Matt, Miriam and Timothy

Some times I just don’t know whether to laugh or be really concerned?

Well we don’t really get a lot of time off to do stuff, what with lectures and homework and a 2 year old, but when we do these are some of the things we get up to… Go for rides, Timothy has since been upgraded to a new motorbike helmet and attachment seat of his own and loves going for rides with Dad as he gets to sit right up front and beep the horn. The international night we had was great fun and we experienced food and culture from every nation, mmm! International food… Easter was good here but there was way too little in the shape of chocolate and Easter eggs, Timothy and Miriam enjoyed it with a whole heap of friends at a big party for the kids, (Easter is celebrated the same weekend as the Songkran water festival here), the rabbits are a new edition to the Base, one recently disappeared, but more were bought so now there are three little rabbits that Timothy loves chasing and squashing… he gets a little bit excited about the rabbits. The other really enjoyable thing to do is go to a local hotel and just use their pool to escape the heat, it gets so hot here sometimes.

One of the things I enjoy are the lightning shows but Miriam hates them… here are some cool pics I took the other day during a lightning frenzy… Just click on the pictures to see them larger and add them to your desktop if you want?

Not a lot to say really… just the local bugs we see all the time…

Well we have been having some issues with Internet for a while here so I guess we will get a whole lot of updates done for you this week and then on Saturday we head of for a five week outreach to Isaan, it’s the eastern most province  of Thailand and by bus it takes about 21 hours… hence Miriam, Timothy and I will be flying… very thankfully. The pictures in the following gallery are from our second outreach a little over a month ago, we headed south from Chiang Rai to a place called PhaYao were we helped serve people in the local markets and wherever we could,  then we headed further south to Chiang Kham where we helped  in a Compassion project for kids and visited some people in the children’s ward at the local hospital, we even got to name a baby, Esther, super cool… we also did some dramas and stuff at a church service in a village where it rained so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves think. All up it was a hard but fun 2 weeks away.

Over the past month we’ve been on a 2 week outreach into a couple of Hilltribe villages in the Chiang Rai province, one of which had no electricity and an interesting shower to say the least , the other with a group of kids with so much energy you would have thought that the village was where all the red bull in the world was consumed. The first village we helped turn a home into a church and build a toilet, the village was 4 and a half hours drive away on some of the craziest 4WD tracks I’ve been on, we camped the whole time we  were there and went and played in the local Akha village with the kids. The second week we ran a camp for kids and taught worship, music, dance and drama, we had a lot of games with the kids aswell but it didn’t seem to drain on their endless energy, we were tired! It was really good just being able to help out in whatever way we could and was nice that the language barrier didn’t always get in the way.

Anyway we have had joys and triumphs with being married and parents in another country with an adorable white kid, whom everybody has to touch to see if he’s real, but we’ve also had some great experiences with the culture, mispronouncing the language and the food, some people say Thai food is awesome, I’m starting to see that you can get to a point that when someone yells out “Gin Kow” (”Eat Rice”) you kind of snap a bit inside and shudder at the thought of another meal that involves rice, I mean you can only cook it so many ways… Where was I? Oh the pictures, here is a whole stack of happy snaps as to what we’ve been up to and some… I was only joking about the rice, foods great, Aroi Mach! (Very Delicious!)

Apart from going away for a week or two we are pretty busy here at the base, we have a full on schedule during the week which is lectures every morning and then work duties in the afternoon and nearly every night there is something on as well so there isn’t a lot of time for us to chill especially having Timothy. We are learning a lot about the culture and have a Thai lesson every monday afternoon, which I am always keen to ask the important questions like, so what is the word for “Handsome”, well I do want to make a good impression when introducing myself, and it gives the locals a laugh as well… There are some things we enjoy in Thailand and some we don’t but we do miss the comforts and things that are normal to us at home, like a steak for tea or even the just taste of beef, mmmm! Some things you don’t expect like Matt getting chicken pox the past week, so bad He’s been in bed all week and really can’t use the term “Law Mach” (Handsome) anytime soon when introducing himself.

We really do treasure those people who send us letters and emails as it feels like we’re not so far away from home, our little boy is very quickly growing into a clever little man and can count to thirteen with a little help at” four”, he always wants to skip and go to five? He’s 86cm tall and when you ask him to jump he tries throwing himself skywards with all his might to not even have his feet leave the ground, it’s so cute. He loves having a bath outside in a big washtub and is always keen for a ride on the motorbike, which we were so graciously given the money for, Timothy’s starting to learn some Thai words but I haven’t seem him desire to take hold of it too much he just loves being cheeky and copy every word mum and dad say, we’ve had to resort to the most powerful tool in a parents arsenal…s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g-o-u-t-o-u-r-w-o-r-d-s, yeah, lets see Timothy crack that before he’s 3, ha ha ha!

Anyway look forward to getting some more posts up more regularly but we go on another 2 week outreach in a little over 3 weeks time, the internet has been very hap hazard here as well so I won’t make any promises to you though, but I’ll try and get some everyday stuff up and running and keep in touch…

Matt, Miriam and Timothy

This is the first batch of photos that me or friends have captured here in Thailand, I hope it puts a smile on your face and lets you see a bit into what is our everyday world…

Here are some pics of where we are living…

We’ve enjoyed just relaxing and getting used to everything in the past week, but we are both looking forward to starting the course, the days can really drag here if you don’t have transport and nothing to do. Timothy is fairly settled and is going to “School” day care for a half day all week so we can both sit through lectures. Timothy enjoys the freedom of sitting in the back of a “Sawngtau”, a Ute with two rows  of seats in the back, as he doesn’t have the restraint of a child seat.

Look forward to getting more pics and info out soon, Matt will go for his motorbike licsense next week sometime, it’s only like a couple of hundred Baht, $8-12 AUD, wish it was that much in Australia… Missing Iced Coffee already.

We’ve finally made it to the DTS base in Chiang Rai, we’ll get some pics up soon and let you see where we’re staying, the weather is really nice at the moment, jeans and T-shirt during the day and almost chilly at night, I guess it is supposed to be winter here.

The plane ride and travel we had to get here was all good, Singapore was beautiful and a lot of fun but we had some fun changing airports in Bangkok. Timothy was great on the plane rides and we’re starting to settle in to our new home with all of the new changes and different way things are done here.

Miss home a little already and the comforts that we had there, we’ll most likely buy Timothy a stack of toys in the next week or so,as we didn’t fit too many in our luggage. Matt wants to go around and fix everything and Miriam feels a little bit isolated with no transport to get anywhere, hence Matt will be getting his motor bike license very soon… vroom, vroom…

Tea last night cost us 25 Baht each, which is $1 AUD, enough to fill us both and a bottle of Pepsi will cost about 10 Baht or 45 cents Australian. Matt went to the supermarket the other day and it was a bit overwhelming not knowing what anything was, you can have a guess but you don’t really know if it’s washing liquid or Fabric softener as it is all written in Thai, oh well the clothes smell nice…

Talk to you soon, Matt, Miriam and Timothy

Just a quick update… We had a wonderful Christmas and Timothy learnt fairly quickly what a “Present” was, we went to Matt’s parents place on the River Murray the weekend before Christmas and had a very Zwarts Christmas, lots of Timothy’s cousins were there and his Aunty’s and Uncle’s too, we all had a really good time. 

We  thoroughly enjoyed Christams Day which we had at his Great Aunty’s place with all the Theel side of the Family. Timothy got a bit spoilt by his Great Uncle Bruce, note the massive Truck..

Miriam’s brother Rowan came over from Sydney and stayed with us over Christmas and after a long lunch we took Timothy and his Uncle down to the beach on Christmas evening. We’re enjoying the beach as much as we can as the ocean is a long way from Chiang Rai.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and have great New years eve

Matt, Miriam and Timothy