600+ Mosquitos - No Water - New Job - Baan Nam Khem

Hello hello!

I just finished up our newletter that will be coming out this week! Whew...I never thought it would be hard to write a newsletter but I had a hard time with it! You have to keep it short enough for people to want to finish it (which I don't think I did successfully) and it needs to adequately describe how things have been going and how they are...and that's kinda hard when you've described everything to everyone with internet access already... LOL...

Ah well...I put my best effort into it! Well, ok...so we're going on about 5 days with no water downstairs! Which means - no laundry done....no dishes done....Which makes for quite a mess. We do have a bit of a drizzle coming out of the sink...so I managed to get the dishes done yesterday. Now...the laundry on the other hand proves to be quiet a pain. I put clothes in...add soap...then put a bucket underneath this one faucet that for some reason has more water coming out of it than any other faucet and then I let the bucket fill up and dump it into the washing machine. I do this for about ehh....10 minutes and voila - the wash cycle begins...and then it's on to the rinse cycle. Some would simply say "Forget the rinse cycle!" but it's just not possible when you hang your clothes to dry unless you like wearing haysacks (I think that's what they're called).

It's really kinda funny now that I think about it but it's not funny at the moment of happening...but everytime I go down to take the laundry off the line and I pull the first piece off - there are at least 20+ mosquitos that swarm into the air. Today was especially bad (I think because it's getting hotter) but this time it was unbelieveable....John and I both started to take laundry down and we were swarmed by at least 600+ mosquitos....I'm not exhagurating I promise. I think they're drawn to the moisture in the clothes. Amazing thing is that neither of us got bit.

So the first thing I do (out of habit now) is go get the bug zapper (John goes for the bug spray and the mosquito repellant burners - which we spray 3 times a week and we still have this problem). The bug zapper is this neat thing I found at a shop that looks just like a tennis racket but the part where the ball would hit is all electric coils. You can't hurt yourself by touching it because its guarded by a mesh thingy. Anyway, it's electric and you turn it on and press this button and start swinging!!! It's great...the sounds of shocking fill the air as mosquitos drop to the floor. The floor is a mess by the time we're done.

It was a great distress at first but now it's kinda fun...part of doing the laundry - the first 10 minutes is a mosquito slaughter...and then you take down the clothes. Ahhhhh....life in Thailand...hehehe...no really don't get me wrong - I love it!

I got a job!!! I will begin work at Pholwityia Bilingual School on April 1st! I'm so excited about - it's one of the biggest schools in Hat Yai and all the missionaries here say that it is the hand of God that I got on there because it is such an influencial school and there will be many opportunities for ministry just because I work at this school. I might be working part-time until then but I'm not for sure if that will work out yet.

John, Josiah and I are going to be heading off for Baan Nam Khem this Friday for about a week. We're going to talk to that little girl and her grandmother and to serve wherever possible. John went today to the hospital with Pastor Simon (the chinese pastor I've mentioned) and prayed for a man who was hit over the head with a piece of wood. He had to have part of his brain removed. When they walked into the room he was in a vegetative state and didn't respond to anything. John began to lay hands on him and pray and he woke up and started responding and looking around...it was incredible. When he took his hands off of him he would become non responsive again. John continued to pray and told the man somethings John wanted him to tell him. We will be keeping up with the condition of this man.

John is also blessed in that this Wednesday night he has been asked to speak at a local church here and God has already spoken to John about what he's supposed to speak on. I'm very excited for him - I will not be there....AGAIN. I will be going to a different fellowship that I'm committed to on that night.

We finally paid the landlord! He finally showed up! So that's all done with and I feel much better. We don't have anything in Josiah's room so - the other night we just gulped and stepped out in faith and bought him little things for his room. We got him a little fold out table with a chair and a bin to put his toys in but the thing I'm most excited about is that we were able to buy him his first little bike. He absolutely loves it and it was only 399 baht (which is about $10 dollars). It surely would have cost at least $30 in the states. Anyway, I've taken some pictures of him on it and I'm going to upload them....John also took a picture of me hand washing some clothes...and I'll put that up too - mostly for my mom...cuz I think she'll get a kick out of it.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines Day! I miss everyone so much - but I know I say that everytime I write...I really miss my brother and mom.....oh...please pray with us. My brother and his wife are pregnant and they are having some complications. There is a small rip in the placenta (either that or the uterine lining) and she has been put on bedrest for 10 days and things were going fine but now she's bleeding a little bit more. Please pray! This is my little unborn nephew - Braden that we're fighting for.

I'm going to close with that and go pray...I'll write again soon! Love you all!
Steph