Ancient Siam

This week Ethan's 5th grade class had an overnight field trip to Ancient Siam outside Bangkok and I was asked to be a chaperone. What a fun trip! Ancient Siam was built by a wealthy man who wanted to preserve the old Thailand. The city is built on over 200 acres of land that has many reproductions of famous buildings/temples/wats/historic places and some old buildings were disassembled and rebuilt on site. Many craftsmen live on the premises along with fishermen, cattlemen...to portray the authentic Thailand. There is an actual floating market on the premises, many places to eat, livestock roaming the city and all is accesible by walking or bike riding. All of the ISE 5th graders were required to bike over the two days. We had very nice accommodations that were even air-conditioned. Most of the time I spent with my 5 boys that were assigned in my group, biking, hiking and exploring the amazing living museum. The site also has a very extensive obstacle course each of the kids were required to complete. Along with delicious, authentic, Thai meals the staff also prepared a campfire for us in the evening. The ISE teachers provided all the fixins for smore's and this was the first time for many of the children they had ever roasted a marshmallow, I've never seen such an extensive safety talk about roasting a marshmallow!! Some of the rules they taught us, "Don't fling a flaming mellow. Don't bring a burning mellow to your face too quickly..." All the kids seemed to enjoy the experience despite the heat but several of them commented that they found marshmallows too sweet. Most of Asia just doesn't consume sweet things like we Americans do and their systems aren't used to it.

We had a great time but I'm tired. I was busy after hours (about 6 total) of bike riding-playing nurse. The school brought a first aid bag and I put it to good use-we had lots of scraped knees, a sprained ankle, headaches and one girl was sick all night with an upset stomach-she vomited 4 times during the night. You can imagine how pleasant that was in our dorm of 12 girls and 4 sponsors, of course she couldn't hit her bucket in the middle of the night in the dark(remember she's 11)and we had to clean up the messes without turning on a light in the whole room, trying not to wake the girls that were able to sleep, using only the light of the flashlight. The bathroom was about 30 meters from our dorm room. Needless to say I didn't get too much sleep!!

Ethan had a really great time and it was bittersweet to see him having so much fun with his classmates. For you that don't know we have made a decision to change the boys over to the British International School next year. After much evaluating and praying we have decided it is the best thing for the boys. I'll tell you more about the decision later and thank you to each of you that have been praying with us about this decision.

Let's see-only 9 days until we leave for a couple of months in the states. We are so excited!

God of this City

A friend of mind just posted this video on Facebook and I wanted to share it with you. Why? Am I a Kris Allen fan? I have never even seen him before now. Some people get American Idol here and keep up with the latest competitors but we don't have access to it with our TV package. No, I want to tell you the story behind this song. It all started in Pattaya, Thailand a few years ago. An American group was here on a mission trip and had the opportunity to perform at a local bar. They could sing whatever they wanted as long as they kept buying cokes. While performing and singing songs of praise in this dark place, this song was revealed to them, given to them, laid on their hearts... for the city of Pattaya. This song gives me such hope and encourages me about the work that God is doing here.

I haven't shared a lot about the city of Pattaya too much here because it's a family blog! I have some younger readers and I haven't wanted to be too graphic plus I don't want to worry my mom too much! Pattaya is a place like no other. There are an estimated 30,000 prostitutes over the age of 18 in this city alone. We live on the outskirts of the 'business' but are faced with it regularly. Recently, when Nathan was completing his scuba license we had to regularly go down a most disgusting, disturbing soi (street). Nathan had to be at class by 9:30 and even at that hour there were many ladies out soliciting business. It is so, so grievous. How offensive it must be to a holy God.

But-I am hopeful. I am hopeful that greater things are to be done in this city. I feel like I'm setting on the periphery watching God doing something here and it feels exciting to be a small part of that work. Thailand was not on our radar even one year ago-Exxon just doesn't give much lead time! But of all the places in the world God could have sent us, He chose here. And He is sending lots of Christians here mostly through their vocations. DOW Chemical has a HUGE project here at the moment and God has sent many believers through them. An older friend of mine here from TN, that was a missionary to India for over 20 years has lived with her son over the last 4 years in Pattaya. She said even two years ago she knew only a handful of Christian women in this area. She attends our Bible study that has had over 20 ladies at some meetings, women from every nation. God continues to send families to visit our church. He is opening doors here. Our church has found a Thai Presbyterian church to partner with here in this city. Our pastor is beginning English classes there on Wednesday nights, hopefully some of their faithful members will be learning English alongside Thai unbelievers. Songkran our driver is very interested in the free classes and now we just have to work out a schedule so that Mark can be driven home from work early enough to allow Songkran to attend the classes. If each of us that has been transferred here because of work can testify and live out the gospel even just in front of our drivers and housekeepers this city could be changed. We are the light in the darkness-There is NONE like our God!

Please pray for us that we will be faithful to what the Lord is calling us to here in Pattaya. We will be leaving in less than two weeks for HOME we will be there for over two months and we are excited!! Can I just say that again, "We are EXCITED!" We want to go back and get refreshed and recharged to return to the work the Lord has for us here. In the Fall, Molly and I will be taking over a Ladies Prison Ministry. I will share more at a later date but please pray for us. We are here under the auspices of Mark's work but know that God has us here for a much greater work.

Our Anniversary

On Thursday Mark and I celebrated 27 years of marriage! My goodness, where has the time gone? We reminisced and laughed about some of our earlier days together, we were so young (the early days-the disastrous puppy stay in our car overnight on our third night of married life, running from several tornadoes in Dumas our first week of marriage, his first paycheck with Mobil being late-eating the discovered Spam left in the camper from previous Northcutt trips and our scrapping and saving for a meal, (which included searching for lost coins in the car seats) at McDonald's only to witness Mark dropping our entire meal on the floor-and that was just the first month!!) We knew so little about what being married for 27 years would look like but we both agreed that God was so good to put us together and we are so thankful that we embarked on our life journey as one. We are both still happy with the choice we made all those years ago. The choice to love each other no matter what comes our way, realizing that we made a covenant before a holy God to each other. How blessed I've been to have a Godly husband to lead and guide me over almost three decades, to love me sacrificially day in and day out, to lean on through some of the most unimaginable roughest times, and a most wise father to our children. I love you, Marko!

I've included a couple of pictures from Esso Thailand's latest shareholder report of Mark. He had to have a make-up person before the shoot and he was totally grossed out thinking about the lipstick dispenser and wondering how many lips it had touched prior to his. It's a weird thing for your husband to come home with a full face of make-up on, that's for sure!!

Laos

We just returned from a four day visit to the small country of Laos. We traveled to watch Dustin and Nathan compete in a soccer tournament with students from 7 partnering International Schools. I was hoping flying a couple of hours North would give us some reprieve from the heat but it was even hotter in Vientiane, the capitol of Laos. Mark had a holiday at work Friday, it was the Big Buddha holiday here in Thailand. That's actually what people call it being the most celebrated holiday set aside for Buddha.

Because of costs the boys actually took a short flight to Northern Thailand and then a 2 hour bus ride over the border into the communist country with their teammates. A new experience for them crossing through customs and passport control via land. We flew directly into Laos with 4 other families from our school. The boys stayed with a family from the Vientiane International School of Laos. Their particular host family opened their home to 5 ISE boys which was a 5 minute walk from the school. We stayed at a hotel in the center of the small, quiet, city.

Everything was within walking distance in this former French colony, it was occupied until the 1940's by France. The influence of France is still very much obvious in the architecture and the wonderful bakeries throughout the city. We ate at some great little French sidewalk cafes while enjoying croissants and other French pastries. We went to a Laos Cultural show one night with dancing, singing and some delicious Laos food which is not too different than Thai food. We visited several city landmarks one of those being the Victory Gate of Vientiane. The story I heard is that the landmark that very much resembles the Arc of Triumph in Paris is that the US gave Laos enough concrete to build an airport in their capitol city and instead they used it to build this Victory Gate-go figure?

We enjoyed shopping at the local morning market in between watching some great football matches. Dustin made the All-Stars team and Nathan had some really great saves as goalie. They were able to compete with much larger schools and we were really proud of their effort, they finished 4th of the 7 teams and actually held the team from Phenom Penn that won the entire tournament to 0-0. We watched a lot of soccer over the last few days because we had to cheer on the girl's team from ISE as well.

I was confused all weekend trying to convert money from the local currency of Kip, it was roughly 8,400 Kip/$1 US dollar. Most of the local people understood Thai and the Laos language is very similar. For instance in Thailand, "Sabie Dee My?" translates to How are you? in Laos to say Hello-"Sabie Dee". It was a very enjoyable trip and now we return to only 3 1/2 weeks of school and then we are off to the US!! for a couple of months. As the time approaches I feel myself getting giddy with excitement. We are all looking forward to seeing family and friends, hearing English, eating all the foods we have missed over the past 10 months and cooler weather.

Speaking of family, I just want to wish my Mom a Happy Mother's Day. What a blessing she is to me. She has poured her life into raising me, loving me and caring for me, my siblings and Mark and the boys. She has always been there for me whenever and however. What a treasure to not only be able to call her Mom but also Friend, I love you, Mom. I can hardly wait to spend time with her this summer, I have really missed not seeing her and our frequent phone calls. Happy Mother's Day!