Well it’s a little bit different in Thailand… for one thing schools are still open, so all the kids are still at school today, the garbage collection is still on today and pretty much everyone just treats today as another day, I’m sure a lot of Thai’s know that it’s some sort of special day on the western calendar but it really doesn’t seem any different here. We enjoyed our day with the Mum’s and kids living on our property and had lunch with them, one of the boys even went of to school today, and we had a lovely time having a picnic just outside our house on the grass. Later that evening we joined the kids and family at Home of The Open Heart for a BBQ tea, well pork and sausages on little coal fire pots, not a real “barbie” just a Thai style one.

We did have a wonderful day as a family and Timothy really enjoyed getting some books and a car for Christmas, as much as we missed family and friends on Christmas day it is really a blessing to be able to experience Christmas living in another culture. It makes me look at what we do, and why we celebrate and hold particular traditions we do as meaningful, we made sure we sat down in the morning as a family and gave thanks to God for his Son, and prayed and asked God to be a part of our day, I mean there’s no reason that  you have to wait until your about to say grace to give thanks, the only reason we have Christmas is give thanks to Jesus for coming to earth and what he did so why not thank him all day?

Anyway here are a few pics of our Christmas, the one with Timothy and baby Alex is cute as we think Timothy is looking forward to being a big brother, can’t wait to get home and see everyone again, share our stories and adventures, and here how the past year has been for everyone back in OZ. Hope you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year, look forward to seeing everyone in 2010…

So as our time comes down to a week in Thailand, we are trying to enjoy the last few days we have here as well as finish off any projects, work or commitments that we have. We went on a family picnic yesterday which was really nice, it was at Prong Prabhat Waterfall, which is only a five minute drive away from our home, and on Saturday we went for a ride as a family, on the family motorbike of course, to the airport for yummy chocolate drinks and biscuits to watch the plane takeoff. Timothy’s getting very excited about his upcoming plane ride but well wait and see how he is after several hours of being stuck in a seat. We’re doing the overnight flight so we are praying that he sleeps during most of our flight from Bangkok to Melbourne, and that we, Mummy and Daddy, do as well…

It amazes me that the whole thing is held together with wire, bamboo and rope. I love that one group of guys came and put it together and then another group came in the next day and started to clamber all over it, safety here in Thailand seems like an optional extra… just like motorbike helmets!

Thanks to everyone for all their help on the Hospice.

Well the next things I’ll be working on are getting together all the paperwork for the hospice, floor plans, electrical requirements, plumbing, everything else that needs to happen to make the Hospice complete. After that I’m going to look into getting the handrails/guard rails and staircase hand rails hopefully in place, of course I’m looking forward to laying about a thousand bricks myself, but what else am I here for? It’s great to see work getting done on the hospice and rewarding to know that one day it will be a place for those who need love in their hardest of times, I pray it’s all that and more…

Miriam is trying to find her role as a nurse here, as there are already two other nurses here at the moment, but she is kept very busy with an ever joyful and fun filled little 2 year old running around. Miriam is also teaching English once a week to the Accountant here, Kak. The other thing that amazes me is that with all that my wife does she still manages to remain the most beautiful woman in the world, I mean that has to take some effort, but everyday without fail she manages to win my heart, bravo, bravo!!!

Timothy is quite happy with our new home, he gets his own room, which is actually better for Mum and Dad to have more space, Timothy goes to Kindergarten every morning and is really loving playing with his Teacher and one of the kids from Baan Nam Jai. He loves going on outings with Mumma and Daddy and is very quickly repeating every word we say. He loves playing on the playgrounds here and is now into a comfortable routine in his week, which makes life a bit more predictable for Mum and Dad.

All up we are enjoying our time here, and we know that before we know it it will be time to go home, so we’re both working really hard to try and get done as much as we can in the 4 months that we have left here, and try and savour all the things that we’ve come to love about Thailand, 60 cent Cornetto’s, bargain… riding on a motorbike as a family, and not trying to think too much about the things we miss back home…

So here are some pictures of Home of the Open Heart, Timothy at Kindergarten, our new home and the Hospice Project that Matt is working on, now that we’re a bit more settled we hope to get more posts onto our webpage, that’s if the internet is reliab………………………………………………………………………..(Local Area Connection Disconnected, please contact your service provider for assistance.)

We had a really good time and are planning to go back in late October again for another long weekend, there are a lot of cool things to take Timothy too like a butterfly park and Tiger park, and swimming is always a great thing to do when it’s hot…

Back from 5 weeks away working in different places in eastern Thailand! It was the final “practical” stage of our training course here with Youth With a Mission, learning more about the culture, speaking and performing in front of large groups of people, leadership practice and opening doors for local churches to do more things in and for their community. Here is a summary of what we did…

We flew down to Ubon Ratchatani via Bangkok while the rest of the team bussed down, we stayed at a pastors House from Kitikhun Church. The family we stayed at were awesome and pretty much moved into 2 rooms of their house to free up the rest of the house for us. We went to a village called Baan Prane, had a church service in the evening that Miriam spoke at. We went to a local public high school (all public schools follow Buddhist traditions) the next day in the afternoon, and did drama, songs, games and dance and gave all 600+ kids a bible, which Timothy was very excited about. Visited Mental Hospital (facility for patients with long term mental disabilities and illness), did drama, dance and songs and Matt even mentioned to them that people in Australia thought he was crazy coming to Thailand for a year with his family, got a few laughs. We held a youth seminar at Kitikhun church, Matt taught on using music and other performing arts in church. We helped at a Compassion Project – taught music, dance and drama to children sponsored through Compassion and in the evening the children performed what they had learned.

We then went to Ubon Ratchatani AOG church. We went to village and did drama, songs and dance at the public primary school there. We visited a local university and spoke to students, prayed for Ubon, went to a slum and did activities, performed dramas and dance and prayed for people who were unwell. The next day we went to a Juvenile detention centre in the morning, we did drama, dance, songs and one of our leaders spoke about his life as a gang leader and how he has changed. There were a lot of teenage boys serving sentences for various crimes, and then in the afternoon we ran the same program for 100+ teenage boys and girls in the rehabilitation part of the centre. We visited a school that an American missionary volunteers at, did our dramas, dances and songs in front of 700+ (kindy to year 12) students and then the principle had lunch for us plus another team in his office – it was a big office! In the afternoon visited another smaller school. On the Saturday we helped at AOG church Compassion project, (approx 80 children).On the Sunday we helped at morning bible studies and Miriam spoke in church. The next Tuesday we helped at a medical clinic held in a church in a village, there was a Dr’s team from Australia supported by a Malaysian church.

The next day we visited the Candle Festival with youth group from Kitikhun church. It’s a very famous Buddhist festival, thousands of people come from around Thailand and the world to see the big candles on floats – like the Christmas pageant but with wax! The candles are made by monks in each province which are then presented to the local temples for granting of more merit/power.

We then travelled to Buntharik, staying in Noom’s (DTS staff member) mum’s house, in a village about 10 minutes drive from the town of Buntharik. It was small and nice, Matt even went fishing in the dam nearby, Timothy tried a ride on the back of the tractor. We went to the local village primary school, across the road from Noom’s mum’s house and did a program for them, and in the afternoon went to Noom’s old high school in Buntharik and did drama, dance, songs, games with 900+ year 10-12 students! Then the next day went back again, this time for students from years 7 to 9. There were over 1800 students at that school!

We all crammed in a van and travelled to Sisaket, staying at empty apartment rented by a couple who have started YWAM Sisaket and used to work with YWAM Chiang Rai. We went to a seminar in the evening at Hope of Sisaket church, Matt taught on music and worship. The next day after lunch, we joined the church in the “Hope Games” sports carnival, indoor soccer and “chair ball” (kind of like net ball but instead of a goal post and ring, someone stands on a chair and holds a basket!) quite a bit of cheating went on if you ask me, but nobody did… then we went to church in the evening. The next day we travelled to a village to paint and clean a house (it was missionaries who are currently away doing a different DTS with YWAM!) and tidy up their garden.

The next day we travelled back to Ubon and stayed at the AOG church again, and then we flew to Bangkok in morning. We had a stopover so spent time at YWAM Bangkok and went to local shopping mall were we managed to get in our first hamburger in 6 months. Then we flew to Chiang Rai in the evening, on a very delayed flight, and eventually arrived home at midnight! All up our outreach was hard as a family, but we have some great memories and learnt so much…