Flood crisis worsens in Bangkok

 Don Muang Airport 1 week ago

The same airport this week

 

Cars parked illegally on the elevated motorways sometimes leaving on 1 lane each way

 A underpass completely submerged and now a swimming pool

Please pray for Thailand.

Flooding & moving

There are severe floods affecting Thailand right now. Here are some pictures. There are many things I’ve experienced for the first time in my life in Thailand.

An industrial district in Ayutthaya flooded

The main highway from Ayutthya to Bangkok cut off

The kitchen from the house we moved from last week

Moving Thai style.  I'm on the back of the pickup holding on to the furniture so that it doesn't fall off the back

Rain rain

At our middle's son's birthday party.  His party clothes didn't last all of 1 minute

It has been raining most days for a few months now. It is definitely the rainy season. Fortunately it doesn’t rain all day. Mostly the rain comes in the late afternoon. The playground near our house has been flooded for much deeper than in this picture. The rain means that it is not quite so hot which is nice.

Teaching Civil Servants

Last week I started teaching English to civil servants at the Sala Klang (สาลากลาง) Lampang. The topic for the evening was eating out”.

We had a lot of fun as we role played conversations at a restaurant. “Do you have a reservation?”

Bring out the creative side while interacting with God's word

How we help one another to grow in Christ

What radiates from God to us

In preparation for our Organic church meeting this week, we encouraged one another to express our creativity as we read through the book of Colossians during the week. These were two of the creative expressions from Lisa and Trish and it added more than just colour to God’s word. I’m so thankful to God for the ways in which he is helping us understand the riches of his word through community.

Hit and Run in Lampang

 Temporary fix it job

Yesterday I took our cat to the vet to have her leg x-rayed. My car was parked on the street when I heard what sounded like my car alarm. When I went outside it indeed was my car alarm. I turned off the alarm but the people on the street started telling me something and kept on showing me a piece of paper with a license plate number on it. I saw broken glass on the ground and piece of plastic but I couldn’t see how it involved me at all. When I picked up the piece of plastic I saw that it was a broken side door mirror. Then I noticed that my right side door mirror was bent forward at an odd angle. Then I realised what the commotion was about. Some car had swiped my right side door mirror and had driven off. I asked my neighbor what I should do. Then rang the car insurance agent. They wanted me go to the police and file a report and submit a claim on my 1st class insurance. It ruined the rest of my afternoon as I had to find the right police station and get all the documents together.

 Then this morning I had to find the insurance agent in Lampang before going to the garage. The insurance agent was a bit bemused when I refused to lie about what had happened to the front bumper of the car. My neighbour had advised that since I have 1st insurance I should get any other damage on the car fixed at the same time (I was going to lose my no claim bonus anyway). So I asked the agent whether it was legal to have the front bumper fixed too at the same time. He said “sure”. But then I said I didn’t know how the scratch go there in the first place. It probably happened when another missionary had borrowed our car on home assignment but I wasn’t sure. He wanted me to say that I had the car parked outside the house and someone swiped it. But I said that as I Christian I wouldn’t lie like that. He said that if I paid 1,000 baht I could claim this damage without stating what had happened, but why would I want to do that? Why lose money when I didn’t have to (by lying). I said I’d just pay the 1,000 baht and he took it shaking his head.

 Unfortunately, the smash repairers are really busy and they won’t be able to fit my car in for at least another week. Then they rang and said that it might take up to 3 months for the side mirror to come from Japan! They said that they’d try to source it from somewhere else if they can. In the mean while I bought a 10 baht vanity mirror from Tesco to stick on the right side mirror. It is really hard to drive a car without your ride side mirror!

I could really do without this additional hassle ... but it could always be worse : )  At least my parents will be here with a car so that we won't be without a car for a week when it's being repaired.

The Princess is coming to Lampang

The Princess of Thailand is coming to Lampang on Friday. Above is the huge sign announcing her coming outside our son’s school. She will be opening one of the new building at our son’s school as well as visiting other places such as the School for the Blind. Our school is undergoing large changes to how it looks, with large banners purple and white draped everywhere. Parking at the school has become near impossible when dropping off and picking up our son. Fortunately I can zip in and out by motorbike. Today at the end of school we get a letter saying that the school is closed for the next 2 days in preparation for the Princess’ visit.

Thammasart University Lampang

 Playing Blokus

Perpetual Commotion or "Dutch Blitz"

For the last 3 days we have been at Thammasart University, Lampang Campus with the Dutch Team to teach English. Thanks to Judith and the other English lecturers for letting the team do activities at the university. I was able to bring some board games to the Self Access Learning Centre (SALC). SALC is used to encourage students to practice their English. We hope to be back there in the future sometime.

Visit to Orphanage

James 1:27
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

This week our team had an opportunity to visit a local orphanage in Lampang. The temple where our team members teach English on Sunday afternoons was being used for the national elections so we couldn’t teach there. So it was suggested to our team that we go visit the orphanage instead.

It’s hard to believe but I’ve never been to an orphanage before in my life. That really surprised me. Why haven’t I ever visited an orphanage? It’s not as if it’s hard to miss the Bible’s emphasis on caring for orphans (or the fatherless).

It was hard to imagine these beautiful children not having a mother or father. My heart went out to them. I’ll be looking to make more opportunities to visit this orphanage in the future and hopefully adding a little to their lives for the brief time we are there.

Christians and Taekwondo

I didn’t think anything at all about my children’s involved in Taekwondo until last week when someone said that I should look into from a Christian point of view to see if it was still o.k. for my children to be doing it.  This person had been involved in Karate and he had to repent of it because of aspects of Eastern mysticism in it.  Before this I didn’t even realise that a Christian’s involvement in martial arts was even a controversial issue.

I did a google search “Christian response to Taekwondo” and was able to get an idea of some of the issues.  There is an element of meditation in Taekwondo which could possibly be a problem.  It would depend on what the teachers are asking them to do when they meditating.  

There are Korean missionaries in Lampang teaching Taekwondo for what it’s worth.  So obviously they don’t see a problem in it.

Taekwondo seems to be the least problematic for Christians in terms of its links to Eastern mysticism.  From my very brief reading, I’m o.k with sending my children to Taekwondo, though I’ll be listening much more carefully next time they are asked to sit still and mediate.

Does any one have any thoughts?