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Sorry for not getting to this post sooner, but wanted to leave a short update to say that I’ve made it to the US. I had a long, but pleasant trip back to the US (36 hours with layovers this time). My sister had flown to Florida to surprise me and was at the airport when I arrived. She was hanging out across from me at the baggage claim belt while I was waiting for my luggage. Jamie and Preston came down the next day. He’s had a bad cold and we’ve been exhausted, but we’re excited to be here and have enjoyed being with family. Today we visited Sonrise Community Church in New Port Richey and were blessed by their hospitality and generosity, and for receiving us so openly (plus I was given several books off my amazon wish list!). We are trying to find the right balance of slowing down and getting the rest that we need, but also being proactive with our time to connect with folks and share about the work in Asia. Preston is doing well and hopefully we’ll get some new pictures up here soon. Time for him to go to bed, which means I need to finish this and get out of this room.

As I type this Tim should be 2 1/2 hours into his 6 hour flight to Tokyo and then has a couple hour layover before boarding his 13 hour flight from Tokyo to Detroit. He should arrive at 6pm in Tampa tomorrow and then Preston and I arrive in Tampa on Wed around 3pm. It has been nice to have a week to get over jet lag, but we have missed Tim. We have been getting over jet lag, and relaxing.

In Thailand Preston has a pretty normal routine and schedule, being here I have realized that I have to modify “normal” for us. Preston has adjusted to the time zone difference, but I can tell he is struggling in other areas where attitude is concerned.

Pray for Tim and safe travels and for Preston that he adjusts well.

My bowl runneth over and my lips burneth. Today Uncle Et made me a heaping bowl of my favorite food in Thailand, Khao Soi. I will miss lots about this place but his restaurant and Noy’s khao soi will be near the top of the list. It was so spicy today, too, which made it a great final meal. It feels surreal to think about leaving here. I’ve done my rounds through the neighborhood, visiting friends and saying good-byes. So right now I’m in that familiar stage of “hurry up and then wait.” I was up all night last night (literally), making a video about the Tai Dam and finishing some last minute projects. This morning I was in a packing frenzy, working hard to maximize the luggage allowance without going over. Now I’m pretty much ready to go and am just relaxing for a couple hours before beginning the very long trip home. I will spend tonight in the airport in Bangkok then take off at 5:00 a.m. tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing some of you soon.

How can you not love this country? Photo courtesy of Daron and Janet.

Since we’ve moved out of our house I’m shacked up at the guesthouse that is connected with our offices here. I’ve stumbled upon some hidden treasures in the bookshelves, like Bill Hybels’ Courageous Leadership and Eugene Peterson’s Run With The Horses. I read Courageous Leadership this week and enjoyed it, particularly the chapter on The Art of Self-Leadership. In it he gives a series of questions for leaders to ask regularly to gauge how one is doing at leading himself/herself. This comes after he points out that as a leader, your greatest leadership challenge is…YOU. I appreciate Hybels and his vision and leadership and can remember when I was a freshman in college and Tim DuBois had me read Hybels’ book Rediscovering Church, which helped me in understanding the value of the local church and what Tim was so passionate about in student ministry. So here are the questions. It’s been helpful to reflect on these throughout the day and to do some journaling in response, especially at this crucial time of finishing up this term and leaving for the US in a few days.

Is my calling sure?
Is my vision clear?
Is my passion hot?
Am I developing my gifts?
Is my character submitted to Christ?
Is my pride subdued?
Am I overcoming fear?
Are interior issues undermining my leadership?
Is my pace sustainable?
Is my love for God and people increasing?

We had a great time at our field conference last week and felt that it was an excellent way to close out this first term in Asia. Today Jamie and Preston started the long journey back to the U.S. and they are probably almost to Taipei by now. Pray that their flights go well and that Preston can handle it all well. He’s had a lot of transition in recent weeks…and has lots more to come. I can’t wait to meet up with them on U.S. soil next week.

How do people move when they have been in one place for decades, or when they have a large family? We’ve been at it all week and are 99% done (and 100% exhausted). We’re out of the house and stayed in a hotel the last two nights. Notice the use of the word stayed instead of slept. Preston hasn’t slept well and that means I have slept poorly and Jamie hasn’t slept much at all. Our conference starts tomorrow and Jamie and Preston will be on their way to the US a week from today.

A recap of recent weeks:
My trip to China went well and thankfully nobody on the plane had a fever. Before we were allowed off the plane on our way there officials boarded the plane and checked everyone’s temperature. It would have really messed up the packing plans if I had been quarantined for two weeks.

(battery is dying - I’ll come back to this)

It seems odd to blog about the trip to Vietnam now, as it feels like it was so long ago. Good thing Jamie gave an update from the trip with lots of pictures. I’ll skip ahead to the Lawa trip. Two weeks after Vietnam I was away to a Lawa village here in Thailand, where we were gathering linguistic data for a field methods course I was taking. The key word there is was because I’m now finished with it, which is probably also why I was able to come back to the blog after so long. We had a good time in the village but had to come home and bury our heads in the data in order to write a description of their grammar, among other things. It was fun to interact with the people in their own language and to see the shock on the faces of some of the villagers when they heard a foreigner who could speak a little bit of their language.

Also on the trip some good relationships were built and our group was able to share some Bible stories with some of our language consultants. In one little experiment we told a Bible story to a guy who spoke English really well. He drew pictures to help him learn the story and then he retold it in Northern Thai. After that he taught the story to a group of Lawa hearers and with the help of the pictures (and after some discussion about the meaning of certain words and helping them understand the story) they were able to re-retell it in Lawa. There would be a lot more that would go into this if it were going to be used for outreach in the village, but it was exciting to see the story make it beyond language barriers so quickly.

Tomorrow morning I’m heading to China for a week. When I get back next Sunday we will have less than a week to move out of our house. Please pray for the stress levels during these next few weeks as we get ready to close out this chapter of our life.

I am sure Tim will have lots to say on this topic so for now I just wanted to post some pictures of our trip and give a few generic thoughts. Because of security risks we can’t share too much over the internet about our trip.

Our flight into Hanoi was late, and I wasn’t sure how Preston would sleep, but he was great. As soon as the lights got dim he cuddled in my arms and fell asleep.

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We finally arrived in Hanoi and were so excited to see and experience this new country that our family will be moving to when we return from the states.

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After multiple meetings in the city, we got on a very overcrowded bus (overcrowded is an understatement) and took the 7 hour journey to a village. This village is the heart of our target people.

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above is a picture of where we stopped for lunch halfway through our journey, and below is a pic of Preston and I in our seat for 7 hours. Note that my knees are up, b/c there was no floor to put them on. It was an adventure to say the least. Preston did amazing for the entire journey.

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We arrived and got settled in, but it wasn’t long before we headed out to interact with the local people. Below are pictures of the sights we saw.

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Preston melted the hearts of everyone we came in contact with.

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I was so glad that I was able to see all of this for myself. Up until then I only heard stories from Tim.

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The family photo taken in front of the Viet Nam flag. I thouht it would be nice for the scrapbook.

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In the village there is a museum for the local tribes in the area. Below is a picture of us in front of what a traditional Thai Dam grave site would look like. The house is a replica of what they hope to live in during there afterlife.

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Behind the museum is an old prison. It is where the French kept many Vietnamese prisoners. The prisoners are considered local heroes and after France left Viet Nam many of them became the political leaders.

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We are standing in the area of a traditional cell, that had many people in them.

A highlight for both Tim and I was when we got to go see the Tai Dam village up close. We got to go inside a home of a ‘family’ member. The site was beautiful tucked away in the mountains.

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For now that is it. If you want to see more pictures of Preston while in Viet Nam you can visit his site at www.thegocenter.com/preston

People often ask us how they can help us or our ministry. Here is a way to tangibly help out and bless us. It is possible to transfer flight miles into our account to help out with the cost of plane tickets. By donating your miles you could help out tremendously with flights from here to the USA or for our domestic travel when we are back on our Home Assignment this year. If you would like to contribute NWA worldperks or Delta skymiles, then please read below. Email us if you would like to participate and we can give you our worldperks number.

Thank you for considering.
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