Mission Thailand

I was talking to Yai, one of the guys here (at least trying to), who only speaks Thai, and I didnt understand one of his words (the key word in the sentence), so I asked him what it meant but he couldnt explain it, there was no one close by who spoke Thai and english, except for Fook a 5 year old. So I asked him if he knew what the word "Looum" meant, he looked at me blankly for a minute, then says to me english "I forgot". Oh well, I thought, I hope its not important. But Yai runs off and asks someone how to say it in english, comes back and tells me the it means "I forgot".
I guess I wont "Looum" that word now.

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The day after getting back from Taiwan, we began harvesting the rice in our backyard here. It was fun for a few minutes to say I'd given it a go, but I could see it was hard work. By lunch time, I was had it, I was tired and my back was sore from bending over. But there was a little old lady (whom Mercy helps sometimes with food parcels, and Lisa and I also have visited at her house), who was there also helping. She was about 60 years old, small in stature, old and frail (looked about 90 from working outdoors all her life). I wanted to have a sit down after lunch (a looong extended sit down - actually lay down), but she was straight back into it. I couldn't stop now, and be outdone by this lady. So back out there I went. I tell you, I slept well that night. The cut rice has been left there to dry this week, and will be separated from the chaff tommorrow, and sent somewhere for processing.

Lisa has been learning MYOB accounting package this week and entering a back log of accounting data this week, so Isaac & Jeds school principal (me), became the school teacher. It was a good excuse to rest after harvesting rice. I have had fun doing that, and I thing they have enjoyed it too.

John and Sharon (the current leaders at Phrae) are off on leave for the next 6 weeks, so we will take some of their responsibilities. Hopefully we have a smooth 6 weeks, but please remember to pray for us.

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The rest of our time in Taiwan was great. Lisa got her shopping fix. We went to a science and technology museum (which sounds really nerdy), but it was amazing. Heaps of things to see and do, very interactive, so our boys (and yes me and Lisa too) loved it. We also went to a harbour, the boys loved the boats, and their parklands were great too.

After another bullet train ride (during which Jed asks if we were in Thailand yet), we caught our flight back to Thailand.
My driving out of bangkok this time got us momentarily lost, but still in the right direction. We enjoyed our holiday, but also happy to be back at Phrae.

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The accomodation at Kenting was great, so despite a couple days with on and off rain, there was plenty to do. We then got a beautiful sunny day and did a tour around the Kenting area, which was great. We really loved the national park, and the beaches and scenery was great. We all loved the beach, the water was on the cool side, so making sand castles and exploring the coral rocks hit the mark.
We only booked accomodation for half our trip, we thought we would have a better idea of where we wanted to go. So after 3 nights at southern Taiwan, we thought we would go back to Taipei, but would you believe everything seemed booked. We couldnt believe it, we did plenty of searches on different websites, but there was nothing available to fit the 4 of us in (cheap or expensive). So we looked into other towns, and as we had to go back to Kaohsiung to catch the bullet train, we checked there first, and most of that was also booked out, except some really expensive hotels. (Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan). So we went to breakfast in the monday morning not knowing where we would stay. I told our boys at breakfast, we dont know where we are staying tonight, but God knows. I felt relaxed about it from the night before after we talked about how we can trust God in everything. After breaky we had an extra check on the internet, and found a new place (opened 2 months ago) in Kaohsiung, for a awesome rate. So here we are, and this place looks awesome, its the best place we've stayed in. And the town has heaps for us to do as a family, we are right in the middle of town, the food is great and Lisa loves the shopping here, about the same price as Bangkok but heaps better quality. Im glad we didnt go back to Taipei. God knew where we should go.

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We before we got to go out, we realised Jed was not well, he had a slight temperature, and all he wanted to do was sleep. So the first day in Taiwan for him and Lisa was spent in the hotel room. Isaac and I bypassed the shopping (which neither of us enjoy anyway) and found the underground train system (MRT) and went to the Taipei 101 building. This had the the tallest building in the world until, I think, Dubai built something taller. It was a great view up there, and the lifts were amazingly fast. Taipei city is very clean, and their public transport extremely efficient.

On day 2 Jed was feeling fine, which was good especially since we had planned to visit CSS (Christian Salvation Service), from whom we picked Jed up from when we adopted him. It was good to see them again. After that we went to the Taipei zoo. Their zoo is amazing. It is on a massive area, and exhibits are quite spread out over beautiful gardens. Isaac just wanted to see the snake exhibit, which was at the far end of the park, and felt like we walked for ages up a hill. Fortunately there was small bus/train to get us back near the entrance. The weather was great (about 24c) and sunny skys in Taipei.

Day 3 we caught the Bullet train from Taipei to the southern part of the Island. We are staying at Kenting, which is near the southern tip of Taipei. It has been quite windy down here and a bit of rain, hopefully it clears up, as the boys are itching to go to the beach.

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We managed to drive from Phrae to Bangkok. The traffic was very quite for most of the way. In bangkok it was pretty easy, not as bad as I thought, as we basically hit the tollway to the airport. We didnt pre-book a hotel as we were not sure if we would find it whilst driving, so we just stopped when we found a hotel by the airport. It turned out to be alright.
We flew into Taipei last night. The boys (particularly Isaac) was very excited about flying, they love it. From Taipei airport we caught a bus to town, to our hotel here. We are about to look around town now.

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We had a visit from Mike and Ann this week, which was great. We all really enjoyed their company, they were a really blessing, it was a pity they could only stay 2 nights.

We a driving to Bangkok tommorrow, and then flying out to Taiwan, for our 3 monthly border run. It will be great to visit Jeds birth country and visit CSS (Christian Salavation Service), from whom we picked him up. This time we'll see a bit more of  Taiwan. We are staying in Taipei for 3 nights before catching the bullet train down south, and staying south for 5 nights before returning to Taipei.

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Have we confused our children?
Jed seems to have no idea what is nationality is any more. Born in Taiwan, grew up in Australia (and an Aussie citizen).  He said to me the other day "I'm English 'cause I speak English, Chinese cause I was born in Taiwan and Thai 'cause I speak a little bit of Thai". I didn't mention that he's also a Finnish citizen, that would really confuse him because he can't speak Finnish! And also the bible also says (Phil 3:20) that as a christian he's a citizen of heaven.

By the way, we did the Thai thing and managed to fit 7 adults and 10 children in a car today. Not a problem here in Thailand.

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