Introducing our son...

please pray for our health..

When leaving Thailand, Abby had been coughing a bit, and had a fever for a few days. So, our second day back we got her checked out at the doctor. She was suffering from a bad head/chest cold.. instructed to keep giving her paracetamol and encourage her to drink lots.
Well, now Luke and i have it too.. jet lag no longer awakes us at night, its coughing. We are on day 5 of feeling this way, and hope to come out of hibernation someday soon!
Please pray its short lived. Luke would ideally like to begin looking for work, and we are still praying for accommodation. We trust God has it in HIS hands, so will keep this blog up-dated as news comes our way.
Thanks again.

Our last 18 hours in Thailand...

So one thing we hadn't mentioned before is that our airline (Etihad Airways) asks that when flying after 28 weeks pregnant, we provide letter from a doctor to say Sarah was 'fit to fly'.

 We had gone to the local hospital in Pattaya the week before departure to get a check-up from a doctor. After explaining our situation and telling her what we needed, she told us that she could not legally write such a letter after 28 weeks. No matter our protest, she wouldn't be swayed. We left the hospital worried, but by God's grace we met an American woman an hour or so later who said she flew at 31 weeks with no problem. We hoped for the same...

On Thursday morning we arrived at the airport around 5am. We checked in our bags and were about to be handed our boarding passes and passports when the lady peered down and noticed Sarah's now pertruding bump! "Oh, I see you're pregnant". She then asked how far along she was and went on to explain the airline's policy on flying after 28 weeks.

We explained the whole situation, telling her the due date and that we had no letter.  She then went and spoke to her supervisor...

(At this point Sarah was trying her best to suck in her belly to look the least pregnant she could... lets just say its not exactly do-able! :)

When the lady came back from her supervisor, she said that Sarah would not be able to fly until she did get a letter approving it. Luke saw the look of complete panic in Sarah's face and began re-telling the story and asked to talk to the supervisor. At this point Sarah let Luke do the talking.. She thinks she would have just begged through tears!

The supervisor asked to see any documentation proving the due date. Thankfully we had bought that with us! He then took a photocopy of the form and even though all it said was who the midwife was, the address of the health centre, and the due date, somehow this made everything okay! He handed us our passports and told us to have a safe flight!! WOW, talk about a trial! Sarah began breathing again, and actually had aching stomach muscles from sucking in so long ;)

Well, we made it on both flights, and after 20 hours of travelling, we were greeted at Heathrow airport by six lovely familiar faces :). thanks 'Woods'!

Our last night in Pattaya

  Well, we are back in England, safe and sound. Praise God! So... we thought we'd write about our crazy last night in Pattaya. It seems like months ago already!

    Tuesday, February 22^nd, we began the morning slowly getting packed (leaving Pattaya Wednesday morning), when we had an unexpected visit from the landlady. She said how she was going out of town the following day and wanted the next month’s rent that day. We hadn’t yet discussed Jade and Nathanael’s plans for after we left. Jade was sick with bronchitis and their family was at the hospital most of the afternoon, so we asked her to come back later.

  That evening we had the Thai team over and all ate pizza together. It was a sweet time of fellowship and we felt so blessed to have grown so close with them all, even through language barriers. Jade and Nathanael returned an hour or so after everyone else, and we finally got to chat to them about their plans. They felt right to negotiate a price to stay in the house until March 8^th, when they fly out, instead of paying for an entire month and had Ying's mom call to do so. The landlady said she would be over to talk about it.

                                          

  Ying could tell right away by her body language that she was up to something. Ying was right. She didn't just want next month’s rent (10,000 baht ($333))...  she wanted 15,000 baht just to finish the month and 5,000 baht for just one more night if we decided to move out the next day. Ying, seeing she was trying to take advantage of us, said we shouldn't stay another night. “Alright, we're moving out tonight...”

We began frantically cleaning and organizing. The house was very empty when we had moved in, so after a month we had collected quite a few "things" (bedding, towels, kitchen utensils, food, cleaning supplies, etc) and at that point had very little time to "uncollect" them. Everything we purchased was to be donated to the team when we left, but some things would still be needed by Jade and Nathanael. What they could live without went home with Zhongy, Bey and Lek, and Ying and her mom. Everything else got loaded onto a song taew (pickup truck) and dropped off at the newly remodeled “Welcome Center” for further sorting. We booked rooms back at 'Eves Place', which is where we spent our first week in Pattaya, and brought our bags there. It was about 11pm when we said our final goodbyes to our Thai friends.

 It was sad that our last night was spent that way, but we were thankful not to leave Jade and Nathanael to deal with that on their own.

The next morning we said our goodbyes to the Muller's (with surprise visits from Zhongy, and then Bey and Lek at the bus station) and caught a bus to Bangkok, which is where our flight departed from.


We miss our dear friends in Thailand.  We continue to pray for them and will hopefully be with them again!

our last few days..

Well time sure is flying on by.. we'll be leaving Thailand on thursday this week! The heat is rising here by the day, so we are looking forward to some cold weather for a while.. (we'll see how long that lasts!!)

Last week we had to get a 7 day visa extension for the rest of our time here. It cost yet again more money than expected. We have learnt that if ever coming back to Thailand, we'd get visas ahead of time even though we were recommended to wait and do that whilst here..! Research pays off- proven again.

On sunday Luke preached at the church. This was his first time preaching to a congregation, yet hearing him it would be hard to believe. He did so well and grew from the experience. It was also our last sunday with the fellowship there, we were prayed for and yet again touched by their love and kindness shown towards us.

Please pray for the Thai team here, many are struggling with sickness right now. Also our friends here with us.. Jade needs to get a tooth extracted, and has been having symptoms of Bronchitis. Nathanael has also felt unwell, and Eleora is fighting a cough/cold. Luke and i are doing good, although Abigail has had a fever and low energy the last couple of days.

We plan to leave Pattaya on wednesday morning by bus to Bangkok, and will stay one night there ready to fly out early thursday morning.

We have been so blessed by our time here, and hope that our time in England will bring refreshment. There is a lot to process and think about regarding our future. Please pray for clarity in our minds and wisdom as we make decisions.

Thanks again for all those who have been reading, praying and following our journey.. we will try to keep up with the blog through the next few weeks as we share more stories and testimonies of our time in Pattaya.

up-date on valentines day outreach..

As written earlier, last monday we (jade, i and abigail) met with Ying- (our Thai friend and coordinator for a lot of what goes on within the organisation) met and collected the 100 red roses from a local florist.

Ying with the roses 

sweetness poking through the valentine arrangement :)

off to hand out the roses.. great posing from the team :)

 We met up with people from another outreach team from the states and began preparing the roses. Ying made labels written in Thai of Jesus' love for the women. We also handed out invitations for a get together at Pi Lek's bar for the following night.

roses prepared

Abby sharing Jesus' love :)

We walked along one of the main beach strips in Pattaya, and found many women to hand the roses too. Abigail loved being apart of it, and of course every one she gave a rose to loved receiving from a cute little 'farong' (white) girl!

yummy home made spring rolls

Tuesday evening we met back at Pi Lek's bar, hoping that many women would come along who had recieved an invitation along with their rose. Lek had made her famous spring rolls, and some soup. We also brought some heart shaped cookies to share. Unfortunately not many women came, but we were thankful to be able to encourage Pi Lek, and for her to see the ministry she can have in the location of her bar.

Thank you to all those who were praying. I continue to have hope for the lives that were touched on the monday, knowing maybe women may had never received a rose or heard of Jesus' love before. Please pray for God to show more of HIS true love to these women.

Work Getting Done

Here's an update on the "Welcome Center".  We have already had some great results setting up education, training, and job finding resources.  One single mom who had lost her job stopped by inquiring about our ministry from reading the signage in front.  It's coming together with many cultural bridges having been crossed for these two American carpenters to build in Thailand...

Mixing Thinset

We plumbed a kitchen sink





Our helpful assistant

My other work truck

Office from back

Reception from front