Motorbike Finance

Our house helper’s old motorbike was breaking down and the costs of repairs was becoming prohibitive. She mentioned that she was thinking about buying a new bike in passing. By God’s grace one of the short-termers who had come to Lampang had recently been in contact asking whether they could send a financial gift over to our house helper and her husband who pastors a church in a neighbouring town which is relatively poor. So with this gift she was able to put a deposit down for just under half the cost of the bike. The rest she entered into a finance agreement to pay off the bike over the next 24 months. She showed me schedule of monthly payments. It was more than a third of her monthly salary. Although she has put a deposit for almost half the cost of the bike, her repayments over the next 24 months means that she will pay the finance company more than the total cost of the bike. The interest rate she is being charged is almost 50%! Wow. One of the things we want to do is setup is a workshop dealing with debt and money issues (which can be huge issues for families in Thailand). We hope it will be helpful considering my financial planning background.

Summer School Time

"Don't run away"

"follow the leader ... back to the classroom" 

(our daughter 4th from the left with her friend Preme in front of her)

The long summer holidays have ended in Thailand and two of our children have started school with our daughter for the first time. She is coping pretty well. She doesn’t want to go to school some days but when she’s there she’s happy. She’s got the Thai “Wai” (respectful greeting) down pat (much faster than the boys) and tries to do follow what the teachers are doing when they do their morning sing and dance (it is a sight to watch. I can’t imagine Australia teachers doing it which is a pity.) It is summer school for her right now to help her adjust to school. When the actual school term starts she’ll be in her school uniform and joined by her brother. It’s a good school and with good teachers. We’re so glad that it opened up not long after we arrived in Lampang. It suits our two younger children as it’s less academic than many of the other schools and more focused on all round development. However, it only goes up to kindergarden 3 and when students from this school go up to year 1 in other schools, the schools don’t like it as they are not as good as other Thai students at their written work. We’ll only have our children at the school for another full school year (until end of Mar 2013) and then we’ll homeschool them to get them ready for Australian schools in 2014.

Holiday Fun in Australia

Normally a term in Thailand is 4 years after which we have 1 year back in Australia. 4 years is a long time for grandparents to see their grandkids who are growing so quickly (they are 7, 5 and 3 years old). So we had a short trip back to Australia as part of our holidays, with the main aim of the grandparents getting time with their grandkids. I didn’t except the jet lag to be such a problem being a time difference of only 4 hours, but it took me a good 2-3 days to get my energy back and ready to tackle things. One of the things the boys loved doing last home assignment was fishing (probably due to their dad) and they were keen for more. Fortunately the fishing in Nelson Bay was terrific and there were plenty of small fish to catch to keep the boys interested. They still have a long way to go though in not succumbing to the urge to reel the line in at the first bite. One of the highlights was our son catching a puffer fish which blew up to the size of soccer/football. (For the fishermen: 1 very nice trevally in the harbour at Nelson’s Bay, a bag full of bream at Little Beach off the wharf 26-31cm)

Cousins who've had enough of photos

Apologies for not blogging for ages.  Hard to keep up with all the different forms of social media.  Will make a renewed effort to blog once a week if possible.

We are at the end of our short-holiday in Australia.  Tomorrow we are back in Thailand.  The main goal of this holiday was for grandparents to spend time with their grandkids.  4 years is a long time for them not to see thier grandkids especially when they are so young.  We had time with my family in Kiama and with my wife's family in Nelsons Bay.  Both holidays I had a chance to get into some fishing.  In Kiama I went on a charter which was rougher than I would have liked.  I couldn't find a chemist open on Sunday evening in Kiama to get sea sickness mecidine and I didn't want to drive 15minutes to Albion Park just for that.  I should have made the trip.  Not nice throwing up and feeling sea sick for 6 hours.  I did better than a mother and her 2 kids.  They spent all of 15minutes fishing and after that they were lying on their backs for the rest of trip.

It's good to be back in Australia but I'm looking forward to being back home (in Thailand).  We do get sick of packing and unpacking and living out of suitcases.

Hopefully the flight back will be better than the flight here.  Infront of us was a toddler who was very loud with parents who did little to keep him quiet so that we could sleep.  A couple of hours you can bear, but almost 8 hours later ...

Back to packing and seeing if we can pack everything into 4 suitcases.

New Short-term Workers

Fedora (L), Hannah (R)

We welcome our two new short-term volunteers, Fedora (from Singapore) and Hannah (from the US). We are so thankful that they could take time out of their lives to come and help. We certainly could do with their help with our team shortly reducing from 8 full-time workers to just our family from next month. We pray that will have a blessed time here in Lampang.

Playgroup

Every Thursday morning at The Lighthouse, Lisa runs a playgroup for children aged 1-3 years old and their mothers. Our daughter participates too as she’s 3. Lisa puts out toys to play with, they have storytime, a song and a craft.

 Playing with Playdoh

 Dress ups

 Storytime

 The theme for this week was GREEN

Term 2 at Kids Club 2011

Since the start of the new term at Kids Club at The Lighthouse, we’ve had to restrict the number of children to a maximum of 35 kids and start a waiting list as the number of people in our team has decreased.  Kids Club also moved from a smaller room (which now is the English teaching room) to this larger room.  In January there will be more changes as I start helping with Kids Club and Peter takes over my Saturday English class for January and February until an English teacher from Singapore arrives in late February.  It’s great to have so many kids but it looks like we those on the waiting list will have to wait until at least February to get in.

Baptisms at Mae Moh Church

 The Mae Moh Church at the Baptism Ceremony of 8 new Christians

Two weeks ago we had the blessing of witnessing the Baptism ceremony of 8 members of the Mae Moh Church. “Baptism” is the Christian ceremony proclaiming publicly that you have new life in Jesus Christ and that he has washed you of your sins. We prayed for these 8 people that God would protect them and help them in their new life.

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