Fear not, easier said than done.
Psalm 4
“Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have relieved me in my distress;
Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.
O sons of men, how long will my honor become a reproach?
How long will you love what is worthless and aim at deception? Selah.
But know that the LORD has set apart the godly man for Himself;
The LORD hears when I call to Him.
Tremble, and do not sin;
Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And trust in the LORD.
Many are saying, “Who will show us any good?”
Lift up the light of Your countenance upon us, O LORD!
You have put gladness in my heart,
More than when their grain and new wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep,
For You alone, O LORD, make me to dwell in safety.”
A Poem Inspired by Psalm 4:
Fear, take this fear, fear, this fear that grips me
Fear, it hurts, fear, it overwhelms
it keeps me awake at night, consumes my thoughts.
This fear that pushes me to anger,
This fear that draws me to rage in silent tirades.
This fear that darkens all I see,
it steals my joy, it devours my time, it eats at me,
it drills down deep inside until I almost forget what to call this pain within.
This fear that seeks to be my god,
This fear that desires to control me.
No, no! this fear is not from You.
Perfect love casts out fear.
Trust, trust, yes trust.
I call on you now – raise yourself up in glory.
Break the darkness of this fear, yes, Trust!
Trust that comforts, trust that brings peace.
Trust.
Trust in You.
Trust that gives rest.
Come now, o Trust, and dispel this darkness of fear.
Fear that lurks in the darkness.
Trust, bring forth your light and devour the darkenss.
Remove the power of fear and fill this place with Your glory!
Video Update II – January 2010
Good news, Teagan got out of the hospital today!! It turns out he had salmonella! Sounds pretty bad if you ask me, and I guess it was since he spent four days in the hospital. But, he is doing much better and is definitely happy to be home with mom and dad, and Corban and Esan are definitely glad to have mom home at night. They were starting to really miss her and had a hard time going to sleep last night. Anyway, Teagan is good, but still has to take some oral antibiotics for a few days. Thank you everyone for your prayers and please continue to pray for his healing and for overall protection for our boys and all the children on our team.
As you may remember, I made a video update a couple of months ago to share with you all in a different way and got some positive feedback from that. So, I decided it was time for another one. This video was actually made with alot of help from Derran Reese, one of our teammates. It’s about seven minutes long and has some bloopers of the boys at the end. We tried to use the video to give you a feel for what life is like for us here in Thailand and highlight some important aspects of our lives here in Phayao. I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to email back with comments or suggestions for the next video update. If you would like to download the video you can click here. Thank you for your prayers and please, please continue to lift up our family to the Lord.
Nursing it
This isn’t the first time we’ve ever been to the hospital in Thailand, but it is the first time one of our boys has had to spend the night in the hospital, two nights as of now and maybe more. Teagan has been sick off and on for the past two weeks. We took him to see the doctor last week and got him some medicine and we thought he was getting better. But then, Friday night he had 105 fever! So, we quickly got him to the hospital and found out he has an infection in his intestines. He is on an intravenous and oral antibiotic but has still been running a little bit of a fever. His big brothers got to go visit him yesterday and it was so neat to see little Esan Ray being concerned for and taking care of his baby brother. He would get his toys for him and see if he wanted any snacks. He is such a good big brother and so full of compassion. So, he is still at the hospital, but the doctor is talking like he might get out tomorrow. Please keep him in your prayers and here are a couple of pictures.
Superman in Thailand?!
The other day I was driving down the street in Phayao and I did a double-take because I thought I saw Superman. Well, I was right, and not only was it Superman, but he had Batman and Batgirl with him, too!! You would think they would be in Batman’s Batmobile, but for some reason they weren’t. Maybe it was in the shop or something, or maybe they just wanted to enjoy the cool mountain air, but they were riding a Vespa.
Before I picked Corban up from school, Tonya called me to tell me she and the other boys would just meet me for lunch at a local noodle shop. When I saw her, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud and got a few pictures real quick. I’m still wondering what everyone else was thinking, but they got lots and lots of smiles and laughs, so I think it was good. Anyway, here are a few pictures.
A blog from Gigi
My mom went back to Texas a little over a week ago and we had a great time with her and really miss her a lot. We took her to the airport in Chiang Mai on Monday, January 4 and then went on a short team-building trip with the Reeses, Binkleys, and Haley. We were so busy on our trip, I guess I didn’t really realize how much I missed her until we got back to Phayao on Sunday afternoon and I saw her empty bedroom and didn’t hear her playing with the boys or reading books before bedtime. I’m so thankful God gave her the opportunity to come spend time with us and that we got to share our lives with her here in Phayao. Before she left to go home, I asked her if she would like to write something for the blog and she said yes. So, this is what she wrote after her three weeks here in Thailand along with a slideshow of highlights of her time here, if you would like to see the gallery of all the pictures while she was here you can click here:
“Well, I arrived in Chiang Mai bearing gifts. I brought five suitcases full of food and Christmas gifts. I was greeted by three happy boys all jumping and bouncing around. Corban put flowers around my neck and I received lots of hugs and kisses.
Now… it is time for me to leave Phayao and my precious children. I have had a such a wonderful time with my son Chris. He loved showing me their new home and the people who surround them there.
Then my sweet Tonya Gail, I miss her a lot so I soaked up all the time I could with her. Not only is she a super daughter-in-law, but also a very dear friend. I have had such a wonderful time and did so many things: I visited Corban’s school twice, went to two waterfalls, had a picnic by the lake, went to Chiang Rai to visit friends, we had Christmas eve and Christmas day parties, we had “Suki Santa”, we went to the neighbor’s new year’s eve “Countdown” party, I got to keep all the children while the moms and dads went out, we made stew, and we went camping in the backyard. The most fun was spending time with my precious family. Being with Corban, Esan and Teagan was the best of all!!
We all had fun just hanging out at home and attending to daily matters. One of the best things I did was help Tonya set up her classroom for the boys. What fun!! She is such a great mom and teacher. The two older boys enjoyed taking me to do a special activity also; Esan chose to take me to eat fried pork and rice, and Corban chose to take me to eat ice cream. So two different days Chris and each one of the boys took me out.
I also loved spending time with the team. They are awesome. It was great being with them and seeing each of their homes. The children are so much fun. We had a great play day and night ending with a movie and popcorn. Spending time with Haley was also special. I went to her house one Sunday and enjoyed meeting her “Tai Chi” lady friends. She is blessed by them and they bring such joy.
So, my time here has come to an end, but I will be taking so many memories with me AND… I will return!”
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Well, we had a great Christmas and great New Year here in Phayao. Christmas day was lots of fun but had a few tweaks that definitely made it interesting and very different from Christmas in Texas. First of all, it was about 85 degrees, so that automatically feels pretty weird. We looked on the internet and saw many of our homes in Texas covered in snow on Christmas day while we were tempted to turn on the air conditioner. The next thing that was different was being so far removed from all of our family. It was definitely nice having Gigi here with us but we still missed the rest of our family back home. So to help cope a little bit, we had two computers turned on and connected to video chat all morning. Sir (that’s what the boys call Chris’ dad) was with us all morning long via video chat and got to be part of the present opening. It was lots of fun to be able to let him see the boys coming running into the living room and see all that Santa had brought. We also got to talk to Tonya’s parents and Amy and Sid and later with Wes and Tricia in Tomball. And finally, the last big surprise we had was a 70 year old Thai man knocking on our door about 9:00 a.m. He is actually a christian who lives close by and had heard about us through a mutual friend and decided he would come meet us… on Christmas day… and stay for over an hour… while we were trying to spend time with our boys and talk with our families… and then invite himself to dinner that night… Actually, it wasn’t that bad. He is a very sweet man and full of joy. It was actually very refreshing to meet someone of his age that obviously loves the Lord very much and has a desire to help build Christian community and see God glorified here in Thailand.
A few of the other festivities we enjoyed over the holidays were Christmas party at Ryan and Ning’s house, Christmas dinner at our house with everyone, and “Suki Santa” at our house on Dec. 26. Click here to see some pictures of our Christmas fun or see the pictures below to see what Santa brought. If you want to hear more about “Suki Santa” click here to read Tonya’s post about it.
The boys were all so excited to get presents from Santa Clause!
Our cute littel boys on Christmas morning
Corban Scout got a radio controlled car
Corban Scout's gift from Santa
Esan Ray got a drum set! Yeah for mom and dad! Thanks, Santa. I guess he wants us to go crazy.
Esan Ray's new drum set from Santa
Teagan got a car playset
Thank you, Santa
And finally, Tonya Gail got a clothes dryer!! It may not seem like a very good present to some of you, but it is. Dryers aren’t very common in Thailand and most people hang their clothes on a line to dry. Well, that is ok, and yes, it does work; but the clothes end up being stiff and smelling kind of funny, especially when you live next to a muddy field used to raise cows and water buffalo and then breeze all day comes from the field. Your clothes end up smelling a little bit like poopy mud. Anyway, all that to say a dryer is a really good thing and really helps make this feel a little bit more like a home. So here are a few pictures of Tonya with her new dryer and a short video of her actually getting it on Christmas morning.
She was so excited!
They're so soft and they smell so good, thank you Santa Clause!
Life in Thailand
The store where I bought, uh, I mean Santa and his elves delivered, er, brought the dryer to Tonya on Christmas morning about 8:30, which was perfect timing because the boys had just finished opening their gifts. It had a big red bow on it and my mom had made her think I was getting her a T.V. for Christmas, which she would’ve hated, so she really was surprised when she came outside and saw it. So, here is a short video of her getting it:
Suki Santa? WHAT?!
Our landlord wanted to treat our family and team to a meal for Christmas. So the day after Christmas our landlord, P. Pawn, hosted a meal at our house. She worked for several days to get everything ready. She prepared a suki meal for everyone. Suki is actually a Japanese style meal where you make your own soup. So, we had three big pots of hot broth to which we added meat and vegetables. After cooking it each person dishes some out and adds a delicious “suki” sauce. We were apprehensive at first about this event because we didn’t know what this evening would be like since it was at our house but we were not actually hosting it. We decided to name it “Suki Santa” so that when we talked about it we would look forward to it instead of stressing out. So around 5 o’clock our landlord called Chris and told him to come pick up the food and drinks at her house. Chris showed up with all the food but without our hostess. Our team arrived and we began to eat thinking we would be the only people to show. You just never know what to expect. About an hour or so later our neighbors started showing up from all over from the neighborhood and by the end of the evening we had thirty plus people sitting on mats in our drive way eating, laughing, and singing Christmas songs. Our landlord and hostess did finally come so we were able to say a special thank you to her and also to everyone who came. We had a special visitor come as well: Corban borrowed Haley’s adult size Santa suit and dressed up and came out of the house to say hello and Ho! Ho! Ho!
One of the most interesting aspects of the evening was the fact that we didn’t serve alcohol at the party. For most Thais, whiskey and beer are considered staples to any good party or get together. Because we didn’t have either, many of our guests left around 9:00 p.m. to go to the neighbor’s house for a few after dinner drinks. It worked out well since we needed to get kids in bed anyway. We considered it a great success and a wonderful opportunity for our family and our team to do something that was very much a part of Thai culture but do it in a way that was very different; i.e. no alcohol. Over all it was a fun time of getting to know our neighbors better and the families they are a part of. There is talk of making the day after Christmas our team Suki Santa tradition. Click on this link or anywhere you see the word “Suki Santa” to see a picture gallery of the event. We also have a couple of videos you can see, click here to watch.
Here are some pictures of the event:
A very special visitor
This must be Suki Santa, isn't he cute?