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To: Don Woodard Sent: Wednesday, 12 Oct 2006 Subject: Ouellette Thanksgiving Update (c/w photos) |
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Happy belated Thanksgiving to our Canadian friends and family!!
We celebrated together with the team at Kevin and Karlene's home this past Monday. I (Becky) made the stuffing! Celery and sage and a few other ingredients were hard to find in Lopburi! I wound up getting them from a generous restaurant owner just up the road from us. We also had tortilla chips with guacamole and salsa as a part of our Thanksgiving meal - the tortilla chips came from Bangkok :) Funny what kinds of things we crave and get excited about!!
What are we thankful for this Thanksgiving?
- our home in Lopburi
- our team and the community of believers here at the Language School.
- the opportunity to live in Thailand
- God's protection over us
- good health for all of us
- a quick recovery from a recent spill I took (while out running last week)
- and much more!!
Highlights of the past 2 weeks:
- Emma and Silas enjoyed the Lopburi Zoo even though it was pouring rain! (some of the animals were on the wrong side of the cage!)
- Caleb and Luke visited the Monkey Temple here in Lopburi. 100s of monkeys roaming freely. Caleb actually had a monkey jump right on his back (and then off again just as quickly!)
Greg and I are settling into our schedule of language classes and culture study. This past week was full... language classes, Thai culture classes, readings, homework in addition to normal family life. We are learning very practical words and phrases that help us to get what we need at the market and get to know our neighbours a little bit. We went to the local Wat (Buddhist Temple) and spent an hour talking (through a translator) with one of the monks this past week. He is about 2 years older than Greg and was a student at Bangkok Bible College a number of years ago(!!). Prior to becoming a monk, he had spent time involved in ministry to youth working alongside missionaries... I (Greg) was pretty curious about what made him turn away from that and back to Buddhism. It will be several years though before my Thai is at a level where I could ask those kinds of questions. I appreciated our time with him. He was very helpful and open to our questions. He had a few of his own too!
How can you pray?
- Pray that our memories would stretch to contain all of the new sounds, tones, words and phrases we are learning. We are serious about that. Our ability to LISTEN and RETAIN what we hear is crucial.
- Pray that God would provide another volunteer to help "Khruu" (Thai for 'teacher') Karen. She is teaching not just our team's children but also other missionary kids here in LopBuri. There has been another person who has been helping her do that since September... but starting in November that person will be leaving and Karen will need another volunteer. Maybe that could be you...!? :)
- Pray for Phra Narong, the Buddhist monk that we visited with at the Wat. One of the national workers here (Khun Boyd) was a fellow Bible College student with Phra Narong years ago. Our visit at the Wat brought the two of them back in touch with each other. We believe that this was God's timing! Pray for Boyd as he seeks to reconnect with Narong.
We are thankful to God for each of you,
Becky, Greg & the kids
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The kids on their way to school in the morning... (one of them forgot to pee before leaving home!). |
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Phra Narong explaining aspects of Buddhism to us at the local Wat. |
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Greg in a language session... |