There's always money in the Banana Stand...

I will miss these...

Friends

Well, we only have a little over a week left here in glorious Thailand. We knew that the time would fly by, but we had no idea it would fly so fast! We have made some great new friends here in Pattaya. I will post a few pictures of our worldwide brotherhood:-)

We have pictures from a bbq we went to hosted by our Russian brothers and sisters. There are two brothers from Korea, both of which have served time in Korean prison for not enrolling in the military. Then there is a group of lovely sisters: Gina, Olga, Amy, Dasha, Ina (with the cool hair:-) and Liza from the U.S., Russia and Germany. Next is a picture of Antonella and Carlos, from Italy. And last but not least, a cool little fam from the Pacific Northwest, the Crismans from WA.

Walking around Bangkok

More Grand Palace

On the grounds of the Grand Palace there was a full model of Angkor Wat. Or as I like to call it, the most elaborate cat house of all time:-) It was really cool to see. We really wanted to go to Cambodia and actually tour it, but we never had time.

The Grand Palace

Flight of the Gibbon

This was really fun. And beautiful. We were so high up in those big trees! The company that runs this tour is very concerned with safety, we felt completely secure and taken care of at all times. And afterward they fed us a huge lunch so it was a pretty successful day in my book:-)

Fun With The Mckeags

Sorry we have been MIA lately. Our very good pals Shaun and Casey came for a little visit last week. We went on a whirlwind tour of Thailand and had many fun/hilarious experiences including, but not limited to: flying through the jungle on a zip line, getting sunburnt on a tropical island, buzzing around Bangkok in a tuk-tuk and singing karaoke to an all Thai audience (don't even ask what we sang*).

The next few posts will have pictures from their visit. In Bangkok, we visited the Grand Palace which was huge and colorful. Very sparkly, very pretty. The funny thing about touring the Grand Palace is that you can't enter wearing shorts or tank tops. So, we had to RENT clothes. The only reason I'm mentioning this is because surely you will wonder what the heck we are wearing in a few of the photos. Because somehow colorful, flowy pants with elephants printed on them is more dignified when you are walking around a palace...

Anyway, as per usual we had a great time with our friends. They thoroughly wore us out, but it was worth it. Also, being the great people they are, they came bearing gifts in the form of Stumptown coffee(!!!!!) and some good ol' Pacific Northwest IPA. Just one sip of that cold brew and I broke into a Kevin Bacon-esque punch dance around the apartment.

*Jake sang "Hotel California" in the style of Robert Goulet if you can imagine. He even included a sweet air guitar solo.

Shaun brought us to tears with Mariah Carey's "Hero", which she hasn't heard in so long (or maybe ever) and so sang it with a different tune. Not to mention some of the words were misspelled...("and you know you can survile" instead of survive)

I tried to sing Rhianna's "Umbrella" song, but it was actually a remix so it was in double time and included a lot of reggae-style rapping...in short it was an EPIC fail.

Last but not least, Casey brought down the house with a stirring rendition of that old family classic "Baby" by Justin Beiber. To call it disturbing would be an understatement.

Just a little update...

Hey peeps! Just a quick little note to update you with what is going on here. We had a major blast in Chiang Mai, it was awesome. We returned home to Pattaya last Tuesday. It was nice to come home to our little apartment and to our congregation. We have only been here for a few months, but we have made good friends with the congregation. So many of them came up to us our first meeting back to give us hugs and tell us that they missed us when we were gone. It is going to be difficult to say goodbye next month! Bittersweet though, because that means we get to come home and see all of you:-)

Since we have been back, we have been BUSY!!! When we first got here, I foolishly thought we would have all this extra time since we weren't going to be working secularly....ha! We are constantly on the go. Service, return visits, thai language class, homework, etc. Even seeing it written down it doesn't look like much, but believe me it is!

I haven't had any especially stellar calls or experiences in the ministry to write about lately. I haven't been able to find my calls home...the pioneer's lament! But many of the friends here have been having good conversations with Thai people in the territory, there is a lot of work to be done here in Thailand for sure! In fact, just this week, we went with a large group of brothers and sisters to an area about 30 minutes south of town to do territory that has not been worked in 16 years!! Crazy! It was a lot of fun. We really stood out too. There were about 55 nicely dressed people from all countries walking along the beach with bookbags and umbrellas. We got a lot of funny looks:-)

Jake has still been studying with Eric, the boy from Ghana. Now Eric has 2 friends from Ghana here as well. Emano, who is 18 years old, and Stan Lee (really), who is in his early 20's and whose parents are Jehovah's Witnesses back home. Both boys started sitting in on the study, they comment and read and seem to really enjoy it. Jake recently was able to get Bibles for them in english, and he said that their faces lit up! They were so happy and grateful to have their own Bibles. They are really humble guys, and they have such a respect for God's word. They are all soccer players too (woot-woot!!) so we got to go watch them play the other night. It was just a practice game with a bunch of European ex-pats but it was fun to watch.

A few weeks ago, Jake and I were working a territory and we came upon 2 women and a little girl working on a construction site. I went over to them to offer them the tract, and no matter how many times I repeated my presentation in thai they were not understanding me. So finally I asked one of the women "khun kow-djai pasa thai mai ka?" Which means, "do you undestand thai?" They shook their heads no and laughed. So that was the problem. It wasn't that my thai was terrible (ha!). I brought out the "Good News for All Nations" book and we figured out that they were Cambodian. We tried talking/pantomiming with them for a bit...without much success. But they were extremely sweet, so we figured we could get some Cambodian literature and come back. Fortunately we got their names. Fast forward to this week. We were driving down to see them, and as we were coming up to the construction site, we pass this little family walking along the road. The woman looked familiar to me. Then the little girl smiled and waved. So we turned the bike around and drove back to them. I asked for Aim, the women's name. She pointed to herself and was surprised. She was with her husband and little girl and a few others. We gave her the "Truth" tract and also a Watchtower in Cambodian. Jake introduced himself to her husband and showed him the magazine. When he saw that it was in his language, he grabbed it quickly and starting reading the title and then showed the other guy. Their little girl was super cute and was introducing everyone to us. Her name was Nut. How cute is that? So, it wasn't like we started a Bible study with them or anything, but it was an encouraging experience for us. The Cambodians are often here living in poor little shacks and doing all the manual labor type jobs. They are very humble. But they seemed so happy that we remembered them and took the time to bring them literature in their own language. I'm really grateful for the brothers and sisters who work so hard to translate the Bible and its message into all these languages. It is so important and means so much more to people to read in their own tongue.

ROAR!

I saved the best photos of our Chiang Mai trip for last. We went to a place called Tiger Kingdom. Its a cool place. They have SO many tigers there! You have a choice of either just walking around and looking at the tigers, or you can pay to go in and actually sit with and touch the tigers. You get to choose from the baby tigers, the "toddlers" and the "teens". Or spend more money and do all 3! Once they get to be older than a few years, it is no longer a wise idea to enter their cage. All of the tigers we saw looked completely happy and healthy. They did not seem sedated at all. They were very affectionate with their handlers also. It was like a little slice of paradise! We couldn't afford all 3 sizes so we went for the baby tigers. We got to spend about 15 minutes in their pens playing with them. It was amazing! They were so cute and cuddly. They made little purring noises and loved to have their bellies pet. Before going in we had to wash our hands. We weren't allowed to pick the tiger cubs up or touch their faces. They discourage the tigers from licking or biting (obviously), even in play. Although, one little cub was playing with my arm and he did bite the inside of my elbow. It was so soft though, like a bite from a puppy. Anyway, it was an awesome experience and made us long for the new system! After we spent some time with the babies, we walked around the rest of the park taking pictures of the other tigers. I am glad we chose the babies because some of the older tigers were so big and intimidating I don't think I could have stepped into the cage with them!