Happy 2013! or, if you are in Thailand, Happy 2556!

Yes, that is correct, we just rang in the year 2556 BE. Here is a brief history lesson on one of the many differences we experience on this side of the world. The Thai solar calendar was adopted by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) in AD 1888 as the Siamese version of the Gregorian calendar. It is the legal calendar in Thailand and years are now counted in the Buddhist Era. The Buddhist Era is reckoned to have an epochal year 0 from March 11^th 545 BC, based on the belief that it was the date of the death of Gautama Buddha. King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) changed year counting to this Buddhist Era in AD 1912, setting the start of the year as April 1^st (2455 BE). The Thais still continue to celebrate the Thai New Year in April. In September of 1940, with the imminent approach of World War II, Prime Minister Phibunsongkhram decreed January 1^st 1941 as the official start of the new year 2484 BE, with the result that 2483 BE was only nine months long. Since then, the Thai Buddhist Era (BE) equals that of the Christian Era (AD) plus 543 years. Interesting, huh?

I know not yet what this new year holds but I can tell you what I am anticipating and hoping for: the deepening of current relationships, the developing of new relationships, better language comprehension and ability, more opportunities to get involved in our community while gaining more knowledge of this culture, growing with my Father, and continued chances to shine His light in this dark place. This past year has been one of many lessons and new experiences and I know that this next year will be the same as I continue to work and live in this culture that is becoming more familiar to me as each month passes. Many of you have also experienced a year of many lessons (perhaps some more difficult than others) as well as new adventures and we can be confident that this next year holds many more. I have been asking our Father to give us steadfast and courageous hearts to follow where He leads, wherever that may be. 

Please enjoy some pictures of the last few months and our small Christmas celebration as well as a tiny glimpse into the Thai culture. This Christmas was a very different experience for me being the first away from home. It was a definite time of homesickness but thanks to Skype I was able to see my family during the holidays. Christmas is not widely celebrated here and as I went out on Christmas morning it felt just like any other day. People were working, all the banks and businesses were open and everyone was going about their day as usual. It was a strange and sad feeling. Christmas is usually a time of hope and celebration but here it was just an ordinary day with no knowledge of the great miracle that had transpired over 2,000 years ago. (Unfortunately, many Americans are not much different in their acknowledgement of the true reason we celebrate.)  I have come to love and cherish these relationships and it saddens me to know the darkness my friends are entrenched in. Their “hope” is based in constantly making merit and saying the right prayers in order to ensure a good life on earth as well as a decent afterlife. Please think about these dear people when their faces come to mind this coming year. May they learn about the true hope that is based not in what we can do but in what the Son already did on our behalf!

Much love and thoughts I send to you this new year!

Christmas - I had a very quiet Christmas due to the fact that it is not widely celebrated here. However, the neighborhood English school that April and I teach at hosted a Christmas party for the students and local neighborhood kids. There was lots of food, games, a gift exchange, and traditional Christmas music. The kids had fun dressing up and learning about some different Christmas traditions. Our fellowship put on a Christmas production the Sunday before Christmas. It is interesting to see how even the fellowships here have adopted many of the Western secular Christmas traditions. Christmas seems to be a novelty thing and most people don't know what to do with this holiday. Most of my friends say they don't celebrate it at all but they think it's fun to have the big Christmas trees decorated at the mall for picture taking opportunities. 

Advent chain with encouraging messages written on each link sent from family and friends

Our Australian friend who lives in the village let us borrow one of his Christmas trees. It made it feel more like home.

We baked lots of Christmas treats for our neighbors and friends. They love baked goods!

Village Christmas party with the neighborhood English school. This is the owner of the school and our dear friend Ly.

Pictionary. Some of these kids could really draw!

Many of the kids got special outfits for the event

You can tell how much fun the kids are having

Giant gift exchange. I passed out pair words (i.e. salt and pepper) and the kids had to find the person with their match.

This little kid could barely carry his gift but he was so excited

Opening gifts

The students and teachers

Santa even made a surprise visit and passed out candy and school supplies to the kids

Santa Claus in Thailand - He travels a little differently in this part of the world :)

Our fellowship invited a local orphanage that we partner with to come for the Christmas program

Our dear friends Golf and Lily from our fellowship. They have been a huge answer!

The King's Birthday - On December 5th we celebrated the king's birthday, which is also Father's Day. This is a national holiday and is celebrated nationwide with great enthusiasm. Thailand's king is now the longest serving monarch in the world and holds a special place in the hearts of Thai people. Our neighborhood hosted a party to celebrate this day. In the morning some local monks came to bless the people and our neighbors prayed for their ancestors. This merit-making ceremony was followed with a delicious and extensive buffet lunch. In the evening everyone met at the front of the village for a candle lighting ceremony in honor of the king. We sang the king's song in front of the giant portrait of him mounted at the front of our village. In Thailand, each day of the week is associated with a particular color. The day of the week on which a person is born is very important in Thai culture and the color associated with that day is considered their lucky color. The king was born on a Monday so often on Mondays and especially on the king's birthday, you will see Thai people wearing yellow in support of their king.

Lighting incense, saying a prayer, and offering food to the spirits at the village spirit house

Sitting with my friends Pim, Mei, and Gop while they collect money to give to the monks (part of merit making)

It was so nice to have our language helpers explain the different events happening throughout the day

The monks chanting a prayer in Pāli (the language of Theravada Buddhism) despite the fact that most Thais know very little of this ancient language

Our neighbors sitting in the reverent wai position listening to the monks' chanting

9 monks were invited to the ceremony as the lucky #9 is believed to bring the most good fortune

The families in the village offering food and other basic items (monks live off of donations)

Not exactly sure what is taking place but it has something to do with praying for the ancestors

Receiving a blessing from the monks

Attending events like this give us greater insight into the religion and beliefs that affect their daily lives

Little Sara, our language helpers' niece. She LOVES getting her picture taken.

There was a 'lucky drawing' and April and I were called up to help give away prizes so we could "show-off" our Thai

Getting ready for the candle-lighting ceremony for the king

This is Sara's brother Shogun with his special candles

The king (Rama IX)

Singing the king's song

 

Thais have great respect for their king and by joining our neighbors to sing we really opened up some doors with them

 Loi Krathong - This is an annual Thai festival that takes place on the evening of the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. Loi means 'to float' and krathong refers to the lotus-shaped decorative float. These little rafts are traditionally made out of the trunk of a banana tree and decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, incense, and a candle. On the evening of the full moon, Thais launch their krathong on a river, canal, or pond. This festival is traditionally celebrated to pay respect to the water spirits for watering their crops and to say sorry for polluting the waterways. Sometimes a coin is placed on the raft as an offering to the river spirits. Some people in the past placed hair or nail clippings on the raft to symbolize the letting go of their negative thoughts, hatred, or anger of the past year. In today's culture it is mostly celebrated as a fun holiday with not much emphasis on the spiritual tradition of the festival. In fact, much of the younger generation don't even know the history of the festival. To them, it is just something fun to do with friends or family and it doesn't hold any spiritual significance.

Some of our neighbors wanted to show us how they make a krathong. This is Pi Wind.

Cutting the banana stalk to make the base of the krathong

Next, you tear pieces of banana leaves into long strips

Pi Wind is trying to teach us how they fold the strips to make the decorative petals...it is harder than it looks!

Then you fasten the petals to the base using either wood skewers or now they use straight pins

You can also buy ready-made krathongs (like this one) at the market or little sidewalk stands

Sara is modeling her traditional Thai dress. Kids wear traditional dress to school on special days.

After all of the banana leaf petals are attached, you decorate the krathong with flowers, add some incense and a candle

The finished krathongs - Left to right: April, me, Mei and Pim's mom, Pim, Mei, and Pi Wind

Taking a boat to another part of the river to watch people float their krathongs

People were lowering the krathongs into the river via baskets attached to bamboo poles

It looked difficult lowering this massive pole into the water without dropping the krathong upside-down

There were thousands of people at the river; both young and old

There were literally thousands of krathongs floating in the water

Thanksgiving - Of course this holiday is not celebrated here but my co-workers and I took the opportunity to gather together and share a taste of home. We found enough ingredients to make all of the traditional fixins' (thanks to some great packages sent from family and friends)! One of our teammates even downloaded an NFL game to watch. I'm thankful to have such a great team here with me. Please keep them in your thoughts as well.

Awesome care package sent from family and friends to make it feel more like the holidays

Thanks to friends back home we had a very festive Thanksgiving table

Waiting for the pork roast to finish cooking...they don't eat turkey here

Super excited to eat some traditional American food

Delicious!!!

The guys

The girls

The kids

Fellowship Camp - In the beginning of November, April and I got the chance to go with our fellowship on a weekend retreat. One thing is for sure: Thais love to have fun! Neither April nor I knew what was going on much of the time as everything was in Thai, but there was a lot of singing, dancing, and laughing intermixed with the teaching. I've never been to a retreat quite like this one. We had a great time getting to know our Thai brothers and sisters better.

Our good friends Op and Thumb (Op is an optometrist, hence her nickname, and Thumb is a doctor)

Friends!  Left to Right - Back Row: Chin, Pak, Fong, April, me, Goi, Lily, and Golf.    Front: Boom, Tuk, and Angel

There was a variety show and this group sang a famous Thai song with a choreographed dance. It was hilarious!

My friend Ben. She is super sweet and always patient with my slow Thai speech.

Have I mentioned that Thais like to pose in their photos? :-)

Cookouts & Sushi - Almost everything in Thailand revolves around food. There is literally food everywhere you go. There are tons of restaurants, street kitchens, food vendors, and little snack shops at every turn. We even have food trucks, fruit carts, and fresh soy milk trolleys drive through our neighborhood at different times during the day so that you can get food without even leaving your street. I have never seen so much food in all my life! Thais pride themselves in their food. I really can't blame them...it's delicious! A couple of months ago we were invited to our neighbors for a cookout/BBQ. All of the ingredients and even the grill was delivered to their house for the evening. The next day the company just picked up the grills and we didn't even have to clean them! Ingenious!

Pi Wind preparing the charcoal in the grill

Adding soup (broth) around the edge and pork fat to grease the top

Putting all different kinds of meat (chicken, pork, shrimp, squid, crab) on the grill and lots of veggies in the soup

A few surrounding neighbors were invited to join in the cookout

I have gotten used to sitting on the floor a lot more as we tend to do this often for different events

Mmm...the grilled seafood was so good! Shogun has a squid sticking our of his mouth (that was his favorite).

Dessert usually consists of fresh fruit and bite-sized steamed gelatin type desserts

Some of our other favorite food - fried fish

Steamed fish with lime, garlic, and chilies

Oyster omelets served with onions, greens, chilies, and fish sauce

We went out for some sushi to celebrate our friend Ly's birthday. This was her favorite because it was wrapped with eel.

Can't forget the birthday cake!

Pig head stew anyone? This was at a little street kitchen we ate at.

Me Tarzan, You Jane - Back in October we got to take a break from our work and studies and get out of the city for a long weekend with some co-workers. We drove 3 hours away for a trek in the jungle. It was so refreshing to breathe in fresh, unpolluted air! We hired a guide to take us deep into the bush and I am so glad we did. He showed us some of the hidden treasures of Thailand that we would have never been able to find on our own. The scenery was gorgeous and we saw some amazing wild animals. It was a much needed respite from the concrete jungle of Bangkok.

Temple at the entrance of the national park we visited. Cars would honk when they passed.

Offering up prayers before entering the national park

Almost every Thai person stopped to light incense before entering or as they were leaving the park

It's difficult to see it but way up in the tree is a Great Hornbill. Our guide had binoculars so we could see it pretty well. It was huge!

Beautiful nature!

Finally, some green scenery!

We were trying to spot wild animals. In this part of the country there are wild elephants, monkeys, tigers, boars, and more.

Some of these rules were pretty easy to figure out but others were a little more difficult to decipher

I wasn't too excited about this sign

Scenic view of the mountains

Enjoying the fresh air

There were literally monkeys everywhere. Some even tried to steal our oranges.

These monkeys were not shy in the least

I was searching all day in hopes of seeing an elephant. According to our guide, it is very unusual to see one in the wild.

Here is our guide trying to build a make-shift bridge so we wouldn't get our feet soaking wet

Me and my co-workers sporting our cool leech socks

This tree was amazing. We saw a lot of massive and very old trees hidden deep in the jungle.

It wasn't until after I climbed out of this tree that I thought about what else could have been in there with me

The name for this leaf is translated as 'elephant ear'

There were lots of really cool bugs and creatures scurrying all around

This guy has great camouflage. We also saw a huge monitor lizard but it was too dark to take a picture.

A family of deer walked right past us near the river

It was nice a cool down by the waterfall...probably the coolest I have been since arriving in Thailand

This scorpion was a funny blue color.  I discovered it by almost stepping on it.

To my right there is a little shrine with different offerings laid on it

This is the largest waterfall in the national park

Hitchin' a ride through the jungle

Us with our awesome guide who directed us safely through the jungle

Porcupine!

Yes, we did see elephants! As we were making our way out of the jungle we finally saw what we had been searching for. There was a little herd of elephants with two small babies. Our guide said that we were very lucky because even he has only seen this many of them so close very few times. It was incredible and a little scary to be so near to these huge wild animals. It was really dark so this is the best picture we got.