This past month has been filled with quite a bit really.  In early February we spent a week at a marriage course put on by the OMF Medical Adviser for Thailand and her husband.  Sara and I have had our fair share of marriage evaluations, counseling, etc leading up us moving overseas, but it was nice to get away for a week and once again reflect on the things we do well and things we could do better–which is all the more important when we find ourselves living our lives so far removed from the support of family and friends back home.

The weekend following the marriage course we were once again off to another retreat.  This time it was a retreat for all first-term missionaries with OMF still in the language program.  At first we were less than looking forward to this retreat.  Sara hadn’t been feeling the best due to Baby Sarver and the idea of another several days away from our own bed didn’t make us too excited for this adventure.  And, as often happens during those times, we were pleasantly surprised.  It was a great weekend!  We got to catch up with old friends from Language School days and meet some of the new students that have come to the field since we left Lopburi many months ago.

Then that next weekend we were once again off to another Thai province.  OMF in Thailand runs two guesthouses primarily for missionaries serving around Asia.  We had been asked to help fill in at the guesthouse for 4 or 5 days so the couple that usually runs the holiday home could have a bit of holiday themselves.  We looked forward to seeing a new area of Thailand and being right next to the sea.  Sadly we didn’t have much free time to play around in the ocean as the guesthouse was completely filled!  But even then we were able to have a few minutes to take a walk on the sandy ocean-side and soak in the view so different than the concrete playground that is Bangkok.

A beautiful sunrise in Prajuab, Thailand

Finally we are back home here in Bangkok.  I’m still figuring out life having a pregnant wife…  Still figuring out how to navigate day-to-day problems such as broken water pipes, oil changes in the motorbike and being locked out of our own home…

But the key is just that…  We ARE figuring out… Thanks for your prayers!

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And, honestly, it’s been a really good change of pace.  You know, some days have just been language learning in the past year… even some entire weeks.  But it’s nice now to have other things on the to-do list.

I’m in the middle of said to-do list now with much more to finish up before the day ends here in Thailand, but I was just reflecting on the blessing that it can be to just be busy sometimes.  I like feeling productive (and sometimes even like feeling unproductive on certain days), but this has been a nice change of pace for me.

So, I’ll leave you with a HOT picture of my wife and I!

November, 2010.

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It’s not always this way.  But it happens surprisingly more often than we had anticipated experiencing a year and a half into.  Sure, we can joke with our neighbors, translate parts of the sermon on Sunday and bargain for lower prices at the market, but every week we make some sort of a mistake that makes us feel just like this:

So many things can go wrong just when you need it the most!  Yet we keep at it every week.  Studying more.  Practicing more.  Communicating more..  Overall it’s been a frustrating sort of fun.  As people come and visit us in Thailand we get a sense of just how far our Thai language ability has come along.  We can translate for them.  Help them in nearly any situation that arises.  And yet I still struggle with the correct tone to use when saying “behind” or “downstairs” (they are literally only a voice inflection away from each other…  Which doesn’t help when I try to tell people where they can find Sara!)

Another thing that we have encountered are Thai people who pretty much refuse to speak Thai to us.  I’m sure they want to practice their English and in some instances it really does help, but other times I ask someone a question in Thai and they answer in such broken English that I have no idea what they are trying to say.  Then, when I ask them again in Thai, they give me the same broken English answer!  I CAN SPEAK THAI PEOPLE!!!  (on some occasions better than others…)

And still in other instances all of us are speaking Thai, but none of us have any idea what each other are trying to say.  All too many conversations wind up a lot like this:

In just a few days we will travel back to Lopburi for our periodic language tests.  We’ve both been working this week to prepare for these tests.  Please continue to pray for us.  Pray for an increasing ability to remember things we’ve already learned and for stickiness of mind as we study new vocab and sentence structure.  Pray also that this hard work in language study in the past year+ would translate into increased meaningful relationships in our new community and ability to be involved in ministries at the Thai church we are partnering with.

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I even got to ride my lang. tutor's 4-Wheeler for a bit. Sweet!

The exam went well today also.  Spent nearly the entire time just talking about the little victories I have had lately in using my Thai and getting things fixed or done.  It’s nice to once again… finally …feel useful.

Coming from the States I felt useful.  I was involved in a lot of things, I was effective at what I did, had a lot of things on my plate (as is my personality).  So, coming to Thailand has been a bit rough in some ways.  Without a good amount of Thai, I felt useless.  I couldn’t tell the mechanic that I needed my motorbike tire changed without both getting a headache and handing them out to everyone I was trying to talk to.  If something needed done at our home, I didn’t know how to give directions to our home and describe what the issue was over the phone. Early on, I couldn’t even describe how short or long I wanted my hair cut when going for a trim on the ole’ Fohawk.  But, finally, I am able to do all of these things… and once again feel a bit useful here.  I bought the parts needed and replaced a sink drain in our bathroom yesterday afternoon, I’ve helped move air-conditioning units at a local church, I’ve taken our washing machine to get repaired, I’ve called for a professional to come and service our Air-con unit when it stopped working…  Oh, and I’ve ordered pizza over the phone and it was successfully (after them calling nearly 4 times because they were lost) delivered.

So, maybe, just maybe, we’ve turned a bit of a corner in our language learning and our lives here after 10 months.  And in good time.  We’re looking to buy a vehicle soon, next weekend we will be traveling to look for housing in Bangkok for when we move next month, and the following week we will sit before the church board in Bangkok to finalize details of us partnering with them to plant a church in the coming years.

Thanks for all your recent prayers and encouragement.  Maybe we’ll be able to do this missionary thing after all…

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It started off well. I responded to the teacher’s question by starting down a path talking about some things we did back home in ministry there and how people are people and how we should be more concerned about the people coming in the front door of the church than the Christians leaving out the back door all ticked off about something. The problem is that I was thinking perfectly in English and knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t get it out in Thai. I just couldn’t get it out. I was missing words in Thai in my story that were really integral to the telling of my story…. And it sounded awful. It was a train wreck where every time I attempted to say it in a different way, I just kept digging my hole deeper, more trains would come join the wreck.

Eventually we moved on and I was able to scrap together a decent enough Round #2 to salvage the language exam. But it did get me thinking. It’s often easy to get tripped up on words in our own language. You know, like you just can’t think of the word to best use in your situation. Usually you can easily add in a substitute word that will suffice and everyone will move on in conversation. But, in Thai, we don’t have those words yet. The substitute words. And while the Thai person stares at me trying to stumble across the word needed to actually start making sense, I’m running around the in the forest of my mind lost as ever.  And every attempt at fixing the train wreck of a conversation on the outside of my head gets me more and more lost in the forest of my mind.

Ah…  The joys of language learning…

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We play outside during the Thai water fight holiday, Songkraan

So, it’s pretty obvious that I have been the world’s worst blogger since the first of the year.  For that I am sorry…

I’ve been meaning to get some new content up on here for a while now but, truth be told, I didn’t know how to just jump back into it.  I’ve decided there is no smooth, amazing way other than to just do it.

The past few months have been interesting.  We’ve traveled quite a bit, settled in and out of language learning more than once, continue to make Thai friends and expand our vocabulary and depth of conversations.  At the same time, it has at times been more challenging than we ever had anticipated.  Language learning got old about the first of the year.  6 months into our time here in Lopburi and the daily task of language learning and classes was a really un-sexy thing to wake up to every morning.  Adjustment to the Thai culture and way of life has been more difficult this time around also.  If you follow Sara or I on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know that our neighborhood can be quite loud most of the time, which means going home to find peace when needed has seldom happened for us.  That’s been tough.  We have also really missed our family and friends.  I’ve struggled with going from feeling like was an integral part to a ministry in the States to being only a decent language student who could barely tell you the story of Jesus walking on water and who is definitely unable to pray for anyone in Thai.  I have two sisters graduating from High School this year and will start their lives a bit more on their own.  Just yesterday, it seems, they were tiny 3 yr olds.

So, yeah, the past few months have been a bit more down than up.  But, at the same time, we’ve seen once again how God provides for us daily.  And yes, not much about being a missionary in Thailand is wonderful and comfortable, but God provides.  He sustains.  We’ve had breakthroughs in conversations with Thai people, I’ve been able to counsel a few of my non-Christian language teachers on family issues, and Sara and I continue to hold onto each other more than we probably ever have.

So, this is my attempt to climb back onto the blog saddle.  We look forward to sharing more about our lives here.  The ups and downs.  The breakthroughs and breakdowns. The little victories and failures.

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Earlier this week we read the story of Zacchaeus as it would be told in a Children’s Bible.  I’d thought I’d share that story with you!

Luke 19:1-10 - Thai Contemporary Bible

The Story of Zacchaeus Spoken in Thai
Click link to play Audio

This isn’t an exact translation of the passage above, but it should give you a good idea of what we have been doing and what we are continuing to work through.  Who knew learning a new language could be so fun/difficult!

Have you ever learned another language fluently?