Itsara

Just a short update from Prang and I. We’ve been busy. We just moved out of our old place and in with some friends. We will be near many of our friends and able to help out in many ways. We will also be near the new building site where I can keep a watch on things once we start actually building. Little Abigail just keeps growing more and more each day. It’s amazing to see how much she changes each day. You can see more photos by clicking here.

Still spending a good amount of time in the village. I was finally able to finish the bathroom that we first set out to build with Coast.
A friend of mine took me out on an off road tour deep into the rainy mountains on 250cc off road dirt bikes. Very difficult and I was real sore for many days after. One of the funnest things I have ever done. As we sat down for lunch we noticed this poisonous viper hanging over our heads eating a lizard. It looks like I may be able to take a three day trip here in December where we will bring our sleeping bags and just camp out under the stars.

Prangs doing well. Very busy with little Abigail. She’s able to get out in the morning to ride her bike while I take Abigail for a walk. Prang may start helping out at our friends children’s home cooking. It’s just right down the street so she will still be able to make it back in time to make my dinner too of course.

We do have some sad new to report though. A friend of ours in the village who was apart of the church died suddenly one night while we up in the village. He was only 35 years old and left his wife and two young children. The village seems to be standing beside his wife and children and are helping out as much as possible. It was a hard thing to witness but it’s an experience which is strengthening us. He was a believer and so we know he is in a better place now. We just praise God for his life and salvation.

Cindy pointed something out tonight that I hadn’t realized: Thai is not the first language of anybody in our family. Pan grew up Karen. Alaypa and Lutiya are Lisu. Sandra, Matt, Cindy, and I spoke American before anything else. And Isaac doesn’t speak. A strange corollary to this is that, when Isaac does speak, he will be the first native Thai speaker in our family.

Here are some selected pictures from our family. I’ve put simple captions on them just so you know who’s who. And Isaac’s only in like 45% of these pictures, so you can actually see the other members of our family too.

Click here for more pictures.

I was going to name this “Cindy in the US”, but basically every single picture is of Isaac. I did warn you.

Click here for more.

I’ve been far too lazy about putting pictures up here, it would seem. So I’ve got three batches of pictures to give you over the next few days. Today we have some pictures from Coast Vineyard’s trip here in July.

Click here for many more. There’s a lot of Isaac pictures, in this batch and coming soon. We can’t help it. He’s just the most picture-takeable thing any of us have ever seen.

And I’ve heard that some folks haven’t seen many pictures of Abigail. You should know that, even though we don’t always mention it here, Sean has been putting pictures up on his page too.

Not much to report. Cindy and Isaac are back safely, and we’re darn glad to see each other. They’re both sleeping now, as they should be. Isaac has some kind of sickness (I think this one, though I don’t know what the first four are). Otherwise, everything is as it should be.

Sandra returns from the States tomorrow, so keep praying for that. Transitions like this are often difficult, and on top of that we have the transition back into homeschooling coming up. Matt is currently at a camp for a Thai ROTC program, and he’ll be back on Thursday at which point our family will finally be whole again.