Holiday Recap
We have so much we wanted to share about our Christmas and New Years, but with getting back in the groove of school and language study, it just did not happen.
We are well on our way to Valentine’s Day, but still want to share a pictorial look at our second Christmas in Thailand.
Our church Christmas program on the 16th of December. The kids had spent the previous month and a half of Sunday Schools preparing for the program. Leah, being the oldest girl in Sunday School was Mary. Zach was a shepherd and Ema was an angel. In the program. Not everyday.
Ema with two of her friends from church, and fellow ballerinas
I also took a small group of girls and taught them a short ballet. Short. One minute.
Since ballet is nearly the exact opposite of Thai dancing, it was a challenge. A good time to practice my language though, pick up a few a words, master some old ones, and give the girls some giggles at my faux pas. (When trying to get young dancers to close their arms in front of them, it helps to actually say ‘close’ buet, instead of ‘open’ beet. 
The program went great, and Leah remembered all her lines, in Thai even!
Leah as Mary, and of course the only other falang boy as Joseph. Andrew really wanted to be a wise man this year, but Leah was taller than all the other Thai boys.
Zachary herding his sheep.
The night before we left to travel to the NE, the church came around caroling. This is a yearly tradition for them. All the carolers gather at the church around 8 and begin to make the rounds to the homes of everyone else in the church. They have been known to be out caroling until 3am!!
We made sure Philene knew we were planning to leave early in the morning for the NE, hoping for carolers before midnight.
They arrived around 11, and sang beautifully! In harmony no less. We welcomed them in for some goodies and hot drinks, and enjoyed having so many from church in our home, even if was for a short while.
The next day we drove off on our first solo road trip across Thailand. Would you believe we did not miss a turn?
Anyone going to Burma? China? Malaysia?
Driving in Thailand is not quite like in the States. There is no point at which you can just cruise along; constant, vigilant attention must be given to the road at all times. Most of the roads are officially, two lane. One lane going your way, one lane heading in the opposite direction.
In reality however, all lanes are at least 5 lane roads.
One lane going your way
One lane heading the other way
One lane in between the two official lanes, for turning, passing, driving ect.. (either direction is acceptable)
One lane beside each of the two official lanes for traffic in the opposite direction. (We tend to call this lane the shoulder )
In light of this, we decided to stay the night in Udon Thani, instead of driving straight through to our destination.
The kids really enjoyed the first English TV they had seen in nearly a year! No one even minded watching the Food Channel with me.
We spent a wonderful week in Nakhon Phanom with our dear friends the Sullivan and celebrated Christmas with them.
Ema managed to surprise Zachary with a present he really wanted
On Christmas Eve our two families took some plates of cookies out and caroled at the houses of the Christians in the muubaan. 3 houses. Although we were done way too quickly for me, it was great! One house belongs to a lady who has been studying the Bible with the Sullivans for over a year now. She struggled for a long time with trusting Christ and Christ alone for her salvation, but praise God has placed her faith in Him. She came out of her house while we were singing and tears ran down her face as listened us sing of our Savior’s birth.
When we sang at the Sullivan’s neighbors, they were not sure what to do. Russ and Nancy work with this family in leading a church in another muubaan, and they have been Christians for many years. It was a new experience for them to have people come to their house for the sole purpose of blessing them, with both the songs and a gift. Many times neighbors only come when they need something.
After Christmas we went to visit our friends the Culletts and Lynches in a nearby city, Mukdahan for New Years.
This city, like Nakhon Phanom is bordered by the Mekong River and looks across at Laos.
The ferry from Nakhon Phanom to Laos
We spent nearly a week there too, enjoying their company, playing games and eating way too many treats!
Unlike Chiang Mai, foreigners are not very common in Mukdahan, and when we all went to the Indo-China market, we tended to turn some heads.
The Mukdahan-ers may have thought we were interesting, but I thought a baby elephant walking down the road was much more. Apparently, I was the only one. You notice no one in the picture is even looking at it.
These two families are gearing up to move into a village to begin a new church planting work among the Phu Thai people. We are excited to see this process through their eyes. It was a good opportunity for us to hear how each step of their move from language study in Chiang Mai to village surveys to move-in prep has gone. This is the same direction we are looking to head in a year from now, sharing Christ with people who have never heard before, and in the future, celebrating Christmas with them, instead of just around them.
Eek, I should have warned you to get a cup of coffee or snack before you started reading.
Ok, just one more picture, but that is it for this blog.
Who says missionaries don’t know how to have fun?
Tina
