The BUG battle - First night in our new house

It’s definitely been a while! I think it’s been at least a couple of days. It seems like a lot has happened but not a whole lot has happened. When John got back Curry held a DHTT (Divine Healing Technician Training) for the missionaries here before he went back to the states. It went really well. I mainly watched Josiah and attempted to study for my classes that start on Monday (Jan 17th).

So after the classes Brian took us out to a place call Makro to shop for necessities like a refrigerator and other stuff. We didn’t buy anything that day because Makro doesn’t deliver and we didn’t have a way to get it to our house. So the next day we went to a place called Carre-Fourr (Pronounced: Car-Four). We found a lot of neat stuff there and it was pretty cheap considering what it would cost in America.

John and I have learned one thing: the Thai people are notorious for deciding things for you. For instance, if we order food at a vendor and we don’t specify what drink to have with it they don’t ask you what you want…they just pick a drink for you. Or if it’s just John and I ordering food and we order enough food for John, Josiah and I (not ordering Josiah a kids meal) and they don’t see a 3rd person standing there they will literally resist selling you 3 meals. Sometimes they will even continue on and only ring up 2 meals. The Thai mind thinks: “Surely they don’t really want to order 3 meals for 2 people!!! I’ll just put down 2 meals…”

So I told you that to tell you a funny thing that happened to John and I. John was hunting down a pillow (he’s very picky about his pillows) so he’s feeling them all and he finally finds one that he is very happy with and it’s reasonably priced. So a Thai salesperson walks up to us and takes the pillow out of John’s hand and hands us this flat plastic bag that has a blanket in it.

We all look at him puzzled and stuff and he tries to take the pillow back. We’re thinking…ehh…this guy thinks we should buy a blanket instead! (we’re humoring him…trying to explain we REALLY want the pillow). Then he starts making this motion with the bag…and we just stand there cluless…until…DING DING DING!!! A light went off in my head!!! OH!!! The pillow is vacuum sealed! The pillow is in that flat plastic bag…he doesn’t want to sell us a blanket!! J We all laugh!

Poor guys was probably thinking “Goofy Americans…I thought they were up on all the latest things?!?” You know I think one of the things that I’m having a hard time getting used to is riding on a scooter. When John, Josiah and I need to go some where we jump on a motorbike that one of the missionary families let us borrow. It’s soo fun…but scary because of Josiah and the traffic. We feel truly Thai because we’re now one of those people carrying all sorts of sacks with a kid going down the road weaving in and out of traffic.

We get laughed at a lot. I don’t know why – I suppose it’s because Americans normally have enough money to buy a car when they come over so their not used to seeing 3 Americans trying to make it around on a scooter. We do what we must! J I won’t deny that it is fun but I still can’t get that scared feeling in the pit of my stomach out. With Josiah right in between us…if we were to fall…ahh…well…God is watching out for us and John is being very cautious.

We spent our first night in our house last night. Let me just say – it was hot! We don’t have enough money for an Air Conditioner yet. There are quite a few things we haven’t been able to get yet. Josiah keeps asking to watch Veggie Tales and Dora but we don’t have a TV. I just try to keep him occupied with other stuff. It’s good though – it will really spark his imagination having to be in constant play with toys instead of watching a movie every once in a while.

Anyway, I slept pretty badly – John and Josiah slept soundly. I kept waking up all throughout the night. Let me just say – our mattress is as hard as a rock! Ouch! I was sleeping on my slide apparently in the middle of the night and I woke up and my arm was dead! Competely and totally dead! I couldn’t feel a thing. You know, normally when your arm goes to sleep you can feel a little bit…I literally had to squint in the dark and find my arm…grab it with the other arm and move it. It’s quite humorous…NOW! Hehehe.

I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m complaining because believe me – I’d rather be no other place in the world! I know that God has us here and I can feel his hand at work in all that we do. I am really using this blog as a place just to vent about the every day stuff.

Last night was Dr. Candy and Pii Thak’s Birthday. So the missionaries had a big birthday party set up at this seafood place near downtown. Dr. Candy is a Christian friend of the missionaries and Pii Thak is a Thai member of their team. It was absolutely beautiful! We were surrounded by palm trees and there was a park right near all the tables for the kids to play in. Josiah had a blast. While we were there Dr. Candy said that she had a friend who needed a private tutor for their two boys and wanted to know if I would be their private tutor for English! I told her of course! So, she’s going to be calling me with details soon. I am sooo excited about that. I think that private tutoring will be such a awesome way to be able to minister to people!

The crazy thing is that I’ll be getting paid to minister the gospel and love to my students! !!! Praise God! John and I really need me to start working as soon as possible so it’s also totally God’s timing for this to happen now anyway. We almost don’t have enough money to pay the landlord. God will work it out though.

Josiah is upstairs sleeping right now and John went down to some hardware store to try to find a board to cover up the sewage drain in front of our house – because it STINKS BAD! WHEW! Plus it’s deep and Josiah could fall in and that would be really bad!

We still do NOT have a cord for our camera so we are still unable to post the awesome pictures we have. We’ll get one soon though. We’re going to church tomorrow and Brian is preaching! He preaches in Thai sometimes but tomorrow he’ll be preaching in English with an interpreter because he didn’t have enough preparation time to do it in Thai.

LOL…I just thought of another funny thing. Yesterday John and I were working in the house and Josiah and I are downstairs while John is upstairs. I hear John upstairs making some noise and then I hear him saying stuff like “How’d ya like that! HUH!” I hear the sounds of something spraying and then I hear John kind of scream. I said “What are you doing?” He was trying to kill a cockroach a little smaller than your hand and it was flying AT HIM! LOL. He was having his own private war with this cockroach!

He told me to throw the broom up and I did and the battle ended soon thereafter. John won. You know I’ve seen a couple cockroaches but mostly I see geckos everywhere. I don’t mind them at all! They remind me of living in Haiti where I used to pull of their tails! I was a mean kid! I thought Josiah was going to be horrified of them but we told him that they eat bugs and he was sooo happy!

OH! That reminds me! Yesterday John, Josiah and I were in our room upstairs with the patio door open. There was this gargantuan green grasshopper! So, John and I decided to get Josiah to look at it so he wouldn’t be so scared of bugs. So we cohersed him over there and had him looking at hit. John was on one side of it and Josiah and I were on the other. John had a stick and kind of pushed it toward him but the grasshopper went the opposite direction—toward us!!!! Josiah started freaking out! MAJORLY! AND THEN the unbelievable happened. That grasshopper JUMPED ON HIS FOREHEAD AND STUCK THERE! He was screaming like he was being beaten! I grabbed him and swatted it off (1st attempt was not successful) and grabbed him up to calm him down. He was completely in shock! He was shaking and crying. We started out trying to help him get over his fear of bugs but instead he is probably scared for life!!!!!

The things parents do…He was fine just a couple minutes later – but I don’t think he’ll ever go near a grasshopper or bug again! We’ll just have to pray that he gets over his fear of bugs regardless of our futile attempts.

Oh – man…today I connected to the internet and got a whapping 28.8!!! I couldn’t believe it! (OK…for those of you who are not internet savey…that just means that I’m being sarcastic…and you pretty much wait…literally…5 minutes or more to load one web page at a connection rate of 28.8). So I will be logging on when I have A LOT of time on my hands. OH- for all of you out there- hello – I would love an e-mail from you.

I honestly thought my inbox would be flooded when we got over here but nope! I log on (on my 28.8 connection – WHICH TAKES FOREVER) and I have “No new messages!” ARGG! Hehehe. I miss everyone soo much! I’m going to have to get off here – I need to go spend some time with the Lord since I’m here alone and Josiah is ASLEEP!

I will write as soon as I can! Oh- I’ve gotten quite a bit of people wanting to know what our needs are so I’m going to put a little bit right here. Some of the needs are things that we’re going to have to work towards (such as a motorbike).

Air Conditioner: $ 400
Washer: $ 200
TV: $ 175
DVD Player (for Josiah’s videos): $ 60
Couch: $ 200
MotorBike: $ 500


Our monthly need is a little less than: $1,000 a month
We currently have monthly support of about: $175

Once I start working in a month (after school) I will be bringing in about $500 a month or maybe a little bit more. So then our monthly need will only be about $400 with current pledges. We are not worried about this at all…wait that would be a lie…I, Stephanie, have been worried about it but I have just been giving it to God because we know that he has called us here and we know that he will meet our monthly needs.

John and Josiah on the other hand have no worries about the money situation. Like I said – I have to continually give it to God because it’s in my nature to worry about things…but I have seen God time and time again provide for our needs in life and he definitely provided for us to be able to get here and setup as much as we have already!

Anyway, enough the money aspect! God is so awesome and I’m going to go spend sometime with him while I have the time!!! All Glory to God!! He is truly worthy of all our praises!