New school and many work days!

We are so excited to say that the kids have moved into their new school building. This is a big deal for many reasons. Their school now has received international status so more people will know of it, more people will be drawn to it and hopefully more Thai people as well. This is a Christian school so the gospel can be shared as well. This project has been in the works for several years and now has come about. It took some hard work days on the grounds around the school before we could move and lots of families from the school came and helped. It was a great community building event!

Here is the new school building!

Some of the young guys enjoyed helping David because he's fun and he taught them many new skills!

Samantha and Davis were barefoot as they worked in this mud. I think Samantha is trying to decide how to get rid of some of this water before laying sod. It was a mess but the kids were troopers and worked hard all day!

David and Brent did some drainage tricks and we were able to lay sod that day.

This is Davis planting some beautiful plants around the school to make it look lovely!

A Day of Fun and Sightseeing!

This past weekend it was time for us to make our quarterly run to the border. Basically we have a 1 year Visa but every three months we have to cross the border to leave the country. Fortunately for us the border is only 1 hour away. So we decided to make it a fun, family day trip. So we left about 7:30AM and went to the border, Myanmar. As we crossed over it is amazing what a difference there is between the two countries. It is hard in Myanmar. We spent an hour looking around and praying and then we got our Visa stamped and were able to come back in the country. Davis said as he crossed the border back into Thailand, "yea, I'm home!" It was good for our kids to experience a different place that is not near as nice as Thailand and to see how very different these countries are when there are different types of governments in them. After coming back into Thailand we decided to do some sightseeing so we went to the Queens Gardens. This was beautiful. We have some pictures below of our day. Then we ended up back at our teammates house for a team meeting and then out to dinner to try a new experience. This was definitely new for us but not for them. It's called "moo katow". It was a lot of fun as well and we tried new foods like squid, tofu and different kinds of fish and much more.

This is the Thailand border as we get ready to cross over into Myanmar

The beauty of the Gardens

The beauty in the Gardens

Notice the cool chairs carved from stumps. They were 3 different sizes so they decided to play Papa bear, Mama bear and Baby bear in this picture!

The Thai people have a gift for making things look beautiful!

Surely if you see all this beauty, you have to believe there is an amazing Creator behind it all!

Relaxing a bit before we head back.

This is our team, all except our team leader who is taking the picture. This is our new dinner experience.

So basically there is a big buffet of all different kinds of raw meat (some you have no idea what it is) and you get a plate and put all different kinds of raw meat on it. Then you choose vegetables to go with it. You bring them to your table and cook them on this that you see Davis cooking on. It is a grill over coals on the top and around the inside rim is boiling water. So you can grill or boil your food with chopsticks. It was a lot of fun. Some meat was a surprise because you weren't sure what it was before you cooked it. Come to think of it, you usually didn't know what it was even after you ate it. It was a fun and full family day!

School stuff

So we have not started the language program at University because they have postponed it until November, but we are continuing with our Thai tutoring and hours of work at home and going to the market to use the language we have learned. It's fun but sometimes mind boggling. The kids are doing great in school and learning much and really stepping up as little leaders among their peers. It has been good to see. They are enjoying their new friends and their new school. David has been teaching Science at the kid's school 2 classes a day and he has really enjoyed that too. I think he really enjoys teaching barefoot because you know you don't wear shoes inside in Thailand.


This is David standing in the doorway of his classroom. Notice the barefeet.

This is David teaching. They were doing a Science experiment that the kids really seemed to enjoy. He only has 6 students in his class so he enjoys being able to give more instruction to those who need extra help. It's also a great place to share Jesus because there are many Thai students who come that don't know Jesus yet.

Davis enjoys some of his classmates before chapel one Tuesday morning at school

Samantha choreographed and directed this drama that they did in chapel.

Here she is standing in the back directing the drama.

Davis did a special presentation in assembly this past Friday at school and did a great job!

Last week we had a parent/staff volleyball game against the school's volleyball team. David and I both played on the parent team and had a lot of fun! This was after biking about 10-12 miles for me to get to the school because David was already there with the van. We both got a work out.

This is an action shot of Julie, one of our teammates!

What I enjoyed even more was hanging out with Joy. This is our teammate's daughter. They are still in process of adopting her so please pray with us that all will move forward smoothly and quickly in their adoption process.

Inside the house!

Well many of you have asked to see the inside of our house and not just the outside. So I thought I would take a few pictures so you could have a peek inside. I will try to explain the house as much as I can with the pictures. I will say to remember that the house is not air conditioned. Remember, they don't have central air and heat here anywhere. Also some people have asked about exterminators. No, I am afraid someone would just laugh in your face if you even asked. Bugs and critters are a normal part of things here. I want to get a picture of the big rats that are around town as we go about our day but they are fairly quick and haven't caught a picture yet. I could get a picture of a dead one smashed in the road but it's not too pretty! However at our house we have lots of gekkos and they eat bugs so we don't have as many bugs as some do.



There are no closets or pantries in Thai houses so you have to get creative with your kitchen items which you see on the shelves behind our table. Also notice the water kooler which is a must since you can't drink the water here. These big bottles of water are delivered weekly to our house and you pay about .30 per bottle.



This is our kitchen. Notice the cabinets to your left. They are called ant cabinets. They have tight-fitting glass doors to keep ants out. Notice the bottom cabinet has bowls that the legs of the cabinet sit in. Those we keep filled with water to keep the ants out. They won't cross the water. In the back is my stove, it's just basically 2 burners but it works.

This is our shower. That's right you don't see a tub or actual shower doors or curtain. That's because there isn't one. You basically have a shower head hanging on a wall in the bathroom and the floor slants so when you shower it runs to the drain, but the bathroom floor basically gets all wet. You also have a hot water heater on the wall near the shower head. You turn that on so you can have hot water for your shower. Yes, we do have Western toilets.

This is our living area which has furniture from Thailand and from the States. Those front doors are important because you have to keep them open all the time with the screens closed to get some air in. Notice the floor fan on the left. These are a must when you don't have air conditioning.

This is a sign that we truly live in a house in Thailand. You sweep these down during the day and then when you get up the next morning, there are a few more. They let you know you had visitors during the night. This is high up on the wall. Yes you guessed it, this is a gekko poop. They love to let you know they were guarding your place as you slept.

Since there are no closets in Thai houses, armoires and dressers are a must in every bedroom.

We do have individual air condition units in each of our bedrooms and only run them while we sleep but it helps.



This is my oven. Small but it works for a lot of things, not all cooking.



Last but certainly not least, this is Davis in his room sitting on his homemade bing bag chair. He took all the plastic wrap from our packing in our shipping container and made his own chair. Pretty creative!

So exciting!

So just wanted to share with you all our excitement. Today we received a care package from my sister and brother-in-law and their Sunday school class. As the kids say, "it's like Christmas!" Needless to say there are a lot of things you can't get here that we could get in the States so our kids, and sometimes us, miss some of those things. So they made sure we got some. Big thank you to those of you that helped with this box. We actually got two other care packages in the first two months we were here from our TX neighbor and some good friends, but we forgot to take pictures. We are so very thankful for any kind of mail. It's weird when you never get mail, not even junk here! So just wanted to share the fun we had with you all!

The anticipation of getting in the package is just too much!

Squeals and yells could be heard throughout the neighborhood! Did I ever tell you that since our houses are made just out of concrete, you hear everything in the house next to you. It's really true.

Mac and Cheese and Pop-Tarts! OOOOHHH so exciting. They definitely don't have any of that here.

These are priceless. You see you can't get hardly any salad dressing here. Thais don't really eat salads like we do so Ranch is not available and if you find Italian it is really expensive and not very good. So these salad dressing packets save the day so we can make our own. There were more things but we didn't get a picture of it all. I also appreciated a small Bible that my Mama and Daddy sent in it that I can take in my backpack as I am out on my bike. My Bible is just a bit to heavy for that.