Prayer Support Team

Last summer, we asked our friends and family to consider supporting us in prayer during our time in Thailand. Those who agreed chose one week where they committed to praying for our family every day. During their designated week, we connected personally with that person or family, updating them on some specific prayer requests that we have for that time frame. This has been incredibly fun and uplifting for us, because we get to talk to so many friends and family members in person. We have updated people through email, FaceTime, Skype, and regular phone calls. It's great to catch up with them and hear about what they've been doing since we left, and also tell them about our lives in Thailand.

Our amazing support team has selected weeks through the beginning of January 2017. If you are interested in joining our team, please visit our Prayer Support Page. There you can see a list of which weeks are still available in 2017. Please send me an email (listed on the page) if you decide to take a week. If you already supported us in the past and want to take another week, feel free!

Another way you can receive prayer updates is by joining our prayer email list. At the beginning of each month I send out an email with specific updates for our family and the IJM office. I also occasionally include a picture. 😀 To join this list, just send me an email (listed on the Prayer Support Page) and I will take care of the rest. If at any time you no longer want to be part of the email list, simply reply with "unsubscribe".

We are extremely grateful for each person who has lifted us in prayer over the last five months. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! We have seen some very specific answers to prayer happen, and we know it is because we have such an awesome army of people praying for us. Here is just one example of how prayers have been answered for us this year:

     In June, our family decided to go to Hong Kong over Christmas because our visas require us to leave Thailand every 90 days. My mom is going to meet us there, and we thought it would be a great place to enjoy Christmas together. At that time, we thought our visas would allow us to enter Thailand as many times as we needed to in one year on the same visa. However, we found out just before we left that our visas expire every 90 days, requiring us to re-apply at a Thai consulate outside of Thailand. The Hong Kong consulate's website doesn't list the kind of visas that we have as an option, so I needed to contact them to be sure we could in fact receive visas there. I started trying to contact them mid-October, both by email and phone. After weeks of trying to get in touch, to no avail, I enlisted the help of some of our prayer partners. Lo and behold, that week I got a response both by phone and email, and they are able to give us visas!! I can't express what a relief this was, and an obvious answer to prayer!

Lantern Festival

Last week was one of the most famous festivals in Chiang Mai. Most people refer to it as the Lantern Festival, but really it is the combination of two Thai holidays: Loy Krathong and Yi Peng.

Floating krathongs on the Mae Ping

Loy Krathong is the "Festival of Lights", and is celebrated mainly by floating krathongs down a river or other large body of water. Krathongs are made of banana tree stems, banana leaves, candles, flowers, and other various materials. They can be simple or extravagant, and range in size from small to very large. E really wanted to float her own krathong, so we purchased one made by some teens to benefit a hill tribe school.

E purchasing her krathong

The area of the river where you could float the krathongs was PACKED, but E was brave and fought the crowd to put hers in the river. I went down with her to make sure it all went okay, and luckily there were two gentlemen who were actually placing the krathongs in the river. It was also a great spot from which to view the floating lanterns. E and I agreed that it was a good experience, but maybe we wouldn't do it again due to the large crowds. 😀

Crowd making their way to the river

Yi Peng celebrates the full moon of the second month (by the old Lanna kingdom calendar) by floating paper lanterns in the air. The lanterns are supposed to bring good luck, both to those who send it and to those who receive them after they've burnt out. If you've ever seen the movie Tangled, it's a very similar experience! E and B have been waiting to go to this ever since we told them we were moving to Thailand.

There is a bridge in the central part of Chiang Mai where most of the lanterns were sent up, which was right next to where we floated E's krathong. Needless to say, the crowd was overwhelming, so we opted to float our lantern a bit down the street, but still in the same general area. Our lantern was actually given to us by a sweet couple we saw after floating the krathong. They had two lanterns and offered one to us so we could enjoy it with our kids. So kind!

E and B getting ready to float the lantern

This year's celebration was toned down due to the passing of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, but usually includes a parade and several big events. We ate some street food before floating the krathong and lantern; however those two events gave us enough excitement for the evening, so we didn't mind that the other events had been canceled. After we floated the lantern we got some ice cream to cool down (it's still in the 80s here every day) and headed to our car. We had parked on the top level of an open parking garage, so we watched the lanterns float there as well.

View from the parking garage

This was a highly-anticipated festival for our family, and it did not disappoint! We learned some lessons about when to arrive and how to navigate the crowds, so we are better-informed if we ever come back. The pictures don't really capture how magical it was to see all the lanterns floating. If you ever come to Thailand, add this to your must-see list!

Bua Tong Sticky Waterfalls

Today was a national holiday in Thailand, so I had the day off from work. We took advantage of the long weekend and took a short trip to a local favorite--Bua Tong Sticky Waterfalls! These waterfalls are one-of-a-kind because you can climb right up the rocks. These rocks aren't slippery (hence the name "sticky") due to a mineral deposit that interacts with the limestone and gives them a slightly rough feel.

There are three levels you can climb, with stairs going down along the side for those who weren't as adventurous. We chose to take the stairs down and the waterfalls up! The kids had a great time, especially E. She couldn't get enough of climbing up the waterfalls. She went up each one with Scott before coming down and allowing me to do one without holding the baby. B was less enthusiastic, but he did finally climb the last one with me and E. Two of our sweet friends, Madeline and Jen, came with us and helped us wrangle all the children.

By the time everyone had climbed to the top once, we were tired and hungry! We ate a picnic lunch at the very top under a shade tree. E really wanted to climb the waterfalls again, this time going all the way up without stopping. Scott and I went with her while Madeline and Jen entertained the boys. I think we'll all be a little sore tomorrow!

It was a very fun day at Bua Tong Waterfalls! The weather was perfect and the company was sweet. Couldn't have asked for a better time!

KL and Singapore

At the end of September our family went on our first visa run. Due to our visa type, we have to leave the country every 90 days and re-apply for visas. For our first run we went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Singapore. It was a really great trip!

Flying to KL is really easy and cheap, and the city is very fun! Some of the activities we did there include: touring the Petronas Towers, exploring the Batu Caves, visiting Chinatown, and seeing the KL Bird Park. The main reason we were there, though, was to apply for new visas. I was extremely nervous about this because approval of visas is up to the discretion of the approver. There are certainly guidelines you should follow when applying for a visa, but ultimately it is up to the person who is working that day. A lot of prayer and preparation went into our application, to make sure we had all our documents in order and had the best chance at getting new visas. Thankfully, our applications were approved without any problem!

Waiting in line for our Thai visas

Petronas Towers at night

Inside Batu Caves

Chinatown

KL Bird Park

Our kids loved KL! Even though all the attractions we visited were amazing, I think E liked the Petronas Towers the best. B definitely preferred the Bird Park, since he’s been obsessed with birds for the last couple of years. They truly enjoyed their first hostel stay, too, because we all got to sleep in bunk beds! We highly recommend BackHome Hostel if your family ever visits KL!

Skywalk of Petronas Towers

Feeding the birds

Once we had our new visas we could really relax! We took a short flight over to Singapore and had a few days to just relax and have a true vacation. You might already know that Singapore is one of the cleanest cities in the world. It’s also a lot less crowded than KL, which made it easier for us to explore.

We did a lot of amazing stuff in Singapore: rode the Singapore Flyer, visited the River Safari, went to Little India, spent a day on Sentosa Island, and toured Gardens by the Bay. E has been dying to go to the beach, so our day at Sentosa Island was especially fun for her. She’s also a little obsessed with India, so getting to spend some time in Little India eating real Indian food and getting a henna tattoo was exciting! B loved the River Safari, keeping with his love for all things animal-related. X loves everything, so it’s hard to tell which was his favorite. He was happy just to be with his momma all day every day (usually on my back in the Tula).

Singapore Flyer

B at the River Safari

Little India

Burying Daddy in the sand

Gardens by the Bay

X's favorite way to travel

Some days it’s hard to believe that we’ve been in Thailand for 90 days already, and other days it feels like we’ve been here for much longer. We truly enjoyed our time away as a family and are so thankful to have our visas reinstated. We highly recommend both KL and Singapore as tourist destinations!!

The Kids Are Alright

As we prepared to move to Thailand, arguably my biggest concern was how the children would adjust to being in a new place away from their friends, family, and everything they knew. This was the first time for them to leave the United States, and while they have had a small exposure to foreign languages, they had never been immersed in a non-English speaking culture.

If you’ve ever considered moving to another country, or even just traveling to one, with small children, this has probably been a big concern of yours, as well. Let me just assure you that our children have adjusted wonderfully. I would argue that the transition has been the easiest on them! They take all the new things in stride and see the adventure in everything we do, even though most of it is different than what they’re used to. Of course, they miss their friends and family members that they’re used to seeing all the time. We try to make that easier by FaceTiming the grandparents regularly and emailing/texting/Facebooking other friends and family members when we really miss them. The time difference makes that a bit difficult since our kids are generally asleep when most children in the States are awake, and vice versa. However, we try to make it happen so that they can connect with their friends every once in awhile.

Anyway, here are some examples of how the kids are loving life abroad:

Trying out her camera at the White Temple in Chiang Rai

Enjoying our first high tea

E has been the most excited about Thailand from day 1. She couldn’t wait to see new things, learn the language, and try the food. She is doing part of our Thai tutoring with us each week, and is very enthusiastic about using her new-found knowledge. She’s doing wonderfully with homeschooling, also, and is a big helper for Scott while he tries to wrangle all three children all day.

B's first Thai haircut

Feeding the elephants

B was not nearly as excited about moving to Thailand, and I would say he is still the least enthusiastic about being here. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy living here, it’s just that he still hasn’t quite grasped how far away we are from Indiana. He often asks to see or do things that would be easy to do in Indiana, but impossible to do from the other side of the world. He also doesn’t have a great concept of time, so when we told him we were going to live here for a year, he didn’t quite understand how long that truly was.

There are many things he loves about Thailand, though. There are lots of new animals that he gets to see up close often. (Geckos in our house! Chickens across the street! Elephants!!!) He loves spending all this extra time with Scott, E, and X. He and E played together well before, but now they’re truly buddies. B has also warmed up to Thai food. Before we moved here, he didn’t like rice, eggs, or shrimp (those are staples in Thai cuisine). He now eats all three willingly, and even requests them sometimes!

Loving his first tuk tuk ride

Taking a cruise on the Mekong River

As you can see by the above pictures, X is a dare devil! He loves to try new things and has really enjoyed trying new modes of transportation in Thailand. He’s also pretty happy to be with at least one of his parents and siblings every waking moment. He loves Thai food, especially dragon fruit!

If traveling or living abroad with small children is something you’re thinking about, do it! It really is a great time to expose them to new things, and they are still young enough, and not set in their ways enough, to embrace it. We’d love to answer any questions you have before you go!

Cultural Adjustment

We have lived in Thailand for more than two months! In some ways, that’s really hard to believe, but in other ways, it feels like we’ve been here for a long time. Like everyone who is experiencing a new culture for the first time, we’ve had a bit of a cultural adjustment. For those of you who have lived abroad before, this will be a familiar feeling.

[If you’ve never lived abroad or traveled abroad for an extended period of time, you might find this explanation of cultural adjustment from Princeton useful: https://www.princeton.edu/oip/practical-matters/Cultural-Adjustment.pdf ]

Every person experiences cultural adjustment (or as others might call it, culture shock) differently, and each period doesn’t necessarily have a defined beginning or end. You might also revisit a period briefly, depending on your situation. Hence, I can only tell you my experience as an individual. If you want to know how Scott and the kids feel, you’ll have to ask them!

For me, I think the honeymoon period was brief. I really love my job and could not be happier about working for IJM, but our house was a bit of a disappointment. It was pretty dirty when we moved in and the outdoor kitchen with oven, which I had been ecstatic about before we arrived, was not as awesome as I had expected. That, coupled with the fact that we did not have a vehicle for our first week here, made our living situation less than ideal. We also realized how tragically useless our Thai language knowledge was, and for me it felt a bit overwhelming to try to communicate with people when I had literally no idea what they were saying.

That paragraph might’ve been a little depressing, but trust me when I say we are so happy here! The point of this post is to say that Thailand is starting to feel like home. We have adopted the attitude that we are going to be here for a year, so we might as well learn to live here and not worry about the differences so much. Here are a few differences that we’ve embraced lately:

1. Bugs

In the States, I did not tolerate bugs in my home. If they wanted to live their life outside, that was fine, but once you entered my house you were probably not going to live very long. In Thailand, bugs are inevitable. The houses are not sealed quite as well so bugs can get in everywhere. There are also tiny ants that swarm your kitchen and dining room if you leave a speck of food anywhere (you can imagine how easily that happens at our house!). So, I’ve had to adjust to living with a few more bugs than I would like. We obviously don’t let them get into our food or bother the children, but I am less maniacal about killing every bug that I see.

2. Lack of Air Conditioning

Central air is just not a thing here. We have individual air conditioning units in our bedrooms, but the other parts of our house do not have air conditioning. The weather is not too hot right now, so this really is not a big deal (ask me again during hot season and I might have a different answer). It does mean, though, that we can’t set the temperature of our living spaces, and sometimes I am sweating just watching tv. Sweating while cooking or washing dishes is a given. Many restaurants and other public spaces do not have air conditioning, so you might be sweating while eating, shopping, or working. Again, it’s only in the 80s here, so no one is in danger of heat stroke, but it has pushed us out of our American 72-degree comfort zone.

3. Thai Language

Learning foreign languages is something I prided myself on before we moved to Thailand. I speak Spanish and have learned small amounts of Mandarin and Italian in the past with relative ease. However, Thai is a whole new ballgame. We tried to find some good resources before we moved for learning the language, but there just isn’t much available (or at least, we didn’t find it). Thai is a symbolic language, so reading signs was impossible. It’s also a tonal language, so you could say the same word with a different tone and have a totally different meaning. We didn’t have a Thai tutor our first month here, and it was very frustrating to try to communicate with other people when we had no idea what they were saying. As you can imagine, we resorted to a lot of hand gestures and grunts in the first few weeks! Now, however, we have an excellent Thai tutor and have begun to pick up the language. Admittedly, we are limited to conversations about food and shopping, but we have made a lot of progress.

4. Being Barefoot

In Thai culture, it is disrespectful to wear shoes indoors. This is particularly important in places like temples, but also applies to a person’s home. We don’t wear shoes at our house, which is not such a big change since we did the same in Indiana. My office also leaves their shoes outside, so I spend the vast majority of my day barefoot. I knew this would be the case before we came and I thought it would be weird. However, it now feels totally normal to teach without any shoes on. Sometimes I almost feel strange wearing shoes for more than ten minutes. :)

Elephant Nature Park

This weekend we visited the Elephant Nature Park in Mae Taeng District. It was an incredible experience! The Elephant Nature Park is a conservation park that rehabilitates elephants who have been abused or disabled. The elephants roam freely inside the park and can choose to do whatever activities they would like. All the elephants do have a mahout near them at all times, though, to make sure everyone is safe.

Our amazing day started with a walk through the park and meeting several of the elephant "families". Most of these families aren't biologically related, but they have chosen to live together as a herd. Then we fed an elephant a snack of watermelon, corn, squash, and cucumber. The kids loved it!

 

After lunch, we gave an elephant a bath! Since many of the elephants are disabled, they aren't able to go into the river on their own for a bath. It was a much muddier experience than we were anticipating, but still unbelievable!

It was such a great day observing the elephants and getting to interact with them. If you're ever in northern Thailand, this is a must-see!

This is the park's oldest elephant---she's 90!