Matt, Miriam and Timothy

Happy Fathers Day Dad, here is a T-Shirt I got at a Big W equivalent store here in Chiang Rai, it’s called “Big C”, a distant relative to Big W but most of the T-Shirts you can buy have a lot of broken or incorrectly spelled or misused English which makes them funny as for me, I mean where in Australia could you buy an adult sized T-Shirt that says this…

The other picture is a photo I took of my son that shows just how super cute he is, all I need to do know is get him the same T-Shirt.

Hope you have a great day Dad! Love Matt, Miriam and Timothy xxoo

Zwarts Family DTS Major Outreach

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…

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.