Turning 2 & motorbike

It was our second son's 2nd birthday. We celebrated with just our family at the local pizza restaurant. Unfortunately he didn't get a big party like his brother. I think we were worn out by the last party. Next year...

Today I bought a motorbike. The main reason is that I can get almost 50km per litre of petrol on the motorbike and only 10km per litre in our car. With petrol prices being so high the motorbike will pay for itself before too long. Also, there are very few places to park in Lampang (and most of Thailand really), so having a motorbike can be quite convenient. I just hope I can get the bike registered as my work permit is for Bangkok and we are now in Lampang and that seems to be a problem. The only other time in my life I've riden a motorbike was on our honeymoon and then I went around a corner too fast and fell off with my newlywed sitting behind me (admittedly that was on a dirt track). Hopefully I'll avoid an accidents with this bike. So many missionaries have accidents on their motorbikes and I don't want to be included in those statistics.

No show

Unfortunately it was an empty classroom for the beginning of our Easy English classes yesterday (9:30am and 7:30pm classes). We have two other English classes scheduled for the weekend so we hope there will be students there for those classes. We have been handing out more flyers about The Lighthouse this week and we have had calls of interest for the babies and kids programs.

Learning about dogs

When we first received Phayu (our golden retriever) dogs started to turn up to our front gate we just thought they were curious and that they were just checking Phayu out (or was it that she was just a good looking girl). Day after day though these dogs would come and whimper away at our front gate wanting to get in. We were told that Phayu had not been fixed so we were careful not to let her out in the street. We didn't want to take any chances. There was no way we wanted puppies as well as a new baby in 2-3 months. Anyway, we left for Chiang Mai for a couple of days and when we returned we had the shock of our lives when we saw this big black Doberman? in our front yard sniffing away. I thought that our househelp might have left the gate open and the animal had sneaked in but then I saw it jump over our front fence and run away. The next day the same dog was in our yard trying to copulate with our Phayu! Then it hit us. Phayu was on heat! We had booked Phayu for an operation to get her "fixed" the following week so that she couldn't have any puppies but now it might be too late already. The vet when she found out Phayu was in heat wouldn't do the operation any more but we have to wait another two months. I'm learning about things I never new about here in Thailand.

4th birthday for our eldest son

Our eldest son had his 4th birthday this week. Unfortunately, Luca was quite sick and wasn't in a very good mood and this made it very difficult and embarrassing for us as he was rude to some of our neighbors bearing him gifts. We learnt from his 2nd birthday that when he's sick he doesn't blow out the candles (that time many members of our church and Lisa got quite sick - Lisa hospitalized). We were so thankful to have Rich's parents around to help with the birthday preparations. With two sick children (our youngest was sick as well) it was very difficult to prepare and then get through the party. Our neighours were very gracious about our son's behaviour and helpful when we didn't have enough chairs for everyone (we got some from our neighours). We were amazed that all the neighours we invited came (3 families) and one woman took home some tracts about Christianity.

The next day Luca was so sick we took him to the local private hospital. The paediatrician wanted to admit him into the hospital but we were booked into hotels in Chiang Mai with Rich's parents. The paediatrician ordered a chest x-ray and then prescribed a very strong antibiotic.

Both children are finally recovering but we got the shock of our lives when we came home and saw a big black dog (doberman?) in our front yard. More about this in our next blog update.

Go Golf

My neighbour, Lt Colonel Pratuang (centre), plays golf with his friends in the top photo every Mon, Wed and Friday at the break of dawn. I join them once a week and I enjoy it a lot (apart from getting up at 5am). This is the most golf I've played in my life and I must say my game is improving slowly. This morning I had two "pars" (over 9 holes - it is only a 9 hole course). Apart from being fun, I am speaking Thai and learning words which you wouldn't hear from respectable language helpers. Fortunately, as a member of the course the green fee is only about AU$2.30 (plus caddie fee of $2.30 and an unspoken rule of about $3 caddie tip). It was through one of my golfing grandfathers that we rented our current ministry centre.

Can anyone guess what day it is we are playing from the photo? Each day in Thailand has a special coloured shirt.

A new additional to the family

No, the baby has not come early! The new addition to the family is Phayu, our new golden retriever. She was given to us by some American missionaries leaving Lampang. At 20 months she is the youngest member of our family (not in dog years though). Luca has started her training process already trying to walk her around the house with the leash. I'm trying to potty train her to poo and wee in one part of the lawn, so far without much success.
Some have questioned why we would get a dog when we have such a dog problem on our street with barking dogs keeping us awake at night. Fight fire with fire I replied jokingly. Phayu has changed things already in 2 short days. The strange neighbour next door who we have not yet talked has started bringing dogs to meet Phayu (we hope not to impregnate her because she has not be sterilised) and tonight I caught her/him (we're not quite sure if our neighbour is a woman or a man) feeding Phayu something through holes in our gate. I have started having these fears that we'll come back from a trip to Chiang Mai and a couple of weeks later find out that she is pregnant!
Pity there are so many stray dogs in the streets that I don't feel comfortable taking her for walks in the street yet. Our neighbour warned us not to take her out because she's liable to get bitten by other dogs.
I've changed too. I've never had a dog before and I never thought I ever be a dog person but ... days before Phayu arrived I was waiting in anticipation and now I love playing with her. It is a steep learning curve though as we've been searching on the net about what to feed Golden Retrievers and how to care for them.

Ministry Centre

These are photos of our new ministry centre which we have started renting for 8,000 baht per month (about AU$270 per month). We found the house through one of elderly gentlemen I play golf with each week. His daughter owned this house and rented it to us at a relatively cheap price. The house is quite old and will cost quite a bit to repair but it is in a great location. We will run most of our outreach activities at this centre. Please pray that it will be used greatly by God. Notice on the centre column a shelf for the idols to sit. We will of course remove the idols but there is a spirit house in the courtyard.
But what to call our ministry centre? At our team meeting last week, we considered various options, The Pit Stop ("Pit" in Thai means wrong or error - so it has a double meaning - "stopping error" - I thought of this one), Hope House, the M Centre ("M" for ministry), The Centre, The Happy House, The Sun House, the Lighthouse and others. What name would you have chosen?

Spot the difference

There has been work going on for the last 10 days with lots of grinding noise. Now can you spot the differences?

Workmanship?

We recently installed a hotwater heater into our guest bathroom as Jenny, a short-term worker from Australia is coming out to help us next month. The electrician had to drill a hole through the wall to get electricity to the hotwater unit. I would have expected the electrician to patch up the wall after he had finished but he just left it like the photo below. I asked him what he was going to do about the wall and he told me that I could just patch it up. What did I expect? The same thing happened when the plumber came and install a new pipe into the kitchen sink. There is still a hole at the back of the house where the pipe comes in.

What's missing now?

We had been praying that someone would purchase the house next door to us which had been repossessed by the bank and vacant for over a year. Our prayers were answered and two weeks ago we saw work being done on the house. What we didn't expect is this. What's missing?

All the trees. Almost every single tree was cut down. Unfortunately I didn't have a 'before' picture but there were several huge trees in the front yard. All gone. Gone with it is the shade for our house and front yard.

We were pretty upset about it but what can we do?