A Bunch of Burts

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.

We have lots to share with you!

If the last few weeks are any indication of the future, we will be busy indeed! The next year and a half before we head back to the States on furlough will indeed speed by.

After Greg got home from his trip he went right into some other adventures, a men’s retreat with a group of guys from our church, and then out to Maesariang to spend a day with his friends out there who were graduating from the Bible School program we began with them last May.

While he was out there, a young man from our church happened to be getting married in a village near by. OK, and hour and half away, but that is fairly nearby.
The kids and I had really wanted to attend as the village is one that many of our friends from church are from, but we could not sneak away during the week. So Greg went to represent all of us.
This village is way up in the hills, water actually freezes there in cold season!

This is the wedding procession up to the church. Many in this village are Christians. This people group is one of the first ones that NTM began working with more than 30 years ago. The man at the back in the suit is the pastor of our church and friend, Boontip.

Yo and his new wife.

The next week, I took my own trip back out to Maesaring. I had been invited to attend the annual Lawa ladies gathering that takes place out at the Bible School campus.

No, I do not speak Lawa, but some of the teaching and meeting times were conducted in Thai.

For the other times, sometimes my friend Philene translated for me, and sometimes I stole away to visit with my friend Beth whose family serves at the Bible School. Leah went with me and enjoyed an extended weekend with her friend Jane, Beth’s daughter. Leah tried something for the first time that weekend. Can you guess what it was?
I will put the picture at the end of the post.
No peeking!!
But definitely a sign of things to come in our family.

Can you find me in the picture? hint: I am dressed like a Lawa lady >

Here’s a close up of me in my outfit and my friend Gaysawn. Does that help?

The ladies meeting was a very good experience, even though I understood absolutely no Lawa. It was encouraging to see this group come together, to hear the Word, to encourage each other with what the Lord is doing in their lives, and to see the representatives and leadership from several churches that are the direct fruit of the lives of previous missionaries and their diligent work in discipleship and teaching and translation. One day, I hope to be granted the privilege of seeing such a gathering of Thai Lue men and women gathering to worship the living God and study His Word together in a similar way!

The next week, our co-workers called and told us that a big Thai Lue gathering/celebration was happening up in their village. Of course we jumped at the chance to get a sort of sneak peek. One of the events was a wedding ceremony at one of the oldest houses in the village. As we checked the house out ahead of time, one of the organizers asked Greg if he would like to get married again as well. He wisely answered that one wife is enough!

The ceremony was very interesting and I have lots of questions and took many pictures which I hope to be able to use later when we actually live among the Lue. They will be a good tool for us to ask questions about the culture and gain language and vocabulary.

There were two couples getting married. The one in the pink headscarves is the dress of the village that wedding took place in, and the other is from somewhere else. The piece of embroidered cloth is a sort of wedding certificate.

Whew! Enough for now?
The next post will be more manly. And include things like gunpowder and explosions. Seriously.

OK, did you guess yet what Leah did for the first time?

She can get her license when she turns 15 this year. But definitely needs more practice before then. Mom too. I can’t let Leah get her motorcycle license before me!

How are we already in the third week of March?

One of our most important events of the last weeks was of course the birthday of my only son!
Zach is now 11 years old, which seems totally improbably since he was just a sweet baby.

Zach asked for a cookie cake this year instead of regular cake. I think Ema wants some!

He had a great birthday party last week, Greg took him and some friends paintballing at a field just down the ringroad from us. As surprising as it sounds, it was less expensive than taking him bowling like we did last year! Everyone had a blast and Zach had a great time connecting with his friends from Grace that he does not get to see as often now that we are homeschooling.
We love you very Zach and are so thankful for your 11 years, and pray that God will be your leading influence this year and every year as you grow into a man of God.

Last week both Ema and Zach played in futsal tournaments as well. Futsal was a new sport to us here in Thailand and it is very popular. It is somewhat like indoor soccer, but played on a basketball court with a smaller and harder ball.
Zach was goalie and did a great job. Goalie is not a position I would like to play, but he seems to enjoy it.

Ema is a defense player. She has not had as much experience as the other girls on her team, but she played her best and came away smiling, that is a good sign.

That is Ema with the bright blue socks, always easy to spot her!

Ema’s team did well in the tournament, and came away with third place, but only gave up two goals the whole day. Since they did so well, they were invited to go back last Saturday and play in the JV tournament as they needed one more team. That was a lot of futsal for us last week. (which translates to not too much school )

This past Saturday Leah and I were invited on an outing with the girl who sold ice at our neighborhood store. Since we buy a bag of ice every day, Leah saw this girl alot. She invited us to go to a waterfall and the temple with her. What I did not know was that she was sneaking off of work to go, and now does not work at the store anymore. Yikes! This young lady is only 17 years old and has clearly been on her own for a while. She seems interested in developing a relationship with us, and so we would ask your prayers as we interact with her and get to know her better.

Leah and A on the trail down to the waterfall

Whew! The month is not even half over. But something good is coming up for me at the end of this month, our anniversary! We have already conspired, er, I mean arranged to have the kids stay with some friends for the night. Definitely looking forward to that.

I would give some clever excuse and justifiable reason why my last post was in October. eek. But I won’t. My friend Kathy said it here much better than I can. Feel free to read her, I mean our, reasoning.

But the 14th birthday of my firstborn is definitely worth sharing and posting a picture or two about!

Ema is counting down to when she gets to sit in the birthday chair, 6 more days!

Leah turned 14 today and some days I can hardly believe it. She already has it figured out how old she will be when we go home on our first furlough and how old she will be when we return and how many years left until she graduates and on and on.
Mostly I prefer not to think too much about that right now, just enjoy the time right now with her.
I try to convince her not to rush through her time as a child only marking time until she is ‘older’, that these years are precious, and once she moves to the land of adulthood, she will wish she had kiddo-years back. But the mind of a teenager often thinks they cannot grow up quick enough, and we know better with our hindsight, that yes indeed, it is quick and it is quick enough.
But for now, she is still my little girl, although she measures almost daily to see if she has finally grown taller than me. I still have just a smidgen on her.
Leah, we love you, and are so thankful that the Lord gave you to us as our first-born and has blessed us with 14 years so far with you.

She woke to her traditional birthday chair and fun presents and her choice of breakfast.
Biscuits and gravy.

If there is a breakfast that is more American and un-Thai than that, I cannot think of what it would be. The biscuits and gravy were a hit with everyone, but only because it has been so long since they had them made properly that no one remembers what it is supposed to taste like. hahaha.
I am not a gravy-maker, I try, but it is not my specialty. Greg’s mom, now she can make gravy!

Happy Birthday Leah! We love you very much!

Here is Ema in her new glasses!
At first I thought she would only want them for reading and schoolwork, but she has been wearing them nearly all the time. I guess she really did need them, huh?

Doesn’t she look lovely, and eeek, older?

The glasses store was great and helpful and even made them in an hour for us. We were expecting to have to come back in a week.

In other kid news, Zachary has his big swim meet this Friday. We are very excited! He is swimming in four events this time, and his coach told me last week how impressed she is with his improvement this year.
I will be taking pictures, so keep watching.

Leah is doing well at volleyball. Last week her squad was given their first full game to play together. Leah, as an 8th grader is one of the younger, more inexperienced players, and is on the second squad. For their first full game, it took them a while to get going, but then ended up winning after a tight competition. 27 to 25. It was a very exciting game!

Not THE game but one she did get some playing time in.

We are still trying to find the schedule for homeschooling that works best for us, all your wisdom and experience would be welcome if you want to share it! We are moving our Thai days from Tuesdays and Thursdays to Mondays and Fridays. That gives us three days in a row of solid homeschooling without having to change up our schedule. Right now, it is every other day that we are changing and that does not seem to be working well. One of these days we will hit on the best arrangement.

A fun Thai study day for all of us, making lunch! Want to join us? We are having Phad Siyu (stir fried wide noodles with pork and dark soy sauce), and Yam Woon Sen (a spicy rice noodle salad). There is plenty for all of us. and contrary to Zach’s silly face, Phad Siyu is one of his favorites.

Thanks for stopping in and visiting with us!
Tina