Christmas Eve 2010

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We hosted our church members that were here over the holidays for a Christmas Eve service. I'm thankful for these friends that fill the void of being so far from all of you at this time of year!

Christmas Can Make Me Cry

There are so many mixed feeling wrapped up in the Christmas season and sometimes it does make me cry. I cry because I miss Abbie, Dusty, Granddaddy, Uncle Quenten and this will be the first Christmas without Nanaw. I think of all the soldiers that are away from their families this Christmas fighting for me and you and for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. I especially lift up Amber as she is away from her husband this Christmas and has two little ones in Germany. I have a new friend here, Laure' and this is her first Christmas away from her two daughters and her 6 grandchildren. I don't know that it ever get easier to be away from family at Christmas. I will miss you Mom and Dad. I miss our special Christmas times with Mike, Kristy, Hunter and Avery. I'm sad that we can't have a Northcutt Christmas. I'll miss Lavon and her family, especially watching Jaelee grow and change, seeing Christmas through her eyes. I do miss home at Christmas.

It does make me cry that it required God sending His son as a babe for me to eventually die because of the sin in my life. I truly am amazed that God would think that you and I would be worth that. I love this song because sometimes Christmas makes me cry too.

Christmas Celebrations

The Christmas season has afforded us many opportunities to share the 'Good News' of Christmas in some special and unique ways this year. Mark's refinery has an Esso Sports Club with numerous types of clubs-badminton,tennis,football,Buddhist....One of Mark's engineers expressed interest in starting a Christian club. Mark fully supported it and volunteered to 'kick-off' the initial meeting with a Christmas celebration. They invited all employees to come for a free lunch and hear the true meaning of Christmas. Mark said 40 people came, including his dear, sweet, secretary-Suchada. A pastor from Bangkok came and presented the meaning of Christmas. Remember there are only 3 known Christians in the entire refinery, including Marko!

One of the ladies in my Monday Bible Study group suggested we honor our drivers and maids with a Christmas luncheon and also share with them why we celebrate Christmas. What a great idea!! These employees do so much to make our lives easier here-they make sure we are safe on the roads, transport our children, clean for us, interpret for us when needed, help us find our ways in this foreign land...It was so fun to hand them the printed invites and honor them with a nice Thai duck meal with fried rice with vegis and fruits. We did all the preparation and clean-up. I told Nok, "Wannee, my tum naghn." Today, no work! ''

The Thai culture is soooo respectful and mindful of social status, it is very uncomfortable for them to have the roles reversed. Most of the other maids and drivers always call their employers-Madame but Nok and Songkran call me Khun Da. They thought it was quite funny to be served by the Madams. I asked one of the Thai maids, "Tum khun loo farangs bah my?" Do you think that foreigners are crazy??? She just giggled. This was so abnormal for them. We have a Thai lady who is a faithful Christian teacher and she translated and taught for most of the program. Each of us shared something.

I decided to share the story of the missionary in India who was speaking to some Indian women in a village about the love of God and how Christians should be different. Suddenly, one of the women got up to leave, the missionary asked, "Where are you going?" She stated, "I'm going to walk to your house and talk to your maid to ask her how you are at your home." I stated that I hope that they can each see a difference in us in our cars and homes because of Christ being in us. I also tried to express how special Nok and Songkran are to our family. They both have been with us from day one here in Thailand.

I really doubted if Songkran would come. Every time we have invited him to church with us, he adamantly says, "My Boat!" or NO CHURCH. The invites had a verse on them and they were told that we would share the real meaning of Christmas with them. I also really tried to convey to him that he didn't HAVE to come but I hoped he would come. He seemed to enjoy it. At one point, I asked him, "Are you having fun." He replied, "Let's do this every week!!"

The first week of January I have a missionary team, friends of ours here that have an orphanage for Aids children coming to present a program to all the girls at the prison. On Sunday our family fellowship group will be spending the afternoon at a weekend day care sharing the love of Christ and having a 'Happy Birthday Jesus' party. God has given us many opportunities to speak of Him here. Many, many times it is the first time some of the people have even heard the name of Jesus. Oh may it be high and lifted up here in Thailand!

Please if you think of it pray for our 'work' here. Pray for Nok, Songkran and Suchada especially that we can live out Christ before them and always look for opportunities to share the saving knowledge of Him. That they will come to know Him and love Him. That they will be with us in Heaven for all eternity.

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Christmas Recital

Last Wednesday night the Regent's school held their annual Christmas recital. The Northcutt boys played a big part in the ceremony. Dustin was the Master of Ceremony along with performing in the Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra and Soul Band. Nathan performed in the Jazz Band and newly formed Gypsy Jazz Band. Ethan sang in the school choir. We were so proud of them. They practice with each particular band by giving up their full lunch time. Dustin has a lunch committment every day of the week along with going to school 3 days a week for early basketball training. Nathan goes in early every Thursday for swimming. Ethan swims and plays basketball two days a week. He also just earned a part in the Spring musical, The Wizard of Oz. We're proud of them!

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Fall 2010

We've been busy this fall season with music programs, habitat for humanity building project, celebrating the King's 83rd birthday at the Thai school I volunteer at, and a 3 day holiday in Hua Hin, Thailand-just Mark, Ethan and I because Dustin and Nathan have been gone for 4 days trekking in the jungle of Thailand. They have already earned their Bronze International Award and now they are working on earning the Silver award. One portion of the requirements is a 4 day trekking trip, carrying all their provisions including their water, sleeping in the open air, kayaking... Ten boys and two sponsors are making the trip, not only are they doing it this holiday break, they have to do it all again at a later day. Two trips are required for the Silver award, along with many service hours, learning a new skill among other requirements.

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Thanksgiving

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Last week was the 9 year anniversary of losing Abbie. We spent the day reflecting on her life, the last 9 years without her, wondering what she would be like at 16...Time does heal in so many ways, but we still miss her so much. At dinner we all went around sharing memories of Abbie-Lou. Dustin and Nathan both have good memories of playing in the woods in Louisiana, running around the pond, climbing in the treehouse...sadly, Ethan has no memory of her. Which makes me sad because she loved him so much.

She was sure from the moment I told her I was pregnant that it was a boy and from then on she called him "Baby Bob"! When she came with Dustin and Nathan to meet Ethan for the first time in the hospital she just knew we would be taking him home that moment. You can't imagine the howling from all three of them when the nurse took their brother away! The first night we did bring Ethan home, she jumped up beside me to look at him and proceeded to poke him with her toy, bow and arrow, which made him cry, which made her cry and I just decided to cry too! Wondering how I was going to handle 3 1/2 year old triplets with a newborn. Ethan's crib was in Abbie's room and when people would ask her how she liked having a new brother she commented, "He cries a LOT!" I think back to her funeral and how small he was, he slept through the entire service in the back in Aunt Lola's lap.

Mark misses her giggle the most. He misses his sweetheart very much and it is painful for him to even verbalize it. I hold the memories of her sitting in his lap during church close. Nathan seems to have an even harder time talking about Abbie. Most of the time we were reminiscing, he was bending over fiddling with his shoes. I remember about a month after she died we were all huddled on the boys' bunkbed talking and praying together. Mark started crying and Nathan FINALLY cried some saying, "Is it really okay for men to cry?"

I miss her spunkiness, her looking over her glasses at me, her little, tiny, bottom. I miss her hugs. I miss having a girl around the house. I had a dream about 2 weeks ago and Abbie was still with us, about 2 years old-I got to hear her giggle again and give her some really tight hugs. What a gift that was to me, I haven't dreamed of her in some time. I did dream once in Virginia that she came and visited me from heaven and she said, "Mom, you know I don't want to come back and I will see you again before you know it." That brought me much comfort.

I listened to a sermon not long ago on sorrow. Do you know what the only man-made thing will be in heaven? Jesus' scars. I had never thought of that before. He is well acquainted with our sorrow, our pain, our grief. Remember when Thomas doubted until he touched Jesus' scars and then he believed? I have emotional scars from losing Abbie but I pray that my scars will point others to Christ. That others will see His grace is sufficient, He IS enough. That God will receive glory because of our scars. Oh, let it be so!

Thank you to those that wrote, prayed for us, and remember with us every year. I couldn't have made it without you all. Much love.

Bakery Girls go to the Beach

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On Thursday I took 18 of the bakery girls, 6 security personnel, and 8 boys from the boys prison to a local beach. The girls have been begging me for weeks to get the permission from the prison director and plan the excursion. Many of them have not been out of the facility in years. It was really fun to be able to give them this small gift and see how much joy it brought to them.

We took a small amount of money from the bakery funds to pay for food and drinks. It took about 20 minutes driving up and down the beachfront before a suitable place was approved by our security. We were in an isolated place that really wasn't that beautiful, few trees and on the industrial side of Rayong but that didn't seem to discourage anyone from having a wonderful day.

The girls swam in there shirts and long shorts or pants. Afterwards we all enjoyed a lunch of spicy pappaya salad (Som Tum), fried chicken wings, sticky rice and basil and pork. For dessert we had coconut cooked over a fire inside a bamboo leaf, really tasty.

The day was almost perfect, one of my favorite girls-Som was unable to join us because she has been put on probation until January, she would not tell me what she did, she was ashamed and soooo sad to miss the beach outing. I forget all the time that these girls are prisoners, look at their sweet smiles, it's hard to imagine isn't it?

Loy Krathong

Today one of the most important Thai holidays was celebrated at the boys' school-Loy Krathong. The school encourages all students to dress in Thai traditional dress for a day of traditional Thai dancing, lots of Thai food, games...The Thai traditional dress is so colorful albeit quite warm if you wear Thai silk. Parents are invited for the festivities. At the end of the event they give each child the opportunity to float a krathong. Loy means float and Krathong means raft. The Thai people, during a full moon in November float 'rafts' made of banana leaves, flowers, candles...to honor the water goddess. I was so grateful that the school made the krathong offering optional and put it at the end of the day, we left after the traditional dancing and festivities and did not participate in the symbolic ceremony of worshipping an idol.

The secondary school is divided into 4 'houses' and Dustin is head of the Yellow House and represented his house in the costume and interview competition. Each student is asked a random question and have to answer it on the spot. Dustin's question was, "Name someone you admire and why?" Dustin responded, "Abraham Lincoln because he fought for all people to be equal in America. Some may not know why he was called Honest Abe. One time he walked over 10 miles to return change to a woman who had incorrectly gave him too much." Then students and faculty vote on the winner. Dustin won!!! Really proud of him. He just became Yellow House Captain about 2 months ago, a speech was given and the student body voted. Dustin put his speech to song and played the guitar. It was a hilarious song at one point he sang, "if you vote for me we won't just be yellow we will be 24 carat gold!" That saying really took off, all the yellow house is so proud to be known as gold now!! But one mom told me that her 5 year old(who Dustin gives guitar lessons to) jumped on their coffee table one night, buck naked and said, "This isn't yellow this is 24 carat gold!!" She just wanted to thank Dustin for his influence on her little guy!!

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The Rayong Bakery

On Tuesday the Pattaya International Ladies Club made a visit to The Rayong Bakery. The PILC initially helped start the bakery project over 8 years ago by purchasing their industrial ovens, providing training and an outlet to sell their baked goods. The Head of the PILC Welfare board organized the trip for any members that were interested in seeing the project first hand. Nineteen ladies attended the morning visit. I was proud of my girls, they had the kitchen spit-spot. When I visited last week they were scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes, cleaning out the freezer, scrubbing everything from top to bottom. The ladies toured the facility, helped make some bread rolls and eagerly purchased over $300 of the bakery's goods. The bakery is a wonderful example of how a welfare project can become self-sustainable.

Jelly Belly

One of the really special treats that friends have sent us while we have been living in Thailand are Dr. Pepper flavored Jelly Bellies, we love them! You can imagine my excitement to learn that a Jelly Belly factory has opened in Thailand! They are the only factory outside of the US and they take care of all the companies' International business and hope to someday soon be selling their jelly beans in Thailand. They started building the Thai facility two years ago and are still not at 100% capability. The Pattaya International Ladies Club toured the facility on Friday and I joined in. It was so much more interesting than I ever imagined, a lot of work goes into making each individual jelly bean. A 5th generation Jelly Belly founder and his daughter moved here from the California facility and started their International business. The daughter who conducted our tour assured us that we should be able to purchase jelly bellies here soon (sadly, she said Dr.Pepper flavor will not be sold here :( but she advised me to try the cherry coke flavored ones for a nice alternative!) It was a fun day and the boys were so excited to see the gift bag I received full of jelly bellies! A little taste of 'home'!

Planetshakers

Jesus-name above all other names!

Planetshakers Concert

Sunday afternoon several families travelled to Bangkok for a Planetshakers Concert. A Christian group from Australia that travel around the world proclaiming the Good News through music. Mark was unable to attend with us because he is currently in Houston attending some meetings, having a check-up at MD Anderson, and doing some Christmas shopping. With his extra ticket we were able to invite one of the boys' non-christian friends, we continue to pray that some seeds of salvation are being planted in his heart and we will see him come to the saving knowledge of Christ. Dustin and Nathan do not have even one Christian friend in their grade now that the Clarkson family moved.

It was a wonderful time of fellowship with friends and worship. It's quite exciting to see so many Thai believers gathered together praising God. In a country that is less than 1% Christian one can start to feel pretty lonely so it's quite uplifting when many of those are gathered together giving glory to the one, true, living, God.

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Corporate Prayer

Thursday was Exxon's second annual day of prayer within the company. 35 different work sites across the world joined together on one conference call. Each location had a designated praying leader and 5-7 minutes to pray for specific concerns. The President of Exxon Chemicals and President of the downstream business joined in. Mark and one other Thai Christian at the Sriracha refinery huddled around a phone praying together with many Exxon employees across the globe. Mark said he felt led to mainly pray for the nation of Thailand, that God's name would be glorified here and the people would turn from their idols and worship the one, true, living, God. Ironically, the young engineer Christian, praying at the refinery with Mark is the only Christian in his entire family. Mark said it magnified to him how difficult it must be for someone to turn from their entire heritage, culture and former religion to live for Christ. Mark said it was a powerful experience, one he was glad to take part in. May the name of Christ be high and lifted up within Exxon and every nation!

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The day after the conference we wanted to take advantage of the time that was left of the boys' two week holiday. We took a short 55 minute flight over to Koh Samui, the third largest island in Thailand for some enjoyable family, relaxation time.

We landed at the most beautiful, tropical, airport I have ever seen. We had a lovely hotel on the beach with outdoor jacuzzis. We enjoyed playing cards, watching movies, just being together. We spent one day touring several nearby islands, some inhabited and some not, on a speedboat. Stopping to hike up to the Emerald Lake, a blue lagoon at the top of an island that is a preserve on an island that is entirely a National park. We kayaked around another island. We had lunch at a small fishing island that has about 430 residents, their only electricity is supplied by solar panels, the island children are only offered school until the age of 12 and then they have to go to a bigger island if more education is desired. We had some amazing Thai food and celebrated Nathan's 16th Coming Home Day on October 17th.

It is still somewhat painful to think of those early days when he was so near death but still so amazing how far he has come in the last 16 years. We continually give thanks that God saved him and know that God has special plans for him.

The only thing that could have made our weekend get-away any better was if our Aunt Lola could have been with us as planned. We had thought that she would be here with us but there were issues with her airline ticket and she was unable to be here. We are trusting that this wasn't God's timing for her to visit Thailand and hope He will make a way later for her to visit. We miss her!

Last pictures from the conference. The closing ceremony was really special with King Constatine from Greece speaking on the impact the conference had on him this week. Ethan performed in the choir. I especially loved the conference CD and the parade of flags. Each school representative in their school uniform parading their particular flags. It was just great!
(Just a note about the Fall-themed slideshow. I decorated for Fall a couple of weekends ago and when Nok arrived Monday for work she asked, "Why do you do this?" I tried to explain to her that we have a season in America called 'Fall' and it is my favorite season. That even though we don't have Fall in Thailand I still like to celebrate it and pretend that it is Fall! We are at the end of the rainy season and sometimes when it is raining and I'm looking at the window I can pretend that it is Fall in Thailand and all the pumpkins and fall colors displayed throughout the house help me in my fantasy, which quickly fades once I walk out into the sticky heat!)

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Over the last week the boys' school has been hosting the annual Round Square International Conference for 800 delegates from around the world, doubling our student population in 24 hours. It was a huge effort for our school community and I think it was a very successful conference. Most of the delegates didn't commit to attend until July because of the political unrest in Thailand last Spring so it hindered our planning to some degree , not knowing until we all returned from our summer holiday how many people would be attending.
On Friday and Saturday the delegates began arriving from their pre-conference projects that were distributed all around Southern Asia, from the Hill Tribal area in Northern Thailand to Laos, Cambodia, Koh Phi Phi or the Bangkok area. I was Luggage Control coordinator for most of the day Saturday. Sunday was the official opening day, lunch was an International Flavors theme and I was the Americas coordinator, I've been solicitating chocolate chip cookies, brownies, rice krispie treats, sugar cookies and pimento cheese sandwiches from every American or Canadian Regent's parent over the last few weeks. The bakery supplied 30 vegetarian quiches. (There were many vegetarians attending especially from India.) The Aussies took care of all the grilled meats including hot dogs. The Koreans and Thai parents served up lots of spicy dishes. Europeans took care of pizza, croissant sandwiches, Welsh pies, and scones. We had to supply enough food to feed 1000 people.
It was a huge undertaking for the parent community. We had 200 sugar cookies alone, I made 400 pimento finger sandwiches and they cost me about $75 to prepare, cheese is a very expensive item here! One thing I love about Thailand though is the crustless bread that is available, it sure makes finger sandwiches much easier to compile. 1000 people descended on the food like a pack of locusts and cleared it out within two hours.
Monday and Wednesday were committed to service projects. The delegates along with headmasters, board members, and other adult chaperones were divided between 26 different service projects that our school is associated with. My bakery hosted 25 girls/ladies for a day of baking, basket weaving and origami. We've been planning for some time, securing permission from the prison director, assessing potential dangers of our site (making sure the dogs were secured...remember my dog bite there last Spring.) transportation issues, lunch plans, a lot of prayer on my part...I'm thankful to say that everything went really smoothly and a good time was had by all it seemed. The prison girls seemed to enjoy the day as much as the delegates, it is a rare event for them to have outside visitors, much less from half way around the world!
We had a map and globe available for each delegate to share with the prisoners their names and where they are from. One of my girls admitted that she didn't know the world was round! It was such a great experience for all involved. I think the day had a profound affect on the delegates, the bakery ladies are right at their ages, they are cute, nice, not looking much different from themselves but yet are isolated on the premises, little to do-no school etc. and have very stark sleeping and bathroom facilities.
On Tuesday and Thursday we sold all the baked items that were produced during the service days at the conference, it brought some funds back into the bakery. I also volunteered at the Information desk for several hours on those days. Dustin and Nathan were Barazza leaders and facilitated discussion sessions after keynote speakers. There were many late evenings this last week as they were so involved in the conference.
BUT the best thing has to be this-on the last day of the conference the Hotchkiss School from Conneticut donated $300 to the bakery for the kitchen to be plumbed!! Most people don't realize we don't have indoor plumbing there, the girls have to haul all their dishes to another location, we wash our hands from a large container filled with water that has to be carried into the kitchen and bottled water is used in our recipes. Four girls and a teacher representative from the Hotchkiss school cooked with us on Wednesday and felt led to contribute to our project. It sounds like such a small amount of money to students that pay $45,000/yr to attend their prestigious boarding school but is HUGE here in Thailand. I started crying when they handed me their donation and I can't wait to tell the girls all about it on Wednesday!
I'll post some pics from the closing ceremony later. Here's a few pics of our week.

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Last night we spent the evening at the Airsoft field for one of the boys' friends at school-Sierra, celebrating her 15th birthday. We crammed a bunch of smelly boys into our Toyota Fortuner and drove 40 minutes to a night field. (We purchased the largest SUV we could find when we moved here. As the boys are growing it's becoming reallyy crowded. We miss our old suburban so much, we would even take our pick-up here. In Thailand there are no laws against filling up the back end of the pick-up truck, you see it ALL the time. Plus, I wouldn't have had to smell those boys who had just finished with basketball practice! Remember in Thai 'men' is stinky, never more appropriate than last night!) Sierra is a part of the Sanchez family and attends school with the boys, her parents have been missionaries here in Thailand for 10 years. They have 2 church plants and run an orphanage for children with Aids. The longer we live here we are finding more of God's people here. The Sanchez family are such a blessing to us, fellow so-journers here in Thailand AND they like air-soft!

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Mom in Thailand

It was so wonderful to have my Mom here with us for two weeks. She is back home safe and sound and we are so grateful. When she left she said she wasn't ever coming back, "TOO FAR!" but I'm hoping her experience is similar to childbirth, that she forgets the pain of that long flight and will return for another visit. Two weeks just isn't enough, it takes about 4-5 days just to get over the jet-lag and there is so much to see. I posted the few pictures I have of our time with her, she took the rest home on her camera. I forgot to download them. I've also included the pictures we took of our 'new' house my parents reminded me that I had never posted some. One of the neat thngs about my Mom coming is now when we talk about our home here, the school, our friends....she has a picture of all that in her memory. I think it helps her to share in our Thailand experience in a whole new way! We were all sad to see her go especially Nok, realizing she may never see her again and really devoloping a friendship with her. Love you Mom so much and thanks for making the LONG trip over, please pray for her, we sent her home with Dustin and Nathan's cold and she didn't feel well when I spoke with her this morning.

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Summer 2010

Hi Crystal! Thanks for the encouragement to get me back to the blog world!

This is for you as I have no idea who reads this anymore and sometimes I get blog weary, it takes so much time, but I will always have some documentation of this time in our lives. I guess that is something!

I've compiled a lengthy slideshow of most of our summer adventures after the 4th of July at Joe's Boot Shop. I was negligent in taking pictures this summer (you will question that when you see how many pics I did take!) and missed capturing so many of my buddies I saw this summer. How in the world did I not get one picture of Tommy and June meeting us in Austin? Cyndi, Rach, Kate and Karen in New Braunfels, no pictures of Camp Travis, none of my 30th reunion, didn't get any at Dean and Cherylee's home, none of my most gracious host-Cecelia (love you by the way!), not a photo from the beautiful ladies luncheon at your new house, sure wish I had taken one of Tawni and Reagen, didn't even get one of our time with Grace Church and the amazing fellowship with all of you at the Fultz's new home, not a single one of the Shepherd's either and our time in their home and their sweet boys, wish I would have taken a pic of beautiful Em when we met for breakfast in D.C., hopefully Lisa will send me the shot that was taken of all my dear VA neighborhood ladies at the luncheon at Sue's....now you can see why I didn't take the time to blog this summer, I was way too busy visiting with so many of you. How God has blessed me with your friendships! My cup runneth over!!

We are happy to be 'home' in Thailand. Hawaii was a most wonderful place to break up the long trip. It was such a memorable and special trip with my parents. Dad flew home by himself and Mom braved the return to Thailand with us, she has a much greater appreciation of how far it really is! She will be here only a couple of weeks so I better run.

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4th Festivities Continue

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I'm posting a few more pictures as our 4th of July festivities come to an end. We leave New Mexico early Friday morning heading towards Virginia. The boys have completed 3 weeks of work at the boot shop and are looking forward to visiting with old friends in VA. It's not too difficult saying good-bye to Mom and Dad since we will see them in a few short weeks in HAWAII!!

The 4th of July

It's been a busy week heading into the 4th of July weekend. The boys were outfitted in western wear and reported for work on Monday, all of us pitching in trying to help Mom and Dad get ready for their annual 4th of July sale at Joe's Boot Shop which began on Thursday. Lots of family come together to make this sale happen every year. We sold hundreds of boots, belts, and shirts over the three days of the sale. On Sunday we had a family reunion enjoying visiting, eating, and resting. It's good to be in America on July 4th!

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San Francisco Detour

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Still not home

We can't seem to find a way to get all the way home this trip back to the USA! We have had a most terrible time. Our planes were changed in Tokyo and it caused us to arrive into San Francisco late thus missing our plane into Dallas where we arrived Friday morning after 24 hours of being up, I just have the hardest time sleeping on planes, thankfully, the boys have an easier time than I do. United (which I hate flying, just because of situations like these, and should have learned my lesson to fly any Asian airline, sadly they are so much more efficient and customer friendly than United by far) We were rescheduled around 11 a.m. to leave from San Francisco Friday at 7:30 p.m. requiring us to hang around the airport the entire day-I did get a temporary US phone and number #415-324-9969, we enjoyed a hamburger, and the boys managed to sleep some in the uncomfortable airport chairs. Our original plans were for Dustin and Nathan to fly on into Lubbock where Pappa Joe would pick them up and Ethan and I would stay in Dallas with Mom who was there for market. Because our Dallas-Lubbock flights were independent of our International travel American Airlines wanted to charge us $350/ticket to change their flight times on tickets that were only originally $114/ticket-can you say FRUSTRATING!! So I booked transfer flights for D&N on Southwest for $350 total departing on Friday morning.

In the afternoon a typical SF fog rolled into the airport and many flights were cancelled, including our long awaited one to Dallas, where we would meet Mom You can not imagine how many people were waiting in line for re ticketing, I would estimate that we waited in some sort of line at least 4 hours that day and remember I'm running on no sleep! I was so emotional, it took all I had to just keep from setting down and just bawling and probably would have if not for the boys because every time I started to tear up the boys would say, "MOM!!" Hopefully, in all the frustration I didn't lose my Christian witness too much! There was enough ugliness going around in those waiting lines for all of us combined and I stand amazed that anyone would take one of those airline ticketing jobs! I've also learned from setting in all those lines that a person should avoid flying into or through San Francisco in June or July because of all the fog issues! Not only was it foggy it was freezing! In the 50's, people outside had coats and hats on!! We finally were reissued new tickets departing San Francisco on SATURDAY and because ultimately our tickets were changed because of weather the airline refused to pay for any of our hotel accommodations, they did give us a discount voucher that I tried to redeem but was told that all the discount hotel tickets had already been issued in the San Francisco area! More Frustration!

When we finally had our tickets in hand and realized that we would be spending two unexpected nights in California we then had to wait in another line for our baggage to be found and reissued to us, it is now about 8:30 pm-I've been up over 48 hours at this point, I was on the brink of losing it but was encouraged by the boys who continued to have a good attitude through the entire ordeal, I kept thanking them for supporting and encouraging me through this little trial. I am amazed that out of the thousands of travellers after an 1 1/2 hours we had all our luggage in hand. A lesson learned-we received the three, royal, blue bags and floral bag within 30 minutes but it took an additional hour to retrieve the black bags from the sea of black bags I'm sure!

When we finally were in our taxi headed to the hotel we all made a conscious effort to change our thinking to the whole, "changing lemons into lemonade" mode! The boys have never seen San Francisco and we decided to just embrace the idea that we would be spending some time here. We finally were in bed by 11:30, I don't know that a bed ever felt any better. We all slept until 11 am the following day before an afternoon of sight-seeing. We are all up now at 2:30 in the morning, it is so hard getting your inner clocks converted over. We are just praying that we can finally get to our final destinations later this morning! and let me put a plug in for Southwest Airlines, they changed our tickets from Friday to Saturday for Dustin and Nathan with no charge! Man! if they only flew Internationally we might be home by now!!

Marko

A few of you have asked about the completion of Mark's latest trial. He returned a week ago from MD Anderson with an excellent pathology report and an impressive incision! We are so thankful to have our sweet Daddy home, we sure need him around here. When we were anxiously awaiting the initial CT results knowing that if there was already metastasis the prognosis was grim, Ethan asked, "Mom, who would answer all my hard questions if something happened to Dad?" My thoughts exactly...we look to Mark for spiritual guidance, wisdom, a model of what unselfish love really looks like, a hard work ethic, and always a hearty laugh for our ears, amongst a myriad of other things. The Lord has done great things for us! One being giving me such a wonderful, Godly husband when I was just a wee, unsuspecting, naive, thing! and for giving my boys such an amazing Daddy. Happy Father's Day Marko-we love you!!

I also want to take this opportunity to thank Mike and Kristy for stepping in and filling in for me when I couldn't be with Mark in Houston. Thanks for allowing Mark to stay with you, all the delicious meals, the updates from the surgery waiting room, and your loving care as he recovered in your home. We love you!

Dustin is Back!!

We retrieved Dustin from the airport this morning, so happy to see that boy! He is full of wonderful memories of South Africa and really feels like he has an adopted, second family in the Gorven's. We can never thank them enough for taking on Dustin, more than being his host for 6 weeks, loving and nurturing him. He will always treasure his time in South Africa and is anxious for our entire family to visit. God was all over this exchange, we see His hand so evident in the home he placed him in as well as St.Stithians (by the way it is the alma mater of Dave Matthews!). He had several opportunities to play the guitar in Sunday worship services as well as the piano during the Wednesday night youth services. He took several excursions around South Africa, one being with a friend of ours-Louis, from Johannesburg who attended church with us here in Thailand. He took Dustin for a weekend out to his parent's home which is situated in the middle of a huge Animal Preserve. We are so grateful to all that played a part of Dustin's wonderful experience and just pray that the Lord will heap blessings on them for how they blessed Dustin! So glad he is home!

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Baptism

Saturday was exciting on several fronts, not only did Nathan return home safely but earlier in the day I had the pleasure of attending a baptism service with our Koh Si Chang fellow congregation. Several of the members from our church here in Pattaya travelled via the 40 minute ferry for a time of celebration and fellowship with our friends. We all enjoyed a wonderful Thai meal together before taking a Song-tao over to the public beach on the small island. We sang several praise songs along the sand beside other sun-worshipers as we worshipped the Son!! Six members of their small congregation were baptized in the Bay of Thailand. It was especially exciting to see one of my friends, Nok's (not my housekeeper, a different one)husband be baptized. She was the first believer in her family and her husband and mother have both come to Christ in the last two years, we are still praying for her sister. There is a picture of their small hair shop where they are proudly displaying their faith for all to see in their small village or Moo Bahn. Also, Nok, my housekeeper and her son joined us for the afternoon. I just can't tell you how excited I was about that! For her to get to see even more Thai believers! She asked what baptism means and I was able to give her an explanation in English and then the Thai Presbyterian pastor from Pattaya who also joined us for the day then explained baptism in Thai. He was so encouraging to her and kind, she wants to visit his church this Sunday!!!! Woohoo!! I'm just rejoicing as I see the Lord drawing Nok to himself more and more!! I promised her that I would attend with her this Sunday. Please keep praying for my sweet puean, Nok. I look at her Peem, who is only 4 years old and it's hard not to dream about Nok and her family coming to Christ and Peem growing up his entire life proclaiming Christ in Thailand-Oh Lord! Let it be so!!!

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Nathan is Home

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Our Nathan is back home safe and sound!! So happy to retrieve him late last night at the airport and he even had a good attitude about all the smooches he had to endure! He compiled a slide show of his time Down Under! So good to have him back!

Mark's Surgery

Mark met with the his surgeon Thursday morning and his surgery was scheduled and came about really quickly. He was given the 0700 slot for Friday morning and we are so grateful it is all behind us now! They feel confident that all the existing tumor was removed and they did not have to remove any muscle in his shoulder blade and for that we are so grateful! His brother, Mike acted in my behalf since I was unable to be there. He assured me he was patting Mark's hand while keeping me constantly posted! It was a little nerve-racking being so far away and just sitting here anxiously awaiting each of Mike's updates! I spoke with Mark this morning/his Friday night and he was at Mike and Kristy's resting with his biggest complaint being his sore throat. The Lord has graciously answered our prayers, "We will praise and thank the Lord who is our very present help in times of trouble, who is a strong and mighty tower and we will run to Him AND NOT BE AFRAID.
The Lord is my light and my salvation, of whom shall I be afraid?"
Thank you again for lifting us up in prayer during this trial. Hopefully he will be returning to Thailand next Friday. Nathan returns tonight at 12 midnight!! and we could potentially be 4/5 back together by next weekend!! Over the last few weeks we have all been spread out over 4 CONTINENTS!! I can hardly wait for all of us to be back together!

Weekend Away

Several weeks ago an old friend from Lubbock, TX contacted me about perhaps visiting a church that she has been involved in supporting in Northern Thailand. This last Friday Ethan had a holiday from school and with Mark being gone I thought it might be a good time to make the trek up to the new church plant in Taprang, Thailand. I asked Nok, my housekeeper to accompany me to act as my translator and her husband, Noon would be able to drive. She was so excited to visit an area of Thailand she had never seen and it would be a rare holiday for their family, along with their 4 year old son, Peem! The only catch was that they had to attend the Sunday services with me.

Along the way we spent two nights at Khao Yai National Park, the oldest park in Thailand. It was about a 500km drive. It was in the mountains of Thailand and was so nice and cool. We spent an entire day hiking through the park, about 7.5km and enjoyed the wildlife that it afforded. I was disappointed not to see any of the estimated 200 wild elephants in the park. It was funny because at the entrance to the park there is a farm with Holstein cattle, Nok and family were so excited to see black and white cattle!! They reacted somewhat like I might have to see elephants in the wild! In Thailand normally only white, Brahmas cattle are seen! It was funny!

On Sunday we finally found the small congregation of believers, we were over 1 1/2 hours late. They were so gracious and kind and waited to begin the service for us! It was embarrassing compounded by the fact that when we drove up the entire congregation was standing in front of the church on the dirt road in the heat waiting to greet and 'wai' us. It was such a blessing to worship with these Thai Christians and even though I couldn't understand a lot of the service, I did understand the joy written on their faces, their hospitality, their expressive singing, and was able to follow along with some of the scripture reading. Much prayer had gone into the day. This was Nok and Noon's first time to attend a Christian church, to hear the gospel in the Thai language from the mouths of fellow Thai's. Nok has always thought that Christianity was for westerners and Buddhism is for Thai people, it was so great for her to see otherwise. Please join me in praying that scales will continued to be removed from Nok's eyes and that God will draw her and her family to himself.

(Mark sees the surgeon on Thursday, I'll let you know the exact plans when I know them. In the meantime he is visiting family and friends in TX.)

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Marko Update

I just wanted to send the latest news from Marko for our praying friends. He had the most terrible time getting to Houston, had to spend the night in Chicago...and ended up missing his first appointment time but we are trusting the Lord's timing in all of this. Here's what Mark just sent me,


So far, so good. Dr. Patel assured me that this cancer is nothing to lose
sleep over. He said what I had 25 years ago was level 3 -- a big problem,
but by comparison this would be a level 1 -- not a problem. He also thinks
my shoulder issue is unrelated. He went on to say that there are treatment
options, starting with surgery to make sure they got it all. Another
option if the surgery is difficult or too extensive for the area is
radiation. He also said there is a fairly new drug (I believe he said some
sort of chromosome therapy) that is also very effective. He thinks surgery
is the cleanest option for me, but will have to confirm that with the
surgeons.

So I'm now going through all the preparatory tests -- X-rays, blood work,
and another CT scan. Hopefully these will yield no surprises and the next
step will be to meet with surgeons.

So it's time for a big prayer of thanks. But don't stop praying til it's
over!


I'm liking the sound of that email!! Please do keep praying for the new CT results, that they would also be found clear as they were in Thailand. I'll let you know when he has a definite plan and surgery date.

Much love to each of you!
JoRonda

Ethan

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