We're doing our best to make it feel like Christmas at our home even though the general population here doesn't celebrate Christmas. The larger stores and hotels that cater to the tourists do have some Christmas decorations, and we see those occasionally. We were able to find a fake tree. Our color choices were gold, blue, pink, or green. We went with green. We also found some decorations. We play the Christmas music we brought with us while our floor fan oscillates to cool the room. "Mai pen rai," as they say here. Which roughly translated means "no problem" or "no worries."
Since we're 15 hours ahead of the US west coast, we'll be ringing in 2007 (2550 if you use the Thai calendar) on December 31 at about 9:00 AM PST. By the time you have your morning coffee break; we'll have shot off all our fireworks and will hopefully be asleep.
After being hotter than normal for the past month, we are now in the middle of a short cool spell which feels great. The low has been around 55 degrees for the past few days and the high around 75 degrees. The cool weather has made it feel a little more like the Christmas holidays. Next week the temperature is expected to be back up into the 60s at night and the 80s during the day.
Praise and Prayer
We are now moved into our permanent home! It feels so great to be settled into our own place just in time for Christmas. We were able to purchase most of the furniture and appliances we need. A great big thank you to each of you who helped with this need!
Right after our last newsletter went out, our car deal fell through. We had to go back to our search, but I am happy to report that we now have our own car! It is a 1995 Toyota Corona (similar to a Corolla). It is a five-seater automatic, which makes for cozy car-pools!
Please pray for continued perseverance in Thai language study and for John as he assumes the computer support role and takes additional linguistic and technical training. Please also pray for Kristen, Tyler, and Sarah as they live overseas and that school would go well again this semester.
Ministry News
Starting in January, John will be taking over the computer support duties for the SIL office; which includes office computers, field workers' computers, and the home computers of SIL people as well. John will also be attending some intense linguistic and technical training during January and February, which will better prepare him to handle the linguistic technical issues that the translators have which are specific to the languages in this area of the world. It is encouraging to us as we hear about the completion of books of the Bible that have been translated into various nearby languages and then checked for accuracy by the linguistic consultants.
Besides language study and setting up a home, Kimberly has been called in as a substitute teacher at Grace International School several times. She taught Fifth Grade for a week in October when a teacher had to fly back to the US unexpectedly for a funeral. She just competed a week teaching Kindergarten. In January, she will teach Fifth Grade again for six days. She is also volunteering in Grace's Extension Services Department, which provides help to field workers who home-school. She has also been asked to help coordinate the Children's program at church.
Community
In addition to our work here, it is exciting to see and be involved in some of the other ministries going on here. Last Saturday our family and some other SIL families went to one of the largest government-run orphanages in this area. Most of the kids that we saw were 2-4 years old and were craving attention. We each had one or two kids on our laps most of the time. One little three-year-old girl wrapped her arms around Kristen and didn't let go for over an hour. She wouldn't let any of the other kids near Kristen either! Tyler usually had a small crowd of little boys around him all wanting to bat balloons back and forth. After spending time holding the kids, a Thai woman told them the Christmas story using a picture book. Then we sang a few Christmas songs for them, gave them cake and milk, then they each got a present -- such as a stuffed animal, ball, etc. After all that, we spent another hour or so playing with the kids.
We attend an English speaking church, since we don't speak enough Thai yet to attend a Thai one. Our church has several local outreach ministries. They recently started a children's home which is very close to us. The idea is that this will be more like a foster home rather than an orphanage and the kids will be looked after by Thai Christian women. We visited there today and brought toys. A group from our church also teaches English classes in the slums and shares the gospel in the process. A few of these children have been sponsored to go to a Christian school. Last Sunday they came and sang some songs for us during church. They sang "As The Dear Panteth For The Water" in both English and Thai. It is encouraging to us to hear songs that we know sung in other languages and know that they are worshipping the same great God. Lastly, our church helps and mentors some local Thai pastors and church planters. Recently these Thai church leaders were invited by the government officials to come to a nearby juvenile detention center and teach religion! This is huge! To be Thai is to be Buddhist. It is unheard of for a government organization to actually ask Christians to come and teach what they believe. They will be doing this during the last week of the year and they hope to be able to make it an ongoing event. Please pray for both the pastors and juveniles during this time.
Blessings,
John & Kimberly
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