Refelection

With about a month left in our time in Thailand we've been thinking a lot about what we've been apart of in the past five months and are starting to think about what is next. Jen has done a great job of telling the story of our family's time; I'd like to share a bit about the ministry time.

Oops, we woke him up but he got a free Bible :) 

With the team from Chile and Base Staff

If you have been reading our posts you'll remember Jen sharing that the pace of life changed a lot after Christmas. A couple of things happened; the biggest was a momentum swing with Share Bibles. The base goal was to finish bible distribution to every home, student and temple in the sub-district of Nang Lae. Check we got it done! We had two teams arrive early in January one from Kona, for 10 days, and another from Chile, that stayed with us 2 months, and a team from Australia in February here for 10 days, which were a huge help to accomplishing our goals.
If you've seen the video you'll have a sense of what we are doing (if not check it out here!) The country is broken down into Provinces (76), Districts (877), sub-Districts(LOTS), and villages (75,000!) We've been working hard to complete our sub-District, Nang Lae made up of 14 villages, more than 5000 homes, nearly 1700 students, 10 temples.

Emmetts favourite way to travel.
With friends in a Song Teaw.

So how does this work... we first gather a ton of data, some from various levels government, driving the areas in advance or using google street view to figure out where one village ends and the next begins. Then the villages are divided into sections; each section is given to a team of 3 to 5 people to distribute bibles home by home and temple by temple. Schools are tackled by larger teams usually with some kind of accompanying English teaching program, music and dramas. Lots of fun :)
"So then what?" you say. The team walks up to a home shouting out Sawadee krap/ka (hello). Sometimes we will have a Thai speaker with us but usually not. We tell them we have a free book for them. Everyone loves free especially if its one of our charming little boys making the offer, no one ever rejects a bible the boys offer. Show a short video that explains what to do and how to read it. We developed an app to collect addresses and GPS locations, snap a nice picture, and track who received a bible and how many or do they need a different type of material (language, audio/video formats).  It also allows non-Thai speakers to interact with Thais on a basic level. This way we track when did a home get a Bible and can plan for follow up with later teams. In the future teams that distributed the bibles will be able to see when a team goes back for follow-up, people ask for prayer, attend church, become a Christian and get baptized!

Kids at a school happy with their bibles

Pretty cool right? But will it work you wonder? What s amazing is every time we've done an afternoon of Bible distribution when we walk back to the truck you can see people sitting on their front steps reading, often already with a neighbour. We have been part of giving away a couple thousand Bibles!
Thais are social learners, the translation we use Thai Sourceview, has speaking parts printed in different colours. Black text represents the narrator. Red text symbolizes God's words. Green text indicates lead character words, and blue text is used for all other speaking parts. They will often adjust to their speaking parts using dramatic voices they think are appropriate for the part or character they are speaking. That's right they have fun reading the Bible together. Its been the best of what we've done here, being a part of the Holy Spirit's work in Thailand. 
What is so great is this allows for a church or ministry in a village to partner and take on responsibility for bible distribution in their village or sub-District. And allows individuals, groups or churches to sponsor a village by buying bibles or sending a team to help with the distribution. Some of the villages are pretty small; for couple of hundred dollars you could see an entire village receive Bibles or send a team for a week and we'll help you do it yourself. Its a great project for a community group or church to apart of. A mission that will see the Word in Thailand and fosters discipleship and church planting. 
Here is a video from one of the teams that was here in January:)

On the Share Bibles big picture; meetings that Rob had with other potential partners in other parts of Thailand were starting to bear some fruit. I got to join him on a trip to Chiang Mai in January. We received enough to print another 20,000 bibles! Just in time too as we are running very low. Then
Rob was invited to speak at a conference in Cambodia where there were ministry leaders from many countries. Suddenly, the secret was out and our quiet little plan to distribute 35,000,000 bibles to the 75,0000 villages in Thailand seems, well, kind of small. Many want to use the tools, the bible (in their language) and the app, the team here has developed to see the same work in their countries. Including one ministry that has 2 million people ready to cover and entire country in a single month later this year! This isn't a backyard project any more. Exciting and a little scary.

Unloading 20,000 Bibles

Fortunately, I've got some good connections. We reached out to a fellow in our Community Group back home (thanks Dave!) who has experience with data collection apps to help out with the app and hopefully making it robust enough to withstand the potential international onslaught of data collected. And to some other friends in network and database management and to the film industry, we want to make an animated version to go along with a dramatized audio version.

Yes we need help! Let me know if you are interested. App people, database people, animators, photographers, logistics people and if you want to come and bring bibles to peoples homes or provide resources for a team here to do.

Training a team to distribute bibles

Helping co-ordinate teams has been the other area of responsibility and a challenge.  There was a lot of learning on the fly. My bureaucratic experience has been coming in handy. I've got some systems coming into place for organization and communication, developing an orientation and information package, expectations and responsibilities as well as collecting feedback for ongoing improvement. But honestly January was like drinking from a fire hose. I didn't know the lingo, didn't really know what a DTS team was or what they were supposed to do. Spoke no Thai. Only knew one couple that didn't live on base. Most everyone on staff was either away on vacation, on outreach or at a conference. It was 12 hr days, 6 1/2 days a week with no net.  We learned alot; the first week was rough. Then some opportunities to get into schools and children's homes came along. I've started to develop a (small) network of ministries that can use teams. Sometimes it is working with kids, a physical or construction task, hospital visits or helping a senior with cleaning their home. Watching the teams serve in all these with all their hearts and full of love has been pretty special too. Its been a real honour to work so closely with these teams. They've made a real impression on our family.

The boys really helped out at a school

On the practical side of things I'm the maintenance guy. I've been cleaning up a lot of electrical and plumbing problems keeping the small equipment in order and once in a while helping out in the garden. While Jen has been helping out in the accounting and bookkeeping team. I'm sure no one at home is surprised to hear we host regular meals at our place, we hope to give a bit of a family feel to those who are far from their own families. Of course it's been a great way to get to know those we are serving alongside of.
At this point I'm not sure what God's plan is for our family but I know we'll be much more prepared to lead missionary teams; either receiving them here or bringing teams from home. Keep us in your prayers for direction; it will be exciting to see how this unfolds.

Oscar took this photo after giving them bibles

Hellos and Goodbyes

Our flights home are booked, and as of tomorrow, we have 5 weeks until we fly away from Thailand. Judging by how quickly the past 2.5 months have flown by it'll be here before we know it.

On returning from our visa run to Kuala Lumpur, the Chile team was still at the base and a team had arrived from Australian. The base staff and teams had been invited to go to three schools, grades 1 - 6,  in Chiang Kong; about an hour and a half drive north. Right on the border of Laos. The teams lead programs with the kids and our boys were showered with stickers and candies for Valentines Day. Different languages didn't stop anyone from having a great time.

In the Chile team's last week we did a few afternoons of bible distribution. One home we went to on the last trip had three women, likely three generations, who invited us onto their deck. Before you know it glasses of ice water came out, tomatoes from the garden and bunches of fresh bananas. While our group had no Thai speakers, with hand gestures and crazy antics from the boys, we were able to spend about 20 minutes together.  On the way home we saw one of the ladies explaining to her neighbour how to read the Bible we had left for her. It was such a great experience.

Sadly, the time had come to say goodbye to our beloved friends. Having them with us every day for two months, they had become part of our Thailand family. I have never met a group of people who were always so eager to do whatever job they were assigned, and always with a smile. We had them over for one last family dinner before they left, and were blessed by their love, service, and prayers. (Emmett looks at your pictures Friends every time he comes into the dinning hall.)

On the home front, our mornings have become more structured. As I am a highly qualified, competent homeschool teacher, I have taken in another student! Our friends and neighbours asked if their three year old son, Sadudee, could join us Monday and Tuesday mornings for school. Um... yes? What's another kid when you already have three littles ones, right?! This has forced me to be more organized in my school planning. Oscar is now more involved, before he and Emmett ran wild while I tried to work with Isaac. We do more crafts and snacks, and I'm learning to relax if it all falls apart and ends with crying children! 

One of the most rewarding homeschooling outcomes has been seeing Isaac learn how to read! He's not quite able to take over bedtime stories, but watching him sound out words and have many more sight words under his belt has been amazing!

We joined a playgroup that meets every Wednesday which has been so good for the boys to have new friends to play with, and for me to have mamas to hang out with.

Bum (pronounced boom), and Alee, Sadudee's parents, have had us all over for lunch a few times and have been great friends and mentors in Thai culture. Bum also gave me a Thai cooking lesson! I can't wait to share my new skills with you all when we get home.

We had two weeks of no teams on base in the beginning of March; a nice change of pace. Time to recover from the business of the previous two months, and spend time as staff to pray for God's direction in ministry. It was great to spend time together learning, praying and planning for the future.

Monday we filled back up again and the best part is it was people from home! A team from South Abbotsford Church arrived for two weeks of work projects and Bible distribution. On Wednesday a team from MEI, Rob and my old high school came too! While we only knew a few people on these teams, there's something extra special about people coming from home. We were back out with both teams doing bible distribution, the excitement tired Emmett right out.

Friday was Emmett's birthday, my littlest one is now two! He was excited to be awoken by his brothers singing happy birthday, and for cards to open from both sets of Grandparents.

He got sung to again at lunch and received a cake from the staff.

Then that evening had a birthday dinner at the base. We cooked his favourite foods, french fries and hot dogs. The South Abbotsford Church team made the best possible birthday dinner food; Rollkucken and watermelon. A classic Mennonite summertime meal! It was amazing.

One more week with the South Abbotsford Team, and the MEI team leaves tomorrow.
We are excited for what we will get to participate in these last five weeks. While we are looking forward to going home and reconnecting with those we miss, we know there is still so much more in store for us here. We may not know all that lies ahead, but we do know it will be above 35 degrees.

(Super dad made the boys a tire swing!)

Deported?

It's been a crazy start to 2017. With some things going as expected, and some surprises. We knew our 90 day volunteer visa was ending February 3rd but had been of the understanding that we would be able to get Mike a work permit in Thailand then we could extend all of our visas for another 90 days. January 30th we found out that Mike couldn't get a work permit; we had to leave the country by the 3rd of February or we would be permanently kicked out of Thailand. Yikes! Amazingly, (thank you Jesus) we were able to get flights on points to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with only four days notice to get our new visas. So just like that, we packed our bags and left the country!

We had very little time to research the city and prepare for our trip, and maybe would not have chosen Kuala Lumpur as a vacation destination for our family, it was a great time to get away and do some fun things together. It was a big change of pace going from our rural village in Chiang Rai to the big bright city of KL. In many ways it was a glimpse back into our familiar Vancouver. While obtaining our new visas was our main objective we also wanted the boys to have a great time. Our most frequented location was KLCC park which is right in the centre of the city beside the Petronas Towers. It has the biggest playground I have seen anywhere and a large, shallow splash pool. It was nothing like the steel drum playgrounds we find in Thailand!

Arriving on a Friday, we had the weekend to explore the city before we were able to go to the Thai Consulate on Monday. We walked many many kilometres around the city. Overall, the boys did very well. Walking around in the heat, sometimes it was just a bit much  and there were races to see who would get in the stroller first. Sometimes this happened.

We arrived shortly after Chinese New Years and the boys enjoyed checking out the decorations and performances. 

Monday morning comes around and Mike heads over to the Thai Consulate with all of our paperwork to apply for the same volunteer visa we had the first time. Thankfully, the apartment had a pool the boys and I headed down for a swim while we waited to hear back from Mike.

To our surprise, when Mike finally gets to the counter after waiting for a few hours, he is told that we cannot get that same visa without our marriage certificate and the boys' birth certificates. What? We didn't need these when we applied in Vancouver. Worse, we did not have any of them with us here, they were trapped back at home in the storage locker, or the barn or maybe the trailer. Who knows! We weren't even sure where to ask someone to look. We couldn't ask friends or family at home to locate and scan copies of these documents to us as it could take days to even find out where they were! After some panicked messages back to Thailand with Rob, he recommended applying for a tourist visa which would be for a shorter duration, maximum 60 days, less requirements and still adequate for the help we were doing. So the next day we all piled into an Uber and went to the consulate. The boys smiled, bowed, and "sawadee-cup-ed" the people at the consulate, and dropped off our documents. We would have to wait until the next day to find out if the visa was approved.

Next something fun for the boys after spending the morning in line ups we went to the KL equivalent of Science World. It is even in the same partner organization as Science World in Vancovuer, so we were able to enter for free! The boys loved it, we spent nearly five hours there that afternoon.

24 hours later it is nearly time to collect our visas which can be picked up between 2-4 the following day. After a quick lunch at the mall the boys and I headed back to the splash pool at the park and Mike went back to the Consulate. Seeing as I am writing this blog post sitting at our home in Chiang Rai, Thailand, you can probably guess our visas were granted. And better yet, for the month of February, Thailand is waiving the fees for tourist visas so we even got them for free! Praise Jesus, He may keep us on our toes, but his plans for us cannot be thwarted.

We spent the last three days of our time in KL relaxing, (well, as much as you can with 3 small kids!) and eating as many different types of food as possible. We love Thai food, but really enjoyed the variety we were able to find in KL. We even did a night of peanut butter and jam sandwiches for the boys, and after tucking them in to bed, had a quiet dinner of cured meats, imported cheeses, and some fruit of the vine!

One last kid focus destination was the aquarium. We did not spend nearly the amount of time there as we did the Science Centre, but it was still a big hit.

We had a great time in Kuala Lumpur, but are happy to have made it back to Thailand!

Home Alone

It's been  almost two weeks back to work from the Christmas break and what a change of pace it has been! Mike has been putting in 10-12 hour days getting things organized for the two teams that are here, one from Chile and one from Kona Hawaii. As he has not gone through the discipleship training school that they are a part of before, it has been a steep learning curve for him to figure out how everything works. And Rob, the base leader, has been away speaking at a school in Chiang Mai for the week so Mike and the team have largely had to figure it out as they went along. I have a feeling that is par for the course for missionaries!

Over the weekend we had the opportunity to take the Chile team to the flower show. Unlike last time, the kids carnival type area was open which the boys were told we could check out at the end of the flower show. And they had a little 3 year buddy, Sadudee, to run around to flower show with this time which they really enjoyed. Mike had to take the team back but the boys and I hit the rides section to pick out one ride the boys would like to try before we went home. Of course they chose bouncy castle world. I paid for them to have 20 minutes of fun running around the different areas of inflatable fun. Isaac and Oscar particularly enjoyed the big bouncy slide. I'm sure you can see why.

It seems as though our being from Raincouver has finally rubbed off. January - April is the dry season  in Chiang Rai and I have heard that it may rain once or twice for the whole 4 months. We have had about a week and a half of cool temperatures and lots and lots of rain. While we are used to rain to go on for days on end, I have never experienced the dampness that it leaves behind as we have here. The moisture just hangs in the air and clings to everything. If you are campers, think of the feeling when you wake up in the morning after a night of rain and get out of your damp tent and sit in your damp camp chairs. Everything is a bit wet. The floors are damp, the couch is damp, the cereal boxes are damp, and when you climb into bed at the end of the day the sheets are, wait for it, damp. However,

there are at least a couple benefits to all this rain and moisture.

1. You can discover play dough that has been left out for more than 24 hours in it original condition, no need to throw out dried out play dough rocks.

2. It makes seeds grow into flowers and vegetables quite quickly. Last week before the rain started we planted some flowers, corn, and tomatoes. We had to water them the first day but the rain took care of the rest. It didn't take long for the plants to start poking up out of the soil.

 3. Puddle jumping.

Mike is currently on his way home from Chiang Mai after being there for yesterday and today. As I knew that I would be home alone with the boys for two days with no vehicle and a forecast of more rain, I thought it would be a good idea to take them to something fun on Wednesday. We piled into the truck and headed for the mall. On the top floor they have a big play area with slides and a ball pit, and lots of fun things to keep them busy for 45 minutes. The boys loved it!

Thankfully, while still cloudy, yesterday was rain free so the boys and I did some exploring around the village that we live in, Nang Lae. It's a quiet little village with rice paddy-fields, banana trees, and pineapple plants all around. Nang Lae is known in Thailand to have the worlds best pineapples!The low plants are pineapples with banana trees behind them. Isaac did the whole village walk with the magna-doodle, carefully mapping out our route.

 We discovered an abandoned truck canopy which was now inhabited by chickens.

 We met a neighbour who enthusiastically gave each boy a big hug!

Oscar here is saying hello to you all "sawadee cup"!

 Homeschooling has been going much better since we started the curriculum at the beginning of last week. We were studying M is for moon and did a lesson on moon shapes with oreos.

 A is for apple, and so we did a craft today making an apple tree.

 We then spent some time talking about the fruit of the spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control.  After reading the list, Isaac piped up and said "I bet self-control and patience are the hardest". Such wisdom from a little guy. Sadly I shortly after gave a lesson on the fruit of the spirit, I lost my temper with Isaac when the boys' usual shenanigans got to be too much for me to take. I apologized to Isaac and pointed out the fruit of the spirit I was lacking in; patience, self-control, and kindness. I asked him to forgive me and told him how we need to keep asking Jesus to help us. He of course forgave me and was soon playing with hot wheels.

Thankfully this afternoon the sun came back out and I was able to hang our bedding in the sun and went for popsicles with the boys.

Earlier this week for the first time since Christmas break there was a post office run. The boys were so excited to see the pile of letters addressed to us! We of course miss everyone at home so much, but have not yet come down with bad homesickness. However, when I opened a letter and pulled out a family Christmas photo and stared into the face of my dear friend, I shed big tears and felt an ache for home that I haven't yet felt. We are so thankful for facetime and email and good old snail mail to stay connected with you all at home and it makes the distance between us seem not as great.

Goodnight for now, Mike just got home!