The Land of Smiles

Here we are a month now in Thailand. They say Thailand is the land of smiles and we have found that to be true. Even the dog down the street at the orphanage smiles. We have had 2 conferences and 4 different medical visits to the hospital for annual check-ups. Alleyah now has a silver tooth to cover her cavity. She is very proud of it and calls it her princess crown. She needs one more before our return to our China home. Our guess is that the effect of no fluoride in the water really weakens the teeth. Thank goodness they are just baby teeth.

We are in our 3^rd week of school through our company. Our company has a 3-month school to help us define our 5-year goals and plans for our work. We have already gained great tools how to problem solve and how to examine our culture’s worldview versus a Biblical view. We have a 5-year project that will take us the 3-month course to complete. We also have memory versus and book reports. All of it is so encouraging and we know that this is so important for us. It is down time in our Asian host country and being here has been the up side of things for us! After just a year and a half in Asia we have found we want more direction and clarity to our vision. The school is very important for us be more effective in the next 5 years and longer. The kids are in childcare and they are doing ok. Alleyah is the oldest and she gets bored here and there. She is also doing her 3 months worth of homework during our lectures and I think she is great in the subject of math. Both the kids get to take a short walk to the orphanage and play on the small playground while Morgan and I are in class. All of us have been so blessed to learn vocabulary from our Asian host country. The vocabulary is of substance that we do not regularly learn in Asia, but here with family we are learning so much. Our school will finish the End of May and we will return to our host Asian country. We already miss our home, but do enjoy the sunshine here!

The weekends are quiet here in this small Thai village, but we can go to a nice hotel and swim for the day. It was a big surprise to the kids to be able to swim and they are very thankful. Down town has a pizza restaurant too and so we fill quite blessed and set! Yet we found out last weekend that Noah thinks fried crickets are the best snack! (So Uncle Tommy I guess you don’t have to send us fish crackers anymore. J)

Books read so far, and have greatly enjoyed:

Morgan read “Rebuilding your broken world” Gordon Mac Donald

Lori read “Organizing your Inner World” Gordon Mac Donald

Standing at the Golden Triangle, Burma and Laos are behind us, standing in Thailand.

Noah's bag of crickets!

Worship!

Hanging on the back of a Thai taxi.

Alleyah's silver tooth and journal entry.