Christy's World

2009-12-30T13:52:00.001+07:00

I like it.

2009-12-30T13:30:00.000+07:00

My favorite pics from the ocean in October.

2009-12-30T13:25:00.000+07:00

Happy Birthday little Rachel. It's a privlege to be your teacher this year.

2009-12-30T13:16:00.002+07:00

I may not have wierd friends, but they do have some wierd pets.

....but I'm not on the the couch. See, my feet are on the floor!

2008-11-30T13:28:00.001+07:00

I finally figured out how to change my wallpaper to something fun and how to add a playlist. It's a funny list of things I could think of that I liked at the moment. Enjoy!

2008-11-14T11:12:00.000+07:00

Out at the camp in September?

2008-11-14T11:09:00.000+07:00

My brother and me!

2008-11-14T10:48:00.007+07:00

Tim and me on his 50th birthday.

2008-10-29T09:36:00.002+07:00

2008-09-15T04:18:00.003+07:00

Monty, Jackie and the girls. Hailey, Natalie, and Rachel

Cara came and to photograpgh a wedding and took some pics of us too.

2008-09-15T03:48:00.002+07:00

I think it's high time I updated my blog. I feel like I've been gone from Thailand for a very long time. This is a picture of the front of my classroom. I have 16 students; eight boys and eight girls. It's a little overwhelming to say the least. I had nine girls and 7 boys, but one girl left and was replaced with a boy.

2008-07-07T00:56:00.004+07:00

Saturday I went with Tim and Jahnet to Khon Kaen. We spent the afternoon with a couple in the church, Kurt and Pbouy and then went down to the pool in their development where Tim baptized Pbuoy. We had a really nice time with them in their home Pbouy made Gwaytheow (thai noodle soup) for us and it was really good.

The view from my hotel room in Khon Kaen.

2008-07-04T01:04:00.003+07:00

I came out to my car to go to dinner this afternoon and was fascinated to see that a spider had built this beautiful web during the night and day. It was perfect and beautiful especially with the late afternoon sun rays shining through it. It was attached to the truck as well and I was sad to have to leave and destroy all that hard work. It was so perfect. I mean I'd be willing to bet that it you were able to measure it somehow you'd find the spaces were all even.

2008-07-02T22:12:00.009+07:00

I gave Don my number 82 shirt cause I didn't want people reading me. He enjoys wearing it around the house.

My friend Raht and one of the best friends I've ever had. I'm so going to miss her.

Happy Birthday Lydia! Here with Fawng. This is Dragon fruit. It comes in pink and white and pink is the best, but then isn't everything better in pink?

Lydia loves brownies so I made some for her birthday. They're yummy!

2008-07-02T21:33:00.004+07:00

I was invited to dinner at the Luelai's. It's Lydia's 15th birthday and a special last dinner with them for me. Raht made many of my favorite dishes. We had Panang (a pork and eggplant coconut stew) another pork and cucumber stirfry and fried fish. It was all great and I got stuffed.

2008-07-01T17:48:00.006+07:00

Jahnet took Raht, Lydia, the girls, and me to NongKhai today so that I could do my last 90 day check-in. Then we went over to the river market and did bit of shopping. After that we went to KFC at the mall. It was a really nice, fun day.

We were using the timer on the camera, but it started to fall into the glass I had set it on and then it went off. Raht is trying to catch it here. I was funny.

2008-06-30T15:12:00.002+07:00

My class last night. I took one more shot at teaching them truth. I split them into teams and asked questions. I asked team 1. "How many ways are there to get to heaven?" They all lifted two fingers and shouted, "Two!" Hmmm! One girl on team 2 said there's only one way. So then I say, "How do we know?" They answer, "You can read it in the Bible." I ask, "Where?" The answer is John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." They can quote it and I'm sure God will use the little seed to work in their lives when He's ready.

2008-06-30T14:44:00.006+07:00

Lydia with their little dog Lucy. I published Lucy before when she was itsy bitsy. She's not a lot bigger now and she's a sweety. Lydia will be 15 in a couple of days.

Lydia, Raht and Don

I went over to Don's church for one last service and took this picture. From left to right is Don, Em, Chian, Coke, Lek, Yoke, Thok, Lydia, Fawng. These kids have been coming a long time and I'm glad to see they are all still coming. They gave me some nice good-bye cards. I gave Raht a whole stack of cards left from what Jessi gave me when she left and two of the cards I got from them were out of those, but the funny part is that two of them were cards for weddings. I was like Woo hoo! They didn't know they had chosen wedding cards though.

2008-06-28T01:15:00.005+07:00

Tonight Jahnet and I went to dinner at a place by the park with some of the teachers from the highschool; Noke, Mayuru, and Laaied. We had a nice time and great food! Laaied remembered that I like a certain kind of fish and ordered it special for me. It was a my "Going away dinner" and they gave me gifts too. It was sweet of them and I appreciate it.

2008-06-24T21:11:00.000+07:00

It's a grape.

2008-06-21T00:01:00.003+07:00

I went up to the high school today to give my farewell speech and then the students, teachers and director gave me gifts. These roses were among the gifts I received. I wasn't expecting them to do this, but it was so nice.

I sold my truck! Some people will buy anything. LOL!!! Just kidding. It didn't look like this.

2008-06-08T00:48:00.006+07:00

The other day when I came home the neighborhood cows were outside my walls and when I opened the gate to take the car in a couple of them decided to come in and enjoy my grass. I wouldn't mind if they promised not to leave behind what they usually leave behind. I decided to help them leave and picked up the lead rope on the brown cow and pulled. It didn't budge, so I had to get the broom and encourage them to leave that way. They left. But then that night when I came home again they were crowded in the road blocking my way to the gate. They just stood there and stared at me. It's like they were saying, "See how you like being kept out of the yard." Moo-ha-ha!

2008-06-08T00:33:00.001+07:00

Here's the other little girl.

2008-06-04T10:59:00.003+07:00

These two little girls are fairly new to the church, but have been coming for a while. Their hair is cut so short because they had gotten lice and had to have the hair cut off.

I have a teaching method that I like to use with the kids. I'll ask one child if God loves them and they usually answer yes. Then say to the next child, "He/She says God loves him/her. How do we know?" They will answer, "You can read it in the Bible." So I ask the next child where you can read it in the Bible and they are supposed to answer John 3:16. Then we can quote it together. This method works well especially since I've found out the Thai are great memorizers.

Sunday night I was asking these kinds of questions while they were coloring a coloring page, only I had changed it to asking them. "If you plant a banana plant will you get apples?" They answered no of course. It was fine until I came down to these two girls. I asked them, "If you plant a rose bush will it produce fish?" They answered, "Yes." I asked them how they know. They answered right off, "You can read it in the Bible." I asked them several times and got the same answer each time. I think they understand the method even if they don't understand the truth. It was cute and they are learning. Of course if you could read it in the Bible it would be true whether it made sense or not, but I think we'd better review the story of creation. The other pictire won't up load. I'll have to try later.

2008-05-28T19:37:00.005+07:00

One of my classes. I caught them off guard.

Looking down from up. This is the view from the third story of the school where I teach. Off in the distance you can see Foilom Mountain.

2008-05-25T13:28:00.002+07:00

I played beauty shop last night and put my hair in rollers. Sleeping on them was not fun, but I enjoyed the effect. I enjoyed it all the way out the door. Then the humidity did it's thing and it all went straight in no time. I forgave the humidity though because I like it so much. I took this picture of me to see how it looked. I have to look up when I take my own picture or my eyes close everytime.

2008-05-24T21:24:00.003+07:00

It rained all afternoon today, so I went to see how much water I had collected in the pots and got to see a pretty rainbow too. I like the rainy season.

2008-05-20T10:46:00.001+07:00

The water pots. I looked into them this morning and saw that they were full from last nights rain. I'll can use all of it in three weeks time.

Gotta love the weather in Thailand

2008-05-19T18:36:00.002+07:00

I don't know how you all feel about humidity, but in the past seven and one-half years, I've come to appreciate it and miss it each winter when it gets incredibly dry here. Today was an especially nice day because it's not only very, very humid, but it's cool too. That's the best of both worlds. We're in the real rainy season now too. Not only is the humidity back, but I'm able to collect the rain water in my big water pots. Haven't I heard that rain water is good for the hair? It's dark out right now, but I'll take a picture of the pots tomorrow and post it.

A few more of my rascals.

2008-05-18T20:20:00.008+07:00

Fouk Gopb Googk-Gai

OUR GANG - UBC

2008-05-16T14:09:00.005+07:00

Some of my "Little Rascals"

2008-05-13T21:53:00.002+07:00

I couldn't resist putting one more picture of little Joanna on here. I love this shot of her.

2008-05-13T21:36:00.003+07:00

This big critter came out to dine this evening above my front door. I had walked under him before I noticed. I'm glad he didn't leave before I could get my camera.

2008-05-06T10:10:00.003+07:00

Our Birthday picture. Tracey and Rodney and the boys are leaving for the States on the 26th of May. They won't be back until January. If I'm still here when Danny and Rachel return I'll be moving into their home until I do go home in December. Their house is right next to Jahnet's, so I'll have good neighbors. Another good thing is that the pool is one house away at the end of the street.

2008-05-04T13:46:00.002+07:00

Jessi's Joanna. Isn't she a cutie?!

2008-05-01T14:26:00.009+07:00

Tim got a surprise up there when he found this very active bee hive up on the roof of the carport!!! He soon decided it would be best not to disturb them and climbed down away from them.

This is just a few here, but he got lots of them.

Tim came over today to do something for me on the computer and then he decided to help us get the mangoes down from the trees.

2008-05-01T13:48:00.007+07:00

This is the sign they made for me.

I didn't feel that I looked great in this picture, but it's kind of funny. It was just after our swim and I'd gotten a shower, so my hair wasn't done. Tracey and I are all red faced from the sun we got while swimming. On my right is Kep. She's the Thai language tutor. She's speaks English far better than I speak Thai and she's a real sweety.

This is the brithday cake that Tracey made special for me yesterday. She was so sweet to do that for me.

2008-04-19T21:11:00.000+07:00

This is the kind I can eat. Some are sweet and some are a little sour.

2008-04-19T21:01:00.002+07:00

Mangoes are abundant this time of year too. I'm kind of allergic to them, but there in one kind that I can get away with eating. My mouth breaks out only a little. Man, they sure are yummy!

2008-04-17T22:29:00.003+07:00

This is one of my favorite trees in Thailand. It's not a pretty tree for most of the year, but in April it blooms out with the most beautiful yellow flowers. They come out quickly and hang there as though fairies went out in the night and carefully placed each of them like Christmas tree ornaments. They make me smile and feel light-hearted. I'll try to get a better picture soon. They just burst out in the last two days it seems.

2008-04-17T16:58:00.004+07:00

I went over to tutor Lydia today. I haven't been there in a while because activities on both ends kept getting in our way. She's really growing. At least her hair is really growing. She's filling out into beautiful womanhood. She'll be 15 on July 2nd. She was 6 1/2 when I first met her. That seems like forever ago. She seems to have a good attitude these days too, but I'm not around enough to tell for sure and that's OK too. I don't need to know.

2008-04-16T16:24:00.002+07:00

We've been memorizing Proverbs 31:10-31 in Thai for our Friday ladies Bible meetings. Neung (pictured here in the orange shirt) is the first to get it all word perfect. She did it fast too. I'm still struggling back on verses 23-26, but I'll get it eventually. It's kind of fun to be memorizing it in Thai and the Thai helps me remember it in English too. Neung got up in front of the church on Sunday evening and quoted it. Goong got up with her and quoted part and read part with her.

2008-04-08T16:23:00.007+07:00

Look at this picture my friend Jessi's husband took. It's beautiful and it's pink!

2008-03-15T15:58:00.002+07:00

Interpreting for Pastor Gary Hubble in our Friday night ladies Bible Study.

2008-03-14T22:27:00.013+07:00

I've been at this for a long time now and I'm tired, so I'll do some more another time.

Bop is our preacher boy. Bop and Op are friends and Sunday night Op got baptized.

These are six of the kids from the junior department that got saved last Sunday night. The twins Nit and Noi in the forefront and the boy Thay in the back in the yellow shirt have been coming a long time now. I was so happy that night. We had dinner together Wednesday. We had Spaghetti and eggrolls. Isn't that a likely combination of foods? Worked for us. With some of the little kids at church. Danny and Mr. Doug did a good job preaching and interpreting. I called it a "preaching duet". Mr. Doug sang the song he sang for his daughter's wedding. It was a sweet song, so he acted goofy, so we wouldn't all be in tears. He also sang Beulah land for me one more time. He has a beautiful voice. When he sings it's like music. After dinner Wednesday night Danny and Rodney and even Doug played guitar for us and we sang. I was in heaven listening to them play. It was so fun. From left to right are Danny for whom I work, Pastor Gary who is Tim's and Rodney's pastor from Maryland, then Mr. Doug who is a former missionary to Romania and is now the director of missions at Westwood Missionary Baptist church in Florida. Then next is Tim and then Rodney. I appreciate these men of God.

2008-03-03T19:33:00.003+07:00

When I got to the Sim's house today Tim was having devotions with the girls before he left to go to Chiang Mai for the week. I guess they wanted one more time with him. He usually has them with them before they go to sleep each night. In those times he's also helped them memorize scriptures including all of the Proverbs 31 woman. I saw they had given him their scarf, so I took the picture to be ornery. It's always sweet to watch how this awesome man loves and cares for each of the needs of his family. You'd never know he used to be a dead head drug addict who came from a broken home where his mother deserted his father, brother and him. You'd never know he didn't have a warm caring father. The work God has done in his life is incredible. Before he left for five days he made sure there was gas in the car, food in the house already prepared for them, and that the bills were paid or at least wouldn't need to be paid and left an envelope of money for them to meet their needs. He must have hugged them all a dozen times. Jahnet is an equally wonderful woman, but I'll go on about her another time. As you can tell I'm impressed with these people. Knowing their backgrounds also makes me impressed with what God can do with a life yielded to Him. Wow! I think this is the most I've ever written on my blog at once.

2008-02-29T00:55:00.003+07:00

Hannah

Ahleah

Tim and Jahnet

2008-02-17T22:34:00.003+07:00

We hung out after church for a bit this morning in Khon Kaen. This is Puey and her son and her mom is in the back ground. Puey is married to an American. He's there to, but I didn't get him in the picture. Puey's mom isn't saved yet.

I went to Khon Kaen with Tim and Jahnet and family for the weekend and we stayed here on the 10th floor. It's a very nice hotel and way less expensive than in America.

2008-02-07T23:14:00.000+07:00

Some of my kids at UBC! They're Thot, Moo, Mae, ?, Awm,Mai, Pat, and GookGai

2008-02-03T16:09:00.000+07:00

The first lady here is Kak. She's our literature translator. The rest are teens in the church. The first is Beer (said Beeah) then Nuung. The next one is new and I don't know her name. The last in Nan. Beeah is really sweet and is very faithful to services. Nuung is quiet and she and Beeah help to clean the church on Saturdays. Sitting behind them is a little sweety named Moo and her little friend Mai. Way in the back in the green shirt is Pben. Here's some of the people! Aren't they nice looking?

Here the rest of the church. There are four or five classrooms. Isn't it pretty. Danny did a good job planning it and getting it done. He's an amazing man! Here's the Church! But no steeple. :-)

2008-01-30T15:09:00.000+07:00

This is Lydia with her new puppy. It's more like a real dog. She got it free from a temple where it had been abandoned. It's name is Mai meaning "New". Don named it and named his dog Lucy.

2008-01-29T19:25:00.000+07:00

This is Don's new dog. Dog? It's not stuffed Cara. They actually call it a dog and it's over two months old.

2008-01-16T15:02:00.000+07:00

There it is. I don't know what it's called, but I made it myself and it's good. It has cucumbers, little dry red onions, cilantro, lime juice, ground roasted rice, a tiny bit of sugar, salt and fish sauce. It's supposed to be eaten with sticky rice, but I don't eat sticky rice much because it lives up to it's name and sticks to me. I did eat it with a bowl of nice, brown rice. Mmmm! Aren't you all jealous? I didn't get to put any nam-palah in it because I also don't keep that in my house.

2008-01-10T17:46:00.000+07:00

This is the lady I teach English with at the highschool. Her name is Laaied Chuakaew.

2008-01-02T19:04:00.000+07:00

Last one. The stairs leading up to the living quarters. Someday I'll post those too.

2008-01-02T18:57:00.000+07:00

This is where I sit to email. And the dining room. The table is usually the other way, but they said I could rearrange as necessary. The nice washer/dryer are there in the back. :)

2008-01-02T18:52:00.000+07:00

Another part. Someone in Chiang Mai drew the picture on the wall from a photo.

2008-01-02T18:44:00.000+07:00

This is the kitchen I have the privilege to use until August. It's nice nice.

2008-01-01T15:04:00.000+07:00

This is Raht's big brother Gome and his wife and daughter Gooay.

2007-12-20T10:39:00.000+07:00

These are my new friends and the newest missionaries on the block. They are the Burdettes: Rodney, Tracey, Joshua, Steven, Timothy, and Daniel. They're sweet people.
This one came out too small. OOPS!

2007-12-12T14:46:00.000+07:00

We let the kids play in innertubes in the an inlet of the sea. How is that for fun December water sports?

Here I am again. That sun sure was bright! Look at all the poinsettias. They're abundant here and inexpensive.

2007-12-10T20:33:00.001+07:00

This was our lunch.

Don and Raht at the dam.

Raht and I had fun taking pictures. She's so beautiful.

It was hot at the dam, but we had a good time. Isn't the water pretty? The water was here, but they built this dam and barrier to keep the water from going anywhere.

This is us at the Ubonerat Dam. Seated left to right is Raht, Fawng, Yoke, Thery,Thok,Lydia, me. Coke is squatting down in front.

2007-11-22T20:38:00.000+07:00

Have you ever seen such cute Thai kids? I'm going to use this one in my next video presentation.

2007-11-13T15:22:00.000+07:00

Raht and I planted a banana plant in the Sims yard nearly a year ago and they finally got bananas.

2007-11-13T15:17:00.000+07:00

My friends the Sims family: Jahnet, Tim, Ahleah and Hannah.

2007-11-13T15:12:00.000+07:00

And with her Dad.

2007-11-13T14:56:00.000+07:00

This is pastor Don and Coke's grandfather. I'm going to try and use this in my video presentation for furlough.

2007-11-01T10:19:00.000+07:00

I've finally made it back to my blog. Downloading pictures will be a little difficult because my computer is very very slow. But I'll find a way.

I'm settled back in in this place and now I'm moving to the Jones' house across town. I'll send a picture when I can.

2007-09-10T12:10:00.000+07:00

I made it back to my parents home. The train left late because it needed to be repaired first. Then we had to wait at another station, so altogether we arrived 45 minutes late.

I'm SOOO tired now.

Highlights of My Trip

2007-09-09T09:56:00.000+07:00

I saw Orcas, Pike Place Market, I have blonde Highlights now and also a Blog!

Woohoo!