You ready for a long one?

Jonathan and I both wanted to write this time! He's being a gentleman and letting me start.

Someone recently asked when we are coming home. Well…

There’s something we’ve been meaning to tell you all….

We do really like it here and we’ve decided to…..…

Just kidding! Jonathan’s coming back on the 29th and I’m heading home on Sept. 10th. Though we do love it here, we miss you all (and our dogs). Thailand is incredible, but it just isn’t home. Besides, we have work to do at home. Things like jobs and looking for jobs and U-turn Men’s Advance and… maybe a Christmas play! Maybe. Let me say it again… maybe. Ok here’s a Thailand tip that’s not really G rated, but it shouldn’t offend… I hope.

If you’re easily offended, please skip the next paragraph.
Thailand Tip #14: When using the squatty-potties, you generally have to hold your pants off the floor so they don’t get wet, so the question arises, how do you hold onto the TP before it is needed? My solution is to tuck it in your collar. I know, maybe too much info, but the last thing I want to do is drop my precious wad of TP into the puddle on the floor while I’m dealing with my pants and trying not to slip on the wet porcelain. Or you could just do as the Thais do and skip TP all together. They have a spray nozzle on a short hose instead. Sometimes. Don’t ask me what they do when there’s neither spray nozzle nor TP.

Ok, is everyone back with me? Good. I have to admit that my reason for writing this is rather silly. I’m excited because we saw our first elephant yesterday. (We saw some at the Zoo, but that doesn’t count. You can see elephants at the zoo in any country.) This elephant was standing on the side of the road, with a scruffy looking man sitting on its neck. We were on the motorcycle so it seemed even bigger than it would have looked in a car. The man was talking to someone, and the whole thing was right outside a Thai bar. We must have been gaping as we drove past. Jonathan was nervous, because the elephant looked nervous. We don’t know if those things spook like horses do, but we do know they’re really big and really strong. As we drove past, it seemed to shy away from us. Turns out it was just relieving itself.
Let me say I’m glad I don’t have to clean that up. Anyway, to me, the most remarkable thing was that the Thais didn’t seem to think anything of it. There was one or two people talking to the Mahoot (the guy on its neck), but no one else in the bar seemed interested at all.

Please pray for the divine comfort of the Zoe Family, who is dealing with some unexpected loss right now. Thanks for understanding that I can’t give more info.

I guess that part of this update wasn’t so silly. Exciting things are happening at ZOE this week, and I think the enemy is trying to do all he can to stop them. ZOE is about to make a huge step forward in a certain area, and I could understand how that step would leave Satan very pissed off. I’ll find out if I can tell you about it.

If you haven’t yet, check out the photo page (the link is on the right, near the top) I’ve just uploaded another hoard of pictures. I realized that I haven’t really described our settings. The pictures show mostly the outreach trip to a hill tribe with the SFV team. These are not the conditions we are living in. Far from it! We live in a literal mansion. The boy’s home is one mansion; the girl’s home is another. The reason is that mansions are the only houses big enough to accommodate so many kids. The boy’s home is smaller than the girl’s, partly because the girl’s home houses the little kids of both genders. The boy’s home has only the teenage boys and the male Bible school students. (Yes, they have a small Bible school here!) Anyway, to give you an idea of size… there are 16 bedrooms in the girls' house, 3 wings, 3 stories. Really big. But when you have 60+ kids, plus house parents, plus Bible students, plus a few missionaries and geckos; you need the space. (Some of the missionaries rent their own houses. You wouldn’t believe how cheap rentals are here.) The houses are kept very clean, and everything is run very professionally. We are on the outskirts of the second largest city in Thailand. This is truly a country where old meets new, you have McDonald’s and iPod ads right next to street vendors selling wares they have sold for hundreds of years. (i.e. weird food things I can’t describe other than say they’re weird.) So, the area we are in is much more modern than the photos you’ve seen. I suppose we haven’t taken many pictures of the city we’re stay in because it doesn’t look too different from cities you’re familiar with at home. Dirtier maybe. I do hope to go around and take pictures of the sites we see every day. I’ve started with some pictures of the children’s homes. Check them out!

Oh, and I just found out: Anna and the King is not taboo conversation, but the Thai people didn’t really like the movie either. I guess any time anything at all negative is said about the king, it’s bad. (Remember the execution scene?) Apparently they wanted to film the movie in Thailand, but the Thai government was opposed to it for some reason. I'm told there isn’t one Thai actor in the whole thing. They’re from Burma. I guess the actors all have Burmese accents when they speak in Thai. Word is that the movie was inaccurate and that’s why Thai people say they didn’t like it.

Jonathan here.
I’ve been reading the red type in the Gospels recently, and came across Jesus saying not to be like the Pharisees who love to be called “Rabbi”. Jesus said not to let anyone call you teacher because the only teacher we have is God. That really hit me because the students call the missionary staff “ah-jaan”. At first, I had thought that this meant ‘religious teacher’ or ‘master’. Actually, the dictionary just says it means professor. So it doesn’t have the ‘master’ connotation we were concerned about.
However, I still need to check myself for enjoying the title of respect too much. Most of the Thai staff are called by the title “Pea” (respected older sibling), unless they have been to bible college, in which case they get “ah-jaan”. When I learned that, my head swelled for a while. I wrestled with that last week. Part of the culture shock is just that they respect everyone so much.
Sometimes the house parents are just called ‘Ma’ or ‘Pa’. Small world, ain’t it? One of our books says that the world wide roots for those intimate names are Sanskrit.

That's all for now! We love you and look forward to returning next month.
Jonathan and Kelley