of things. My niece brought some of our stuff over in her luggage and I'm thinking she'll be taking a few items back when she returns home! No sense keeping something here taking up room when it can return to where it belongs! Overall though, I've been very glad for most of the items we packed. Since it's been four years since I lived in country, I've forgotten what it was like to live in Thailand. Other memories came back in a hurry. :-)

A new day awaits us and each day since we've arrived has been an adventure! Good thing we still have our sense of humor intact - we've needed it several times already. :-) I'm sure there will be more adventures to come!

Grace.

And so it begins. Our marathon, that is! The next three days are jam-packed with special events, saying "see ya later" to dear people we love, and walking away from our first home. You'll have to forgive me for being sentimental; it is somewhat warranted for where we're at right now. 

We leave for Thailand on Tuesday and I am beyond excited that this day has finally arrived. We've had plenty of starts and stops to this journey but I know the Lord has been faithfully leading us through it all. 

I think about my dad passing away 6 months ago and how God in his mercy allowed us to still be in the States to grieve with family. I also think about all the travels of the last year or so and I realize we got to see tons of people that we usually don't see. Our travels have taken us from Maine to Alaska, with everything in-between and we wore out a path down to Texas - to the point that things in a state hundred of miles away began to look familiar. :-)

We've always enjoyed coming home and my heart does an extra beat whenever i type "home" into our GPS. Funny how the miles seem to fly by when we're heading that way! I often say to my husband that my favorite street in the world is the street that leads us to our street. :)

The hardest part in the midst of all of "the lasts" and the packing has been packing up my house - completely. We've left it before for months on end but we've always returned. I still have some kitchen items to pack away, and those carry-ones still aren't packed, but we're getting there. Back in the summer I began to get serious about the whole "everything's gotta go" deal and so I took the first picture off the wall. I think removing that first picture hurt deeper than all the subsequent events because it was so final. Nat came home from work that day to a pile of bubble-wrapped pictures and a tearful wife. Thankfully God's grace is sufficient and He gives strength day by day.

So here I sit at the beginning of probably one of the the most busy and emotional weekends of my life, and I contemplate that thought. God's grace is sufficient. Friday I took my son and spent the day with my mom and my sister, primarily to get out of my husband's hair so he could have the concentration to finish up some important details. My husband didn't ask me to leave (and he never would!), but I know how loud my son can get and figured this was one way to bless my husband. Of all mornings, Paul was up early, and I do mean early! God's grace is sufficient no matter what's going on, even as I tried to rock my son back to sleep. Throughout the day, Paul exhibited lots of signs of tiredness, so I assured my mom and my sister that he would definitely fall asleep in the car. I'm not sure if it was the excitement of seeing so many people throughout the day or if it was because I was using his old car seat, but Paul would not take a nap, aside from a short 20 minute nap in the morning. 6 hours later, I was very close to tears and frustrations. But then the reminder came. God's grace is sufficient. Totally. 

I'm happy to report Paul did fall asleep as we were heading over to someone's house in the evening, in his new car seat mind you! And God's grace was sufficient for me the whole day... I just needed a reminder. :-) I am very excited and unbelievably sad all rolled into one this weekend. Such a bittersweet time. But the one truth I'm clinging to this weekend is God's grace is sufficient... for me. 

A Summary Of Deputation.

Since we began deputation 19 months ago, with 12 of the months actually being on the road, we've traveled 30,000+ miles (glad that's behind us), presented our ministry in 72 churches in 28 states, drove through 34 different states, had one car accident, stayed in all kinds of places and in all kinds of situations and met some of the sweetest people out there. Friendships were developed and strengthened, kindness was shown to us many, many times over, and our desire to get to the mission field intensified each time we presented our burden.

But now? Deputation is officially behind us. We were done at the end of June, but had two last commitments to complete in October, so now we can say we're done for sure. :-) As evidenced by this blog, I have a great love for travel, but after being on the road for a year and living out of a suitcase, I'll admit the novelty of traveling has worn off a bit. Add into the mix traveling with a newborn baby and that really puts a whole new spin on things! When we went to Texas for this last trip, Paul and I flew down while Nat spent four days driving (poor guy). So I missed out on the first leg of the road trip, but we experienced it full force the rest of the way! Paul did fairly well during the days, but nights were just a mess. In fact, one night he was up from 1 am - 6 am for no apparent reason (like teething, flu, etc). That one really baffled us and the next day we had a 6.5 hour drive to make. Thankfully he finally slept. ;) Since we've been home though, he's been doing very well and going to his bed with zero fuss. I guess he really does sense all the upheaval and chaos and reacts to that.

So now starts the mad dash to the finish line, so to speak. We hit the ground running with commitments and people to see and this next week looks pretty full. In between spending time with people, we have lots of packing to finish and things to put into storage. I thought I did a pretty good job of downsizing our stuff until I came home Thursday (after living out of a suitcase for three weeks) and realized things just multiplied while we were gone! So now it's time to get ruthless again. :-) In the end, it's all just things and I have to keep reminding myself of that. 

17 days before take-off!!!

Exciting Times!

We just ended our first of two missions conferences Sunday evening and it was exciting and sad all rolled into one. Exciting because this was the first missions conference of this church and we know the Lord is going to do great things as long as this church stays yielded to Him. But it was sad to say good-bye to the other four missionary families, knowing that we won't see them for a very long time or ever again until eternity. Unless we have layovers in Australia, Mexico, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island that is! I told Nat we could take a different route to and from Thailand every time because we have so many friends in so many countries. Can you imagine a trip that includes stops in South Africa, Scotland, and Canada? That would be a looong trip home!

One of the missionary families was quite delayed in getting to Texas from Oklahoma City (4 hours away). Last week someone tried to steal their diesel from their truck and made a real mess of some hoses. They got that fixed and then were on the way down to Texas when their transmission died. They finally got here Saturday by borrowing a church van. This morning the pastor was sharing their story and said a couple of people gave him checks to go towards the transmission repair. He then mentioned if anyone else wanted to give, they could. I was so thrilled and excited for this missionary family as this little country church took up a free-will offering of several hundred dollars. I know how it feels to have an overwhelming car problem that you have no idea how it will all sort out and then the Lord uses people to meet that need. God is so good and I'm thankful this family got to be on the receiving end of His goodness!

We have now entered the "under one month" mark for Thailand! That is to say, Lord willing, this time next month we should be in Thailand, travel weary and bone tired. Ahh, but before that month finishes out, we have exciting things in store. Birthdays to celebrate, an early Thanksgiving with my family, dinners, lunch dates, packing, more family time, a special sending service at our home church and yes, tearful hugs and goodbyes for now. I'm not a huge fan of long, drawn out goodbyes but there's something sweet about those teary goodbyes too. I know that God will give much grace to make this big move halfway around the world!

Texas Travel.

We've been hanging out in the middle of nowhere Texas for the last couple of days, but it has been nice to have a comfortable trailer to stay in! We're taking part in a little country church's first missions conference and we are glad to be here, along with a few other families we've crossed paths with while on deputation. If we can't see a missionary when they come to our home church, then we'll just have to meet up with them at a conference!

Yesterday we drove about 45 minutes to a nearby town (yes, that is nearby for Texas!) to what is considered the world's largest flea market (http://www.cantontradedays.com/). If it's not the largest, it's certainly a close second! We walked around for a couple of hours and gazed longingly at everything we couldn't buy. We did pick up two small Christmas items, and kept telling ourselves the day is coming when we will be able to purchase things again. For now, we wait until Thailand! 

The market we were at reminded us a lot of Thailand, with the exception of the booths having space between them and wide aisles to walk through. The day was hot and the sun seemed to be just above our head. It was a good reminder of what's in our future! Thankfully the humidity was low. :-)

From here we move on to Louisiana, a state I've not been to yet. I'm surprised the tourist in me hasn't started checking out things to do in Shreeveport and Baton Rouge. :-) I'll gladly take suggestions!

I can tell that we've been out of the traveling mode for a while, because we're all slightly off our groove and what little schedule/routine Paul had is gone.  I'm very grateful our deputation days are over because I'm not as big of a fan of traveling anymore. I'm ready to make the one last big trip to Thailand and then be done for a little bit. :-)