A Bunch of Burts

My son is 12 now. My baby. The youngest. Not so much of a little one anymore.
The reality that we do not have small children anymore is plain to see by contrasting our lives with our partners.
No nap times, no board books, beginning readers, everyone takes their own showers, and can actually be left home by themselves.

And now Zachary turns twelve!

And such a gentleman as you can tell!

We love him so much. He is a joy to have for a son. Of course, there are times when we are less than cheerful with each other, and yes, he does get in trouble and have consequences, (can we say no computer time?), but we are very proud of him.

He is a boy that loves people. He enjoys being around others and is compassionate and kind. Even to his sisters!

Each year we can see more and more of the man he is growing into. And we pray for him that Zach would continue to allow the Lord to form him into that man and that he would want to be who God wants him to be.

Since moving to the village, Zach has had the chance to work for another family in the area, general yard work and such. He is proving himself to be a diligent worker as well, which we are proud to see.

We love you Zach, you are a joy and blessing and we are glad you are our son!

P.S. here is a peek at a couple of his presents. Snacks are perfectly appropriate to give as birthday presents. Probably the most common present in fact. Perfect for a boy who wants something to eat every 15 minutes.

Zach’s Thai name is Tawan. That is the product line name of these Lay’s chips, so they are especially appropriate! And yes, the flavor is sweet and sour shrimp soup.

These tidbits are shrimp sticks with ketchup for dipping. They are still in the cupboard.

Mate, one of the girls brought this cute box. Of course the acronym stands for Happy Birthday.

Wanna see the cute note that Met attached to the present?

Isn’t that sweet?

It’s me again…Leah!

This is gonna be a continuation of what Mom wrote about last time. We seriously did get busy as soon as we got here!

The people here are so friendly, it is wonderful. You can hardly go anywhere without being stopped to chat. Sometimes it gets frustrating when they only speak Thai Lue (the new village’s language) and not Central Thai (the national language). Of course, I can’t speak much Lue at all and hardly anyone speaks Central Thai to me except when they see that blank look come over my face and my little bobble head going up and down agreeing to whatever they say.

We just got back from our mission’s conference this past week. It was a blast! I always enjoy getting together with my friends in the mission. Already, we have been busy with village life. On Monday, we were in a parade, last night went to a wrist tying ceremony and this whole week has been gardening, gardening, and more gardening! It must be a cultural thing because everyone wanted to help with the hoeing, or bring us some sort of seed or give us some helpful tips. Ema is really the one who is the gardener out of all of us and she, with the help of Mom, Dad, and the Mae Luang (wife of the village leader) finished planting our small plot of land.

Captain Jack Sparrow showed up to conference!

About the parade….

Mom came home from visiting around that village and told us that there was a parade that afternoon and that we were gonna go and watch. Okay, nothing abnormal about being invited to something like that. And I like parades. No problem. Well, we get to the meeting place in the muubaan (village) and everyone is wearing their traditional Thai Lue outfits…and then a couple of them leave saying that they were going to get us, Mom and I, Lue shirts to wear. We look at each other with a look that says uh-oh…they aren’t just going to watch the parade are they? Then Mom asks and sure enough they are going to be walking in it. Inwardly I groan, not anticipating a long walk in the blazing hot sun with a heavy, long-sleeved black shirt on.

Mom and I waiting with the other ladies.

We were already wearing Thai-ish skirts so we didn’t need to change those but they brought us the Lue shirts that I just slipped on over my first shirt because its wasn’t very thick. Mom however was wearing a shirt that wraps around and is tied in the front, very similar to the Lue shirts, so she had to change hers. It would have gone fine except for one thing…there was no bathroom or other place that she could change in. We were waiting at a building that is the morning market location. The ladies there said, “Don’t worry about that! We have umbrellas here, we’ll cover you while you change.”
Mom says, “Um…no thanks, I’ll just go home and change.”
They say, “We’re all ladies! Don’t worry, we’ll cover you!” Mom didn’t really have a choice there, so she finally got it done and we were ready to go.

Nearly everyone left before us because we were waiting for our partner, Aunt Dawn, who had gone home to change into the Thai Lue outfit that she already had. So the Mae Luang waited with us. We drove to the place where we were supposed to, but no one was there. Then we drove around looking for a bunch of women in matching clothes but didn’t find them. We thought we had missed the start, so we went where the parade was supposed to end. I’m not sure why, but we were following the Mae Luang’s directions. She said that we would just wait here for the parade and there would be something going on afterward. There was another group of ladies there who were going to do a dance or something after the parade was over. We heard that the parade was getting started late, so we all hopped back in the car and headed back toward the meeting place. It was just starting so we just kinda sneaked in line with everyone.

Aunt Dawn, Will, Mom, me and Gwen.

It was kinda fun to see the people watching do a double take when they saw the five falangs (Thai word for white person) in line with Lue ladies. Aunt Dawn and her two youngest children came too. Gwen, 7, was all decked out in a Lue outfit too. But Will, 4, really brought a lot of stares.

It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was kinda fun! I burn after being in the sun for 2 minutes so the long sleeves really protected be from being crispy by the end. Everyone was holding umbrellas so I borrowed one to protect my face. And, miraculously, I survived without a single red mark!

Today, some ladies from ESD are coming to our house. ESD stands for Extension Services Department. They work at Grace International School and are there for the home schooling families in Thailand. You can send in your schoolwork and they look over it and, if you want them to, will give a report card out every quarter or so. They also come for home visits where they come to just help with whatever the moms need done regarding school. Sometimes they help get a schedule down or help think of different activities to do or even organizing a bookcase. This will be our, the Burt’s, first home visit, but I’m not sure if the Orwilers have had one already. We are excited to have them come and can’t wait till this afternoon when we pick them up from the bus station.

That had better be all for right now, or I’ll be sorry when I haven’t memorized my science words for my upcoming test!:)

Move in, unpack and get busy!

That was clearly our theme for this last month.

Our new village, Don Haang, is a river culture. We have rivers on two sides of us. One small one runs through the village, and the main area river, the Nan River is just almost visible out the back of the rice fields behind us.

This time of year is boat racing time.

Our village team has been practicing nearly every day for a couple of months now. It is so important to the village that at the village meeting only a couple of days after we arrived, it was voted that participation is mandatory for men up to age 55. You either row or pay money to support the rowers.

Greg even had a chance to try out his skill at rowing. He is in the yellow shirt and in the big straw hat.

So far we have been to three races. These are multi-day events, sometimes with over 100 boats competing.

Our boat is the closest to the shore in the top left. The guys are wearing blue and red shirts and orange headbands. Go Don Haang!

It has been a great way to become part of the community, to show our identification with the people of Don Haang.

Even though I could barely recognize any of the rowers, and if I had to pick them out of a line up and say if they were from our village or not, it was hard not to get into the cheering spirit when our boat went by.

That’s us in the lead!! Faster boys, faster!
.
A wonderful gift from a gracious God, giving us this perfect opportunity to work towards ‘becoming’ Thai Lue and a member of Don Haang

The words on our shirts are the names of the two boats. Petjambii and siisoontaun You can certainly see us a ways off in these shirts. And no, it was NOT cool enough to need long sleeves.

Wanna see the new digs?

Here is a reminder of what it looked like when we saw it for the first and only time before we signed our rental contract.

Ahhh, the wonders of paint and scrubbing.

Just getting rid of the very high flood line made it feel more ‘homey’.

The library was the first ‘room’ we got done, and it was lovely to sit and relax in a chair and look at organized bookshelves while the rest of the house was still all caddywhampus. You are welcome anytime to come, select a volume and relax with me in the library! I will even bring you a cup of cool water.

Our room doubles as Greg’s office. But look Kathy!! Blue paint on the walls. It has been a very long time since we lived anywhere that we could paint whatever colors we wanted, and I am very happy with my blue walls.

The kitchen was our big question mark. We had seen this place just once, and very briefly at that. The kitchen was just a separate building that was stuffed full of old wood and junk. Hard to imagine that it would be useable. We planned to redo it first thing. But, a pleasant surprise awaited us. The room, once cleared of everything, looked quite serviceable. Some good old-fashioned elbow grease, a coat of shellack and sealant, and a new roof to reflect some of the heat, turned it into a very satisfactory kitchen. We are very thankful that we did not need to replace it! Thank you Lord!

The cupboard you see out the door is the sink. Some friends graciously gave us a lovely sink cabinet that fits so perfectly in the available space, only the Lord could have arranged it.

The upstairs is home to the kids’ room and the school room. Here is a before shot.

The school room. You know it is everyone’s favorite place. :0 Hey! There are only two diligent students, where is Ema?

Keeping up the yard seems to be very important to the people here, and our yard needed some attention. Most notably, a dry well in the backyard. Can someone say DANGEROUS? We are still working on getting that capped.

The front yard was quite overgrown, but Ema is excited to put in a garden. Our headman’s wife came and helped chop it up one day, I think she is eager for us to get it in order as well.

I think that is probably enough for one post. We have been doing other things besides being at home. We have gone to several boats races with our village, helped make food for the racers, Greg and Rob have been out in the fields lending a hand harvesting rice, we are meeting more people than we can remember their names, and familiarzing ourselves with the village as much as we can.

Vistors are frequent and we are begining to feel like we live here, instead of just visiting.
One of the ways we will be getting to know people and developing relationships and contributing to the village is teaching English. The plan is to begin next month, so that will be a new twist to our lives.

I have lots more pictures to share, wanting you to be able to see into our lives here. Check back!

Warning Martha W!! This post contains snake pictures!

This past week we were up at our co-workers house for a birthday party, meeting members of their church visiting from the States, and a trip to the new village to move forward in getting the rental houses figured out.

One morning, an unexpected visitor was found in the yard.

You can see it moving off the edge of the patio, and the spot of blood where it used to lie. eek.

A neighbor smashed it in the head, but then generously left it right there on the patio. By the time Greg and I arrived from an errand, the kids had largely wandered away, the excitement gone.
Then, as I watched it, it began moving. Escaping. It was supposed to be dead.

You will never guess who came to the rescue.

Guess again.

Give up?

Who would believe that Ema would be the one to mercilessly crush the head of this serpent, bravely, without being asked or forced?

Ema of the Great Spider Incident of Jungle Camp, involving bloodcurdling screams, neighbors running to her rescue with knives and guns, and one tiny spider. Or Ema who after watching half of Ben Hur could not sleep at night for fear of leprosy? Who sat on a bucket all day when we went to the beach so that the tiny little sand crabs would not touch her.

We prayed that Ema would overcome this fear of crawly things, knowing we would surely encounter a wider variety here in Thailand, and God is faithful!!! She is our best tick picker, cockroach killer and now snake destroyer. You go Ema!

Since our new village is nearly surrounded by rice fields, it is not a stretch to think we will find more of these in our yard and yikes! maybe house. Glad you live with me Ema.

Ema is not the only one who has done some growing and changing these past years.

Where is the little boy I brought to Thailand with me? Ready to go fishing Thai style!

Yes, that is a gun for fishing. A long nail is attached to fishing line and triggered by a slingshot action. Water, mud, fish and gun. What could be more fun than that?

And Leah, whose years left at home with us I can count on one hand, (we will not think of that now) is growing daily into a young lady.

She measures often to see if she has passed me up. Last night Greg declared she is as tall as I am and maaaaybe, a hair taller. I must have been slouching.

Thank you God for these three kids! I can’t wait to see what Your plans for them hold, and how You will continue to use Greg and I in their lives.
We know You have good things to come for those who love You and follow You! Life with the Lord is never boring.