Mmmmmmmm... Illiteracy!

Oh, the joys of illiteracy! Take our experiences yesterday. We were looking for breakfast and ended up in a 7-11 (finding this to be the least "risky" of the available options... we're still pretty new at all of this). We settled on two strawberry yogurts and a bag of plain white dinner rolls.

But I digress. Back to the joys of illiteracy. What is it like not being able to read anything around us? Sometimes it makes life fun, just guess and hope that what you get looks like the picture. But other times it can be rather humbling, like today when we went cell phone shopping. The best and cheapest way to communicate here seems to be with a cell phone, but the cell phone system is totally different than the one we have in the states. We were completely lost and surely would have been ripped off if not for the help of our friend Neng. He taught us everything we needed to know about buying a cell phone... and we taught him a little about the importance of communication in marriage (example: when Lori wants the pretty phone and Paul wants the phone with all the gadgets).

We have met a number of Thai and Farang (the Thai call western foreigners "Farang") friends here at the Good News Study Center in just a few days time. This area is teeming with the young adults that we seem to click with. While we have enjoyed our time in Bangkok (which is a first for us), we look forward to getting out of the city and up to the North. So now, armed with a cell phone that does not work (we have to buy a "little microchip card with a telephone number" when we get to Chiang Rai) and all 300 pounds of our luggage, we're on the move again.

We leave for Chiang Rai this afternoon and hope to settle in a little before guests begin to arrive for graduation on March 12^th. Please continue to pray for us - as we know that these first few weeks will be crucial to our adjustment to life here. Pray that we would be especially attentive to the leading of the Holy Spirit – especially in what we say. Continue to pray also for our marriage and devotional lives as these next few weeks will be especially busy.

Tags:

• food
• humor
• language

Here in the Land of Smiles

Well we're here! As I write this it is 5:00 am on Friday, February 25th. We arrived shortly after noon yesterday and made it through customs and picked up all of our baggage with no problem. We might have a little problem getting all of our luggage from Bangkok to Chiang Rai, however, so please keep us in your prayers.

Kelly Hilderbrand and a number of the staff from the Good news Study Center (this is what the Thailand Worldbase is called) were at the airport to pick us up. When you walk out of the baggage area in Bangkok you are greeted by a sea of faces looking for tourists, sightseers, taxi fares and those in need of a hotel. It can be a little overwhelming and it was a welcome relief to have someone there for us. We were further encouraged when we arrived at the Good News Study Center (GNSC) to find George Butron there. We met George in LA - he's originally from Golden, CO with an FBCI background - and were able to share our story with him. He is now the Regional Coordinator over Southeast Asia for FMI. He was on his way to Myanmar, but we made tentative plans to meet him in Chiang Rai when he comes through next week. We had a great time with the staff at the GNSC and a very good talk with Kelly about Foursquare and its ministry in Thailand. The church here is really exploding, especially among the younger generation. It's an exciting time to be in Thailand!

Around 4:30 yesterday is when we were hit with a ton of bricks - jet lag. We managed to tape our eyelids open until about 7:30 when we finally had to go to sleep. We should be adjusted in a day or two.

The GNSC is a really great place. It is a five-story building located very near the University in Bangkok (the largest university in the world - 400,000 students). They have three church services on the weekends, a Friday night service, a Sunday morning service, and a service in Burmese on Sunday afternoons. They spend a significant amount of time in the surrounding area ministering to everyone from the university students to the prostitutes. They also teach English language courses, currently they have 550 Thai students who are learning English in a Christian setting.

Today is the "day off" for the GNSC. We expect to make some phone calls & emails this morning and then get a personalized tour of Bangkok - which should be MUCH better than our original experience in this city. Later this afternoon we will go down with some of the University students for "UNO ministry". Apparently, they sit in the "Free Speech" park at the university and play UNO. Students are especially drawn in if there are foreigners (apparently, we're the "bait") and will come and play cards and just hang out. We will go to church this weekend and then plan to head to Chiang Rai on Monday

Thanks for all of your prayers! We have been encouraged again that our time here for the first 2 years will be a learning time. We are excited to learn new cultures and language, but it is a little overwhelming 20 hours in. Keep us in your prayers that we might build strong relationships and adjust well to new ways of life.

Tags:

• Thailand
• travel

Off we go

Well we are on our way - today is our last "office day" (Lori and I huddle around dimly lit tables in a little coffeehouse in Salem - coffee house cafe - and work on our paperwork, communications, and the general business of leaving the country). We have a few more appointments this weekend - but we will spend much of the next 48 hours packing for Bangkok. We are *also* going to spend tomorrow morning trying to teach me (Paul) how to ride a motorcycle. If I can learn on a dirt bike here in the states, the little 30cc scooters in Thailand won't be any problem at all.

We want to thank you all again for your support and your prayers. We are jumping headfirst into all of this and your encouragement has meant the world to us.

Please join us in this time praying for the Akha people, for A-Je and Nancy and everyone at House of Joy and for Foursquare Thailand that we would be a blessing to them.

We love you all!

Tags:

• travel
• prayer

Hello from Salem!

We really have two main items of news for those of you looking for an update. The first is that our travel dates are becoming more and more certain. We will be leaving from Seattle for Bangkok on February 23rd 2005. We should have internet access whenever we are in the cities... feel free to contact us with any questions or just to drop us a line.

We are hoping to spend a short time in Bangkok before heading up to Chiang Rai... but we don't know exactly what that schedule looks like yet. Here's what we do know... the Bible College graduation is on March 12th in Chiang Rai and it will be a wonderful celebration. We expect to arrive in Chiang Rai around the 1st of March. Please keep our schedule in your prayers - it can be overwhelming at times.

Our second "big" news is that we have been incredibly blessed by Foursquare Missions International and have been accepted as Missions Team Specialists. If you are not familiar with Foursquare, that probably doesn't mean anything to you (and, honestly, even as part of Foursquare we still aren't completely sure we know what it means) but basically we now have a larger umbrella covering us as we go. The missions knowledge, heart for the gospel and support are invaluable to us as we begin this great adventure. You can find out more about FMI through the links on the right of this page.

God has been doing AMAZING things in our lives, proving himself faithful day after day. We have so many stories to share, but a quick one involves our Foursquare paperwork... We needed to fill out a number of forms for Foursquare - one of which was a Doctor's release to go work in a third world country. We do not have health insurance that covers us in the United States, so we were a little worried about the cost of the signatures. We went to a doctor's office near Salem and found out the doctor there wanted to charge us $430.00!!! Needless to say, we just couldn't afford it. We left really discouraged and headed for an urgent care clinic. The urgent care turned us away and sent us to a travel center at the Salem Hospital. We explained our situation to one of the front-desk nurses who was sympathetic but couldn't help because there were no Doctors in the travel center. She then ran down the hall and spoke to a Salem Hospital doctor who said if we would show him proof that we had gotten all of our shots he would take care our paperwork - for free! We were walking on air... God even uses paperwork to show how faithful he is!

That's all for right now. Make sure you see OUR UPDATES for the Vernon Quarterly newsletters and any other updates we throw on there.

- Thanks for all of your support -

Tags:

• travel
• prayer

A Day at the Races

Lori honed her motorcycle skills. Paul, on the other hand, got his introduction to the wild world of dirtbikes. And let me say - it is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like riding a bike.

On Paul's first attempt (after several hundred kickstarts) the dirtbike went for a merry little ride without him. Eventually, however, he got the idea of what he was supposed to be doing. Now he'll really be thrown into the fire - riding scooters around Chiang Rai on the Left side of the street.

All in all we had a great day with Gary and Jan and got a little bit of our nervous energy out. Yes, we are nervous. More and more so as Tuesday approaches.

Well, we're off to begin the packing process. Please remember us in your prayers as we go through one more round of tough decisions.

Tags:

• humor
• travel