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We have arrived in Chiang Rai, our home for the remainder of our time in Thailand. The process has begun for us to get our truck, but it was going to take about a week for everything to go through so we hired a driver to get us to Chiang Rai. He showed up at our hotel with a mini van, but quickly discovered that a family of 5 with luggage for 6 months would not fit. Minibus it is!

The trip from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai should take about 3.5 hours, but our driver accomplished it in just under 3. I have never seen such a skilled tailgater before, and his swift pace did wonders for getting Emmett to sleep.

Once getting to Chiang Rai, Rob and Cy Wiebe, our friends who run the mission we will be volunteering with, were at our new home to great us with smiles and lunch. We all tumbled out of the minibus and eagerly went inside to get a tour of our new home.

The house has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, one with a toilet and one with a squatty potty :). Being the only lady in a house full of boys I get first dibs on the "real" bathroom, and the boys love using the squatter! Rob and Cy explained that this house is a hybrid of Thai and Western in regards to the kitchen. Thai homes usually have the kitchen outside, and this house has it at the back of the house with a half height concrete wall, and a chainlink fence with mosquito netting from the top of the wall to the roof. A bit of an indoor/outdoor feel.

We have a gated yard, a covered carport, and an overgrown garden and gazebo we are eager to claim back from the jungle. The boys love all of the space to run around. Our new home comes with a few house guests. First is ratty, he's left a few little treats behind in the kitchen, but we think he may now be taken care of. There are also several colonies of ants that Isaac is happy about and will pick up his ant friends to run around his arms. We are looking for a loaner cat to help with our rat problem, as well as keep scorpions and snakes out of the house. Yikes! We hope the geckos that run around will help us with the bugs.

Rental houses in Thailand come totally empty but we were able to buy a few pieces of furniture off of the previous tenant and we have a few things from the base. Still we had many items to buy to equip our new home for daily life. Our first shopping expedition was at the Thai version of Costco, Makro, where we piled high our buggy with items such as dishes, mop, broom, cleaner, and a few basic food items, while our boys ran wild around us. Mike and I felt a little stunned at we evaluated what was truly necessary. Apparently, I drew the line at paper towel...
Emmett loved that they keep eggs stacked in the middle of the aisles, when we put him down at the far end he'd run happily back murmuring "eggs, eggs, eggs"

Rob and Cy have a little boy name Elias, who is 6 years old, he and Isaac and Oscar hit it off immediately and have a great time playing together. They are just a few minute walk from our house and the boys are so excited to have such easy access to a playmate. They have even been able to join the soccer team Elias is on. Isaac made it to practice this Saturday but Oscar slept right through it. He is hoping to join in next week.

Tomorrow we will be getting a better picture of what our roles will be while we are serving here in Thailand. We are really excited to start getting to work and see how God will use our family as we give our time, talents, and hearts in service to the people we encounter here.