Christmas Party at Church

On Sunday we had a Christmas party at our Thai church, it was a lot of fun. Kaitlyn and I got to know our youth group a lot better at practices and at the party.

Moe and Rabbit singing a song in English.

 Beginning of our line dance.

 Six of the nine that we lined danced with.

 Abby danced as well.













Zach, Abby, Kaitlyn and I all were in the program doing different stuff...All having a tone of fun!

Christmas Eve Party

People, hot chocolate, lights, food, games, and tones of fun. Those are a few words that could describe our Christmas party.
This Christmas eve we had our Thai youth group and GTO singles over for a party at our house. It was a load of fun!

We had Uno games, songs, a rook tournament and tones of laughter. God has blessed us with a wonderful Christmas!
Merry Christmas!

Faith

The definition of Faith:
1. Complete trust in someone of something (noun)

I would like to add a quote to that definition:
"Faith is believing in something you can't see."
Example:
"I have faith in God, faith that He holds my future, faith that He will guide me, and faith that whatever happens He is in control no matter how difficult."

He Holds Up His Hand For a Kiss

Name: Mickey
Age: 3 or 4 years old.
Second Year Student

"Here," Mickey says as he spouts of in Thai, and then holds up his hand for a kiss.
   Mickey is a rambunctious child, with a rather short attention span, and yet he longs to gain our approval. Even though when I am speaking he get's distracted easily, he is always one to volunteer, and answer our questions; he loves when we smile and nod at him.
   One of my favorite things about Mickey is that he wants a kiss. One day, one of our more...Unruly, children hurt Mickey, which of course was followed by a bout of tears. Not knowing the Thai words to comfort him, I asked the unruly child to say "khatot krup," (I'm sorry) then I hugged him and I kissed the bruise on his hand. Ever since then he has come up to us with the smallest cut, bruise or bump...for a kiss. I absolutely love the way he wants to please us; and he is a lot of fun in our class.
   His little voice, although hard to understand, is always chattering about something that happened. And though I may only understand twenty percent of his Thai child rabbling's. I love showering him with love.
   Please do not forget to pray for him. I don't know his family situation, but he needs God's love so much. Also ask God to help Kaitlyn and I show him love; because how else will you share the joy of Jesus with a 4 year old?
   Thank you

Coffee for College

I have a page set up as a fund raiser for me. CHECH IT OUT
Thanks

So You Can Pray For Them Too...

We will be starting a series of post about our students from the first school we taught at (21 Blessings.) The public school, later we will start with our other schools and villages.
We wanted to do this so you can know them, our students, even if it is only a little. The posts will be shorter, but will include their habits, some of our favorite memories with them, their name and estimated age. We hope that you will be able to pray better with this knowledge.
Thanks again.

God's Safety

   On Tuesday night my parents were in an accident.
   In Thailand green means go, yellow means speed up, and red means make sure no ones coming before you go. Well a lady didn't follow this completely, oh yes she went through the red light okay, but she didn't make sure no one was coming and hit my parents. "We were probably thrown 25 to 30 feet," my dad said.
   My parents did walk away, we were thankful that my dad was wearing a helmet. (even though it broke when he hit the ground) A police man saw the whole thing, (he almost got hit) we were so thankful because he knew exactly what happened.
   The people wanted to call an ambulance, but my parents didn't want to go to the hospital. Although a couple hours later my mom started doubting her decision when my dad started shaking, "I couldn't even touch his stomach he was in so much pain."
   But it could have been so much worse. My parents are still in pain (We think my dad may have bruised his ribs. And my moms not sure what's messed up inside, but she's not sure what.) Thank you so much for all the prayers for safety, God has answered them; more then once.
   We'll update again, and we plan to update more often for those of you have been checking.

Monday Nights

   Two weeks ago, we started a game night at our coffee shop, every Monday night, with a free supper that my mom makes. We have had so much fun with everyone. We enjoy hanging out with the college kids and playing games and talking. We're hoping that it will open more doors into their lives so that we can share the gospel with them.
   Please pray that God will open their hearts for His word. Pray there wouldn't be a language barrier. Pray that the word would get out and that more students would come and have fun. Pray that this opportunity will not be wasted. And last but certainly not least thank God for giving us this opportunity.
   God is doing amazing things in this land!
   We'll keep you posted...

Day of Teaching

    We were ten minuets early getting to the local school in Mae Joe where we teach English. So we, Sarah and I, headed up the flight of stairs to our class room. It's not a very large class room but big enough to suit our needs. After ten minuets of preparing the class room we heard our students come up the stairs, full of energy. When all 22 of them sat cross legged on the floor we began our day of teaching. Sarah and I were both surprised when the all the kids starting singing an English song. They sang 2 adorable songs that had them doing all kinds of motions with there hands.
    After they were done we Started our regular Song. I've Got The Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart. and then taught them a New Song,. Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes. . Though we had taught this song before it had been last year so most of our old students were gone, although there were still some older students who remembered.
     Next we got in a big circle and did review of verbs and gave them a few other words to practice, they did fairly well. Especially a little boy who's name is Oom Sing that is a bit of a trouble maker but he's a quick learner and a attentive student. He was with us last year and is now in Kindergarten 3 so he will be moving to another class soon. )
    After practicing it over and over again we turned to our worksheet paper where they can practice writing there ABC's. Sarah takes care of creating a fun worksheet where they can learn and have fun.
Our last thing that we do for the day is a small craft. Today we did paper fans that they can decorate. Before they can get the supplies I always ask them what it is (I hold up my sample fan) and they practice pronouncing it. When they get it right there I give them supplies and they run off with their crafts and find a place to color it.
    By the time we leave we had done 1 1/2 hours of teaching. We then sign out and head home on our moter bike.

Info on our class: We teach 3 grades Kindergarten 1, 2, and 3. The majority of our class this year is Kindergarten 1 and 2.

~Kaitlyn

Ex-cite-ment

The definition of excitement:
Very enthusiastic and eager. (adjective)
Example:
I am feeling very excited about teaching tomorrow.

     Tomorrow we finally get to teach at the school again. (21 Blessings.) They have asked us to teach Mondays and Thursdays for this semester and we are super excited about it.
     Tomorrow is the first day of school since they have been on break; and we are anticipating a lot of energy and talking (in Thai) from the kids. Please pray that we can connect with the teachers and that we would be able to shine God's love and light. We are not allowed to mention His names in this school. So please pray that God will open doors for us.
      We'll keep you posted.

Home

"Home is where the heart is." Home is Thailand for us.

It's good to be back...

    It's the end of the second day, and it's GREAT to be back. We're plunging right into things; tomorrow I work at the coffee shop and the week after the next we start teaching (21 blessings) two days a week at the local public school. (There off this week and next week) Next Tuesday we'll probably do kid's club and we want to start language study soon as well.

   This afternoon we were reminded of the lovely wild life and the "benefit" of hanging out our clothing. I was folding laundry, innocent as can be, I picked up a pair of my dad's jeans and as I went to shake it out a large yellow tree frog jumped off my the pants on to my skirt and then onto the floor. Needless to say it took Zach a good ten minutes to catch it. "It's leaving slim all over the place!" "Zach it's under the couch!" "Where did it go? Ahhh! It's on my pants." Unlike toads this frog jumped high, far and fast. Thankfully we finally were able to release it into the yard.

     We have also discovered two snakes since being back (my dad found one before we came) and we found another one today. Making a total of ten snakes in twelve days.

     So along with the snakes, frogs, birds and bugs; Zach also discovered, while sweeping at the center, a scorpion. Thankfully, he quickly disposed of it.

    Are travels went fairly well, I had a good book and the time passed relatively quickly. All in all I would have to say that the time flew by faster on this trip then on any of the other trips from America to Asia or Asia to America.

    Yes, it is good to back home. We'll continue to keep you updated as we experience life.

    Let us know if you have questions about our life here.

More pages...

Please don't miss the side bar. There are more pages listed under "More of the story." Please don't miss it, and don't forget to continue to watch for new pages.
Continue to explore the side bar, new things are coming up all the time and we know that the font is small. So watch for something new.
Movies are also on the side bar (coming soon) so don't forget to watch for that.

Have Patience

Please bare with us as we make changes to the blog. Also if you want to make note of the pages above, we are adding a lot of new pages and we will continue to do that, especially over the next week and a half. (The pages are listed next to Home. Example: 21 Blessings FAQs ect.)
If you have suggestions or things you would like us to post or make a page about or if you have questions please comment below. Let us know what you are thinking. we want to know how we can make this blog better. And that goes for now or a couple of years from now. Just click the -- comment below.

Sarah

Chapters...

We decided to make this blog instead of a news letter. -We want to keep you updated on what's going on- We'll try and post something at least once a week and we hope it will help you keep in touch with us.
Kaitlyn and I are sharing this blog and both of us will be posting about what we are doing. We will also keep the prayer request updated.
So hopefully this will help you catch a glimpse of our lives here in Asia and maybe you can see why we love it so much.

Sarah