OceanicThai

Art Scapes of Thailand Here are 2 of my favorite portraits that he has done.

It always happens to me, coming or going, I have culture or reverse-culture shock. Whether it is going to Thailand or coming back to the U.S. there is this adjustment period. It really does feel a little like going into shock for a few days. I am just getting over it now, after being here for almost a week. We've only been gone for 6 months or it would probably take me longer to get over. It feels like I am putting on my "American" self, now. All the social rules change, our role in society, our status and social responsibilities change. For example, in Thailand we are at a higher economic and social level than the average Thai, which means, in that culture, we have more privileges, but also more responsibilities. Expectations change tremendously from 1 country to the other. As we board the plane I must change mental gears, and usually once we arrive, I feel disoriented and like isolating myself. This is just normal stuff, though, most folks go through this, some more th...

We are back, for just 4 months, if all goes as we wish it to. We are here to finish some business with our new mission organization and to raise more support. We can't return unless we raise more support. Finances has been the hardest thing about joining this new mission. Our old mission let us squeak by on whatever funds we decided were sufficient. This mission has a far better healthcare coverage, it just costs a lot more. We are also required to raise 70% of the suggested budget for Thailand. We are so eager and anxious to return, so we are praying the funds will come in quickly so we can return in August.

Here is Ton, a friend of ours, a young Thai Christian, sampling Ken's expresso. Kennedy has been meeting with young Thai men who are really excited about church multiplication and/or house churches. He has the seminar on church-multiplication set up for August and will be distributing brochures & booklets on it next week to key people in this province of Phang Nga and also Krabi. It is exciting to see how our ministry is forming. We are hoping that the family that just arrived 2 months ago will choose to partner with us, they love our ideas of business and would like to go that route. It would be excellent if we could continue to use our religious visas and they could use a business visa.

We went on a visa run to Burma the day before yesterday and ended up on a wild toad ride. We drove around the town of Ranong looking for a boat to take us to Burma and found a small sign advertising boats for visa runs. We drove into the small dock area and found ourselves surrounded by Burmese packing some smelly fish product. There was rank water all over the cement dock and fish products everywhere in all manner of containers. Men, women, children and toddlers were busy going about their daily routine, they lived and worked there in that stinky place. A man bargined with his limited Thai and limited English and we got a boat for 400 Baht, or $10. I thought we were going on the relatively safe looking large boat with life-preservers. We ended up in a small long-tail boat with no roof or lifevests, holding umbrellas to keep the sun off ourselves. Two boys came along to help, one got off on another boat and the other stayed the whole trip, perched on the prow. We sped along a big bay ...

Homeschooling Here is Kennedy teaching Jasper Saxon Math 1.