Friends! Wow, we have been back in Thailand for one whole month already, and the time sure has flown by!
After 27 hours of travel (23 hours actually flying) we were so blessed to be picked up by friends at the airport and then stay at another friend's house while we looked for a place of our own. A friend borrowed our car while we were in the US so it was great to have transportation right when we got back also.
We started a 6-week Nations course just a few days after arriving back and have really been enjoying it. Having served in Thailand for a number of years now, we are very thankful to have the opportunity to attend this course after our time in America. We have covered subjects like Anthropology, Missionary Life, Interpersonal Relationships, Cross-Cultural Communications and a host of other very relevant topics. The course is bringing some structure to our experience in Thailand and is helping to propel us into this next season of ministry. Once completed, we will begin our language learning to bring our proficiency to ministry level.
The kids are all doing really well and have been adjusting back to their life here. While many of their friends are in the US for the summer, some of them are here and it's been fun for them to reconnect and catch up. We were all really excited to get back to our church here and look forward to starting to serve there as well.
After a year of transitional living and traveling a lot, we were all ready to settle for a bit. We looked at quite a few houses, but finally settled on one about 2 weeks ago. We started moving in right away and had our things that we had been storing here delivered on the day we signed the lease. The excitement as the kids saw their beds, instruments, photos and legos was overwhelming...they were so happy to be 'home'. Our new home came with an empty outdoor kitchen and an indoor kitchen with only a sink. Thankfully, Jason is handy and is working hard to build us a kitchen. Unfortunately, after moving in we realized there is a bat infestation in the attic, so we are hoping to evict the 70+ bats as soon as we can because they leave quite a lot of poop that we need to sweep up every day!