Learning Thai

The last week has been anything but boring! Confusing, exciting, exhausting, humbling, terrifying, and overwhelming are all emotions that come to mind when I think about our experiences. We moved into our new house three days ago and have been keeping busy learning how to keep house, furnish it, buy food, communicate with landlady and neighbors etc. Every afternoon our house has been a beehive of activity- a man installing ceiling fans and another our phone and internet, neighbors stopping by to check us out and tease the girls, our landlady bringing us gifts from soup to trashcans and toilet paper dispensers, and the landlady’s son with his ever present Thai/English dictionary.

We’ve been shopping many times and have been pretty successful in purchasing things for our house, no thanks to our meager Thai. We depend heavily on the dictionary, other people’s (mostly very limited) English, and our early Thai vocabulary (mostly Tom’s). We’ve gotten a lot of basic furniture like a washer, beds, a small fridge and hotplate (stoves don’t seem too common), and we’ve ordered a couch and chairs for the living room. In the meantime, we don’t have too many places to sit and are thankful for the table and benches that came with the house. We spend quite a bit of time out on the veranda in front because it’s a little cooler and people are often visting us out there. We hope to do some more shopping soon for other furniture like a desk and bookshelf so we can eliminate some of the many piles of things sitting around with no home.

The girls have been practicing their first Thai words too. Claire does very well with the Thai greeting “Sawattdii kaa” and the wai (bow). She also just learned our address in Thai which she has fun saying. Eliza can say the “ka” part and is pretty friendly, flirting and saying hi to lots of people. Both girls are big attention getters in shops or on the street. Many people stop us to talk to them and touch them and often even want to hold them. They are adjusting to the attention and handling it pretty well.

We’ve also had many culinary adventures so far. Thai food is not quite what we expected but we are beginning to find some favorites. We love the fresh pineapple that is available everywhere you go in the streets. We also really enjoy the shrimp or chicken fried rice, guava juice, wide Thai noodles, and a delicious seafood/lemongrass/mushroom soup our landlady made us. Tom enjoys the curries and the girls and I are working on enjoying spicy foods in small doses. The desserts are quite strange to us- a kind of flavorless jello is popular and we sampled some very sweet yucca last night (at least we think it was yucca- very dense, mushy). We are just beginning to explore our new neighborhood and are looking forward to trying all the little food stands and small open air restaurants around here. We have breakfast and some lunches at home- fruit, drinkable yogurt and bread mostly.

We are trying to learn many things quickly, ie: getting around in taxis and buses, locations of language schools, etc because two interns will be coming next week and we will have some responsibility for helping them get adjusted, since our regional director, Dan, will be out of the country.

Thank you all for your prayers and words of encouragement- we’ve been so blessed and it’s always wonderful to hear from home. In some ways we feel like we’ve been here a month rather than a week!

-Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

We finally made it! After about 17 hours on a plane we're very glad to be here and don't want to repeat that trip anytime soon! If nothing else, the thought of a return flight will keep us on the field.

But seriously our first impressions of this country are postive. We were dropped off at a hotel this evening and we took a walk to check out the many food vendors and find some supper. We bought several samples and had a good learning experience.

Now we're ready to sleep for a while. Tomorrow we visit our house and begin to look for essential items like furniture and cell phones.

Thanks so much to those of you who prayed for our trip. We're excited to be here!

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

We hosted a dinner and program at Dayton Mennonite Church

Eliza shares a final breakfast at IHOP with Granddaddy Rhodes

Napping between Virginia and Delaware

The past ten days have been a strange combination of relaxation, mounting tension, and tearful goodbyes. We left Ohio for good on Sunday, August 6, and spent just over a week with the Rhodes family in Virginia. This past Monday we traveled to Delaware where we’ll be with the Mast family until next Wednesday.

We’ve been visiting our favorite restaurants one last time. So far we’ve made it to Jess’ Quick Lunch, The Smokin’ Pig, Klines Dairy Bar, and Grotto Pizza. We’ve also got plans to eat at The Old Mill Crab House before we leave. We have a lot of fun family traditions that are associated with eating at these places.

Of course it’s been hard to leave our family members (it was so sad to watch Candice’s Dad lean in through the back door of our car to say one last goodbye to Claire and Eliza). At the same time we’ve felt very loved and supported by our families and are grateful that God has blessed us with so many people who care about us.

And while we’re mourning the “loss” of family we’re also nervously/excitedly anticipating our departure. Today we got an email from Dan Byler with detailed instructions about how to get through the immigration and customs process at the Bangkok airport. Sitting here in Delaware, it’s hard to imagine what we’ll be thinking and feeling (not to mention seeing, smelling, and hearing!) next Thursday afternoon as we deplane in Thailand.

Thanks again to those of you who have supported and encouraged us during this transition – we couldn’t have gotten this far without you.

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We are currently living in the Elisha House, an RMM apartment for homeless people like us. The past week has been like living in a whirlwind. The early part of the week I was at home packing (with some help- thanks Eve and Twila!)- my boxes started out all organized and type specific and then degenerated to a box containing an alarm clock, bath toys, an iron and jewelry. The end of the week was filled with conference. It was wonderful connecting with lots of old friends and people we've met through our church visits and it was great having help with the kids (both sets of parents stayed at our house and attended conference with us). Sunday morning was an especially meaningful time of spirit-filled and convicting worship and preaching and our commissioning along with the other newly appointed missionaries.

After conference ended we immediately focused on getting ready to be out of our house by Tuesday night. It was a HOT few days and everyone was sweating buckets!! Thank you Mast and Rhodes mom and dad!! We would have been lost without your constant packing and fixing and cleaning. My mom, who is a far more thorough cleaner than I am, spent hours on cleaning my cupboards and everyone helped entertain the girls. On the second day Claire started getting more emotional. She kept saying, "I don't want to leave this house." We kept trying to reasuure her that it was okay to feel sad. She mentioned her cat Perry a lot too- he died a few months ago and she was pretty much over it, but leaving the house made her miss him all over again.

Our church friends were a wonderful help on Tuesday night moving out the big furniture and doing a final cleaning. It went so fast we couldn't quite believe we were done a few hours later. After everyone left. Tom and I, Claire and Eliza went through each room and cried and talked about our memories (this is making me cry again!)....seeing Claire crawl for the first time on her shaky little legs, bringing Eliza home from the hospita, putting angels on the Christmas tree, eating Chinese food on the couch, etc. We said good-bye to our good neighbors and then ended with one last chocolate milkshake at the Indian Dairy bar.

We are really enjoying being at the Elisha House (air conditioning-ahhhhh!). It feels like God knew we needed this restful and refreshing time. We are finishing up last minute details like banking, driver's licenses, dentist appointment, etc, but have time to relax too and enjoy just being together. We're having fun spending time with Eliza since Claire has gone to spend a few days with her grandparents in Delaware (she was very excited to ride in the big moving truck!). We miss Claire but realize we haven't had a lot of time to focus on just Lize...she wants to do nothing but hold our hands and walk!

We plan to leave on Sunday for some time with my family in VA. We are praising God for his answers to so many prayers - we feel like he has been smoothing the way for us and meeting so many needs. He is GOOD.

-Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Last week we got a very exciting email from Dan Byler (the missionary we'll be working with). He found a house for us, and after getting our enthusiastic approval, signed the contract on our behalf. We'd been praying about this for quite a while and are very grateful for God's provision. The house has everything that we were looking for - enough space for team meetings, access to public transportation, a location that will make it easy to mingle with Thai people, friendly landlords, and proximity to shopping. There's even a nursery school nearby that Claire may be able to attend at some point. We've been scrutinizing the pictures that Dan sent trying to imagine what it will be like to call this place home.

Thanks to all of you who prayed with us for this house - knowing that we have a place waiting for us has taken away a lot of stress!

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)