Christmas Program Video

Here's the kids in their Christmas program at church. (It's only  few minutes long)

Feels like Christmas in July

Sunday night was the Christmas program at the church we are attending here.  Winnie dressed up as an angel and sang "Away in a Manger" in English and German.  (Her teacher is German, everything is truly an international affair here.)  Evie performed a jazz dance with the 1st - 6th grade girls. I'm going to try to make another post right after this with a video clip if you'd like to watch.

Winnie and I went to a new friend's house to decorate christmas cookies yesterday too.  She had invited over two friends that she's reaching out to, one from Thailand and one from Australia.  It was really nice to hang out with some other moms!

Thursday night was exciting!  During an evening program at the Centre, Cory along with a few Thai staff were able to share their testimonies about accepting Jesus  and talk about God's love for us.  Two students decided to place their faith in Jesus and begin a relationship with the one 

 true God!  While Cory was at work, the girls and I met our neighbors.  They made a new friend, a little Thai girl named Pay-Ping (Or something that sounds like that).  She's 6 years old and lives just across the street.  It was so neat to see how much fun Evie and Winnie had playing with her even though they couldn't speak the same language!

Cory went up the mountain this week with some students from the Centre and the team that's here from Australia.  Here's some pictures of the temple and what the people here worship:

We've all still been healthy (except I was sick one night, but it only lasted 4 hours), so we are very thankful for that.  Thanks for checking into our lives!

We made it!

We arrived in Chiang Mai 3 weeks ago.  We are fully adjusted to the 12 hour time difference and we're getting settled quickly.  We found a great house and moved in almost 2 weeks ago.  The neighborhood has a nice park for the kids and a great swimming pool!  We managed to lock ourselves out of the house twice in the first week though!  We've been learning from our mistakes and now know exactly where to find a locksmith at the local market when we need one.

We also bought a car, an old 96 Honda Accord.  The bad thing though is that it's a stick shift and we had to add that complication into learning how to drive on the left side of the road.  Cory has had no problem driving around and even tries to blend in with the crazy drivers out there on the road!  I just got up the nerve to drive on the main roads on Saturday.  Not so bad, but my legs were shaking every time I had to stop at a light, afraid I'd stall when the light turned green.  Since Saturday, Cory's been riding our friend's motorbike back and forth to work.  It saves a lot on gas money, but I've been praying a lot for his safety!

Everyday has been a learning experience and we are always exhausted by the time we fall into our rock-hard beds!  It's amazing how many little things are different that you have to figure out on a day to day basis.  We've managed to get most of what we need now though.  In order to start cooking at home, we had to go to the store and buy a small stove/oven to be delivered, then we had to figure out where to get a tank of gas from, then we had to figure out how to turn the oven on (You have to turn the gas on and then actually light the oven), now I'm figuring out how to control the oven flame to keep it around the temperature I want (But the oven is in Celsius!).  (Also, there's no sink in our kitchen, it's in the backyard!)  So, we rejoice in every small victory, like my being able to go grocery shopping by myself on Saturday, and we try not to get too frustrated by our failures, but readily accept God's grace that He has been pouring out on us!

Evie and Winnie started school last Monday.  We bought little school desks for them and it has been exciting to finally get them in a routine again.  They also like the church we're going to, and have met some friends in their Sunday School classes.  This Sunday there will be a Christmas program at church.  Evie's class will be doing a dance, which she is soooo excited about, and Winnie's class will be dressing up as angels and singing a christmas carol.  

It definitely does not feel like Christmas around here though, it's in the upper 80s and without a single fan in our house, we get pretty hot!  (Sorry to all of you who are dealing with snow and ice right now!)

Cory's been working a lot of hours at the Centre, because a short-term team came in from Australia on Saturday and he is helping a lot with them.  Sunday they had baptisms too.  (We've included a short video of two of the students from the Centre getting baptized.)

 

We'll try to update this blog frequently now that we've got it figured out, and we'd love to hear your comments too!