Swim Club!

Swim club = the highlight of our kid's week. The kids love to don their borrowed swimsuits and splash around in the water trying to follow the directions of their English speaking teachers. They get to escape some of the oppressive heat and just be kids. Our bosses' wife has organized this after school swim club with the help of other volunteers for all of our students. They are doing a great job!



A picture is worth a thousand words so here you go...

Grades 3 and 4

I know you've already seen the school and class photos but I thought you might enjoy a glimpse of these photos of the kids taken by my great roommate. They show some more personality than the other photos.

Grade 3

He cracks me up with his sense of humor and his use of informal English. He is the only student I have who will ask me how I am before I ask him.

He is the little boy who would show up to summer school an hour and a half before school started, by himself. He is our mystery child that started singing Christian songs and drawing crosses when we didn't have any idea where he learned them from. Today when I asked him if Jesus loved babies (we were reading a book about them) he said a definite yes. When I asked him if Jesus loved him he looked at me and said, "I don't know."

Another child from summer school this little girl is a perfectionist. She has a beautiful smile that lights up the room.

This little girl is very smart and does so well in class. She has a sweet and gentle personality. Even though she doesn't understand when I talk to her she still likes to come and sit with me which I think is brave. :)

This is my sweet charmer. He aims to please and usually tries his best. He likes to explain things in Thaiglish while wildly gestering so I get the point.

She is also very smart and diligent. She survived last year as the only girl in her class. Which actually didn't bother her too much as she likes playing sports and gets along well with the boys. (Of course they all fell in love with her which also doesn't seem to bother her too much)

This is my newest 3rd grade addition. He showed up yesterday so I don't know much about him yet.

He is smart and works hard, and like most of the boys likes to be silly.

He is super sweet and respectful. He struggles quite a bit to understand but always tries his best. Yesterday, with our two new students he was very gentle and would translate what I was saying to his new friends. I think he took pity on them because it is usually him who is totally lost. He did a great job with the translating though!

Grade 4

This is my newest 4th Grade student who always answers me with "Khap. Khap."(a respectful word that shows agreement) because he has no clue what I'm saying.

He is my sensitive student who struggled quite a bit during summer school. Now he finds himself doing so much better because he understands a lot of what I'm asking. He is doing a great job remembering and building on what he has learned. Every morning he arrives on his bicycle bringing our copies from his mom's copy shop down the road.

This is my only 4th grade girl. She works hard and has such a sweet and helpful spirit although she greatly misses her friend. We started out with another girl and through a sad set of events she might not be able to join us anymore (please pray that she will be able to come back.)

I also started out with one other boy from last year. However, his parents have decided that it is too far to bring him to school everyday and he will no longer be joining us. Please pray that the seeds planted in his heart last year will be watered by someone else and that he will come to know the Lord as his Savior.

I'm so thankful for these children that the Lord has given me this school year. Please pray that I will teach them well and that I will daily show them the love of Christ by my words and actions. Pray that they may know hope and that they may have a future in both Christ's kingdom and this kingdom of Thailand.

Overview of Our Trip to South Africa

South Africa was absolutely beautiful, words and pictures do not do it justice. Even though it was a land of great beauty, like any land, it also holds much brokenness. During our time there we were able to see much of the beauty, the brokenness, and the ways God is bringing hope and light through His people.

The following pictures are just a few of the memories from the trip. I hope you enjoy seeing this land which actually felt much more like home than anywhere I've been recently.

This precious boy was one of the many kids in the hospital without family or friends. Just trying to survive. We were able to take some puzzles and toys and visit the hospital for awhile with a ministry that consistently visits the children and builds relationships with them, and shares about Christ's love.

This was one of the animals we saw on our drive through a game reserve. The weather was freezing!

This is from the sweet time we had at a Children's Village. They also have a school there for the children and they teach them in English. It was similar to what we are trying to do over here in Thailand.


These little girls are also at the Children's Village.

This is a gorgeous sunset at the game reserve.

I just think this picture is so funny. Please notice the man in the bright red cowboy hat with a white fuzzy rim.

This is the view from the Drakensburg mountains where we did some hiking and camping.

Another view of the moutains. The sky there was soooo blue. At night we could even see the stars!

This picture is from the beach near the airport right after our arrival into SA.

Doi Inthanon

November 26th. The day after we made thankful turkeys with our kids. The day after we gathered together with an unlikely assortment of people to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner. The day we spent on a special trip with Nida, the 4th grade Thai teacher and her family. She invited us to travel to Doi Inthanon, the mountain on which she and her husband grew up and still call home. We had a wonderful day visiting waterfalls, pagodas, villages, and the highest spot in Thailand. We thoroughly enjoyed a picnic at the base of a waterfall, seeing the little shop in her cousin's village where they weave beautiful creations, and buying fresh vegetables from a local stand. We are so thankful to have been able to spend the day with these friends and feel privileged to be given a glimpse into the land they call home.

These are just a few memories from the day. Click on the picture to enlarge the pictures.

Photo Shoot

Our talented Miss Brittany took some great photos of our students for several projects including Christmas gifts for each child's family. I thought I'd share with you these beautiful faces and just ask that you would pray for them if you think about it. Pray for their families, their understanding of the Gospel, their education, their soft hearts, their dreams, their futures.

She is very athletic…

She is super artistic…

She loves to dance…

He loves to be funny…

She loves to help…

She is a thinker…

Children of Light

Our school this year is super small...which I love. One of my favorite things about the smallness of the school is the close knit group of students that has been created. We have thirteen students and it isn't uncommon to see sweet scenes such as the following:

The fifth grade boy racing a first grade girl...

The fourth grade girl giving a piggy-back ride to a first grade girl...

Brother and sister laughing together...

Girls from every grade being silly together...



The whole school chasing some poor frogs around the pond area...

These pictures represent to me something beautiful...life lived together. Not caring about the distinctions of age, or economic class, or religion. One of my prayers for these precious students is "for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord." Ephesians 5:8-10

I pray that in living life together with us they may desire to come out of the darkness that claims their country, into the Light of our loving Father. I pray that together we would all learn what is pleasing to the Lord that we may glorify Him.

Are We There Yet?

Yesterday we had our first school field trip! We travelled in two song taws (driven by my student's dad a a friend of his) to Mae Rim. Our trip was about 45 minutes away and took us to Queen Sirikit's Botanic Garden. On the trip I had the inevitable conversation with one of my students that went something like this...

Student: "Are we there yet?"
Me: "Almost, about ten more minutes."
Student: Exasperated sigh.
Me: "What's wrong?"
Student: "I just wish we were already there."

I smiled while thinking to myself, how often in life do I say, "I just wish I was already there." There being spiritually mature, professionally skilled, or personally in my ideal life situation. I told my student that I understood but that maybe we could focus on enjoying the trip. So, now I'm reminding myself, "It all goes by so fast. Don't worry about when you will get there just enjoy the many delightful moments along the way." I hope you enjoy these pictures of my six beautiful children and some of our fun moments on this wonderful journey.

(Click on the pictures to see them full size)

Road Trip

Every three months our little group makes the four and a half hour trip up to Mae Sai (the border into Burma). This time our good friend Khruu Ooy (who usually does most of the driving) decided to turn the ritual into a girl's road trip. So at 6:30 am on a Saturday morning we raced around our house packing snacks and grabbing all the pillows in our house. We (our group of five housemates) and four of our Thai co-workers piled into a rented van which comes complete with a driver. The van was so comfortable, and with air conditioning and comfy reclining chairs it was even more comfortable than our house. We started off the morning with barbecued pork on a stick with sticky rice, one of my favorites that I will really miss when I come back to the States. We had such a leisurely trip laughing, talking, and sleeping. We reached our more anticipated destination at about 11 am, Doi Tung. Upon arrival we made trip to the bathroom where we all paid 3 baht, took off our shoes for the trip down the stairs, and then put on the special bathroom shoes which everyone shares. I'm not sure I'll know what to do in the States where one does not have to slip off their flip-flops in exchange for a pair of questionable community shoes, roll up their pants, and carry their own toilet paper into the bathroom. Anyway back to the actual story.

Doi Tung is called the "Switzerland" of Thailand. It was the former residence of the late mother of the King. We were allowed to walk through her beautiful yet simple villa. She had spent much time in Europe and the house and gardens reflect that style. We ate a quick lunch of mixed fried vegetables with rice (another of my favorites) and even enjoyed one of the best cups of coffee I have tasted in Thailand. Then came the highlight of the day...the garden. Picture the most gorgeous garden ever set in a hilly landscape with many fun details which really add to the effect. We spent quite awhile walking around and taking over one hundred pictures.

I would like to live here. :) It is surrounded by gorgeous mountains.

A picture with all the housemates before we go our separate ways.

Us being silly girls and imitating the statue behind us.

Under the waterfall.

My lovely roommate and I "fighting."

My sweet friend Brittany.

All of us at dinner.

We encountered our semi-normal situation where random Thai people take pictures of us and ask if we will take pictures with them. One might think that as the farang (foreigners) we ought to take pictures of the people here, however, the opposite is true. (When my parents were vi sting we went to the Royal Palace. While walking around the grounds several of the gardeners whipped out their cameras and asked to take pictures with us.) Anyway after our adventure in the gardens we climbed back into the van to drive to Mae Sai.


Mae Sai is a hard place to visit and is never really a pleasant experience. I am always confronted with the dilemma of how to love the overwhelming number of people who are in need. I struggle within myself to justify my un-Christlike attitude towards these people all the while knowing I should do something but never quite knowing what that thing is. I am always convicted in that city of what God's love for every person looks like and how I should be living it out, which is something I pray the Lord grows in me because I am not very good at it.



After Mae Sai we drove to a restaurant and ate dinner right next to the water. I am going to miss the Thai way of eating dinner where everyone orders a wide range of things that sound good and as they arrive at the table one at a time everyone shares them. Several hours later the van brought nine weary travellers back to our house around 10:30 pm where we promptly dropped into bed. So ends one of our more memorable and enjoyable border trips.