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To: Don Woodard Sent: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 Subject: Ouellette Update (c/w photos) |
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SONGKRAAN
We recently celebrated the Thai new year (April 13-15) in a festival called "SongKraan". The whole country shuts down. People return to their hometowns to: honour their parents (and elders) with a special water ritual, wash off all their household idols, and visit the local temples to pray about the year ahead. Water is a very central part of this festival ...it's a 3 day long nationwide water fight and party! Even our pictures cannot express the magnitude of the wetness that we experienced during those days! And then there was the clay on our faces. Lots of fun with our neighbours and lots of laundry! So it is now 2550 by the Thai calendar.
A personal highlight of the weekend for both of us was arriving home one evening to find several of our neighbours sitting at tables (set up in the street) eating and singing karaoke style! They invited us to join them so we put our kids to bed and wound up staying out with them till after midnight. We sang everything from Beatles to Glen Campbell ("Country Roads" anyone?) to Amazing Grace ...with a number of Thai songs in between! Karaoke is pretty popular here and we had been itching to try it out. The evening ended with an amazing conversation with one of our neighbors about the character of God & how He speaks to people.
VISITORS FROM CHILLIWACK!
Our team had the opportunity to host our first short-term team for a week this past month! One of our team-mates, Cynthia Friesen, is supported by Broadway MB church in Chilliwack, so we had the privilege of getting to know this team of 7 adults from her church. Our pastor here in Lopburi connected us to three young boys who live on their own in a mu-baan (village/neighbourhood) in a very poor part of town. They were in desperate need of a better shelter/home. Together with our local church, we all were able build a more suitable living space as well as run a mini kids club. It was an eye-opening experience for everyone. It was also a good change of pace from our language study (and a blessing to hang out with some people from our homeland for a few days). Thanks Broadway team for a great week!
*Side note: We sense that this story is not yet finished... a number of the children have been coming to church the past couple of weeks and Greg was just asked to join another man from the church this Tuesday morning (Monday night your time) to help do a couple minor repairs on the shelter.
ENGLISH TEACHERS - A NEW HAT TO WEAR
This past week, we finished 2 weeks of teaching summer English classes at our local "anubaan" (primary school)! This is the same school that Luke and Silas have been attending (now on summer break). The principal of the school (our neighbour) asked if we could teach pronunciation & listening skills to the kids. Who knew learning English could be so much fun! :) We had a blast singing, counting & playing games!
SOMETHING TO PRAY ABOUT
As we live out our daily lives, there are opportunities that God has pre-arranged for us to step into (i.e.: karaoke conversations at midnight, the shelter for the boys, English teaching in our neighbours school, etc!). Please pray that we would see these opportunities and step into them. Our desire is that people would meet the God who made, knows and loves them!
Thanks for reading. We enjoy staying in touch with you!
Greg & Becky
Caleb, Emma, Luke, and Silas
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SongKraan festival downtown Lopburi (local fire dept. truck in the background adding to the festivities!) |
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SongKraan (cont) - wow, the water was flying... |
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SongKraan (cont) - a soaked Becky (with traditional clay on her face) and Silas working on his coconut ice-cream. |
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The home the Chilliwack Broadway MB team helped to rebuild (before) |
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The finished home with the four men from the Broadway team and one of the neighbours. |
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Teaching together at Banjongrat elementary school. |
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Greg's 1st 10K race. He was invited by a 68 yr. old marathoner who lives just up the street from us. |