Learning Thai

4 years old!!

Claire enjoyed her party at Leo Land with Eliza and her friends Caroline, Gideon and Andrew.

Claire and Minnie Mouse

Eliza sings "Happy Birthday"

In present heaven!

She was very excited about this book from Aunt Gail.

Thank you to our families and friends and Claire's church friends from LCF for helping to make this a very special birthday for Claire. She loved getting the presents and cards in the mail as well as your e-mails and video messages! We love you!

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 05:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We traveled to Det Udom this weekend by overnight train to visit Trish (an intern on our team who's been working in that area) as well as to visit the Thai church and EMM workers there. We stayed with EMM worker, Lucille Zimmerman, who kindly showed us around. On Saturday evening we had the privilege of eating a traditional Issan (a name given to the Northeastern part of Thailand and its inhabitants - read more here) meal with a family from the church. We all sat on an outdoor platform and ate with our fingers. Eliza loved that eating style and she devoured an amazing quantity of sticky rice.

The highlight of trip was attending the monthly joint meeting of the local church groups. We had to travel for close to two hours by songtaew and we saw a lot of farms and water buffalo along the way - quite a change from what we're accustomed to seeing in Bangkok. The church service was a blessing to us. We've met Thai Christians and attended several different Thai churches, but this was a much more contextualized service and it was encouraging to see Thai people worshipping Jesus in their own way. They sit on the floor, play traditional instruments, dance, use sticky rice for communion, and eat together after the service. After the meal they invited us to participate in a string-tying ceremony. This is another custom that they have adapted for use in the church. Church members took turns tying cotton string around our wrists while praying for God's blessing on our lives.

After the church service we went back to the train station and took another overnight train back to Bangkok. We all enjoyed travelling by train and even managed to get a good night's sleep in our little compartment. Overall, it was a very worthwhile trip - we got to see more of this country and more importantly our exposure to God's kingdom here was broadened.

We took a lot of pictures and are having a hard time being selective, so we'll just put a bunch of thumbnails on here - click on any of them to see the larger version.

-Tom

The Issan meal

The church service

The train ride

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 06:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Life is really random sometimes and I can't always think of a blog theme, so here are some random pictures and minor kid happenings for you!

...How Eliza feels about her new potty

Eliza hitching a ride with our next door neighbor on her nightly stroll, or "roll" I guess. Claire got a ride too. I was afriad she would squash this fragile lady's legs!

Babysitting some little friends, Gideon and Andrew (in pic), this morning

The only way we get snow in Thailand, defrosting the freezer!

Highlights and haircut for $12! Can't beat it! My friend Chaweewan took me to the salon today.

We are traveling to the eastern part of Thailand this weekend to visit EMM friends and the church in Det Udom. Looking forward to meeting EMM workers as well as more Thai Christians.
LCF friends, we are excited about your upcoming prayer journey to Thailand! We are praying for you!

-Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This morning we attended a Buddhist tam boon ceremony at our friends Jed and Chaweewan's home. The tam boon is a ceremony of making merit by offering food to monks. In this case, the ceremony was specifically to make merit in memory of Jed's father who died several years ago and as a blessing for the home. The house was emptied of furniture and nine monks (a lucky number) were invited to come. A sacred white cord, called sai sin was wrapped around the entire outer wall of the house as well as the house itself. The monks then held the white cord while chanting. The chanting lasted about 20 minutes, then the monks were served food (monks are not permitted to eat after noon, so they had to finish before that.) After the monks ate, there was more chanting while the guests sat with feet to the side and waied (palms together). There were also other elements to the ceremony- lighting candles, blessing water, and offering gifts to the monks. The monks sprinkled holy water as a blessing on the house and on every person as they left. At that point, everyone else sat down to eat a huge feast.

We tried to go as learners and just to observe and learn from being there. It was an interesting yet somewhat uncomfortable experience. Jed and Chaweewan and the about 30 guests made us feel welcome but we had a certain amount of discomfort in being unsure of how to participate. Please pray that we would know the appropriate response in these kinds of situations. As we waied, I was praying for God's spirit to fill Jed and Chaweewan's home and for God to make himself known to them. Please pray along with us!
-Candice

Claire and Eliza playing with other children before the ceremony began. We didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of the monks so we have no photos of the actual ceremony.

Tom and Eliza enjoying all the delicious food. They even sent leftovers over to our house later for dinner!

Other pictures from this weekend.....

Feeding the seagulls at Bang Bpu at the Gulf of Thailand (only a 1/2 hour taxi drive from our house- we always forget we are that close to the ocean!).

Eliza makes friends everywhere we go!

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Happy Valentine's Everybody! We love you Masts! Love you Rhodes'! Love you Moroccans! Love you supporters and friends! We celebrated today with Grandma Mast's pink balloons and making red jello hearts. Claire made a card for her Daddy and even wrote "I love you" for the first time. Tom brought home roses and books for all his girls. Tonight our English students Oay and Neno and kids joined us for spaghetti and meatballs. It was the very first spaghetti Neno had tasted, so a quite ordinary American meal was pretty exotic to them! Other strange farang (foreign) customs we introduced them to...holding hands and singing for prayer, passing dishes, using salad plates and candy message hearts. Even the bread and salad were pretty foreign! It was a really fun experience and we laughed about all our differences.

-Candice

Claire up bright and early to make jello hearts. Thank you Grandma Mast for sending the jello! It was a lot of fun!

The finished product and proud cook.

From left, Oay, Grace, us, Putter, and Neno

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 08:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

One of the fun (at least some of the time) parts of moving into a new culture is balancing and combining aspects of our "old" and "new" lives. Last night, for instance, we ordered a pizza (Thailand has several American-style pizza companies and although they make culturally appropriate adaptations to their menus - like the Tom Yum Kung with prawn, mushroom, squid & chili paste - they also make pizzas that taste very familiar to us). While we were waiting on the pizza I went out looking for pineapple but ended up coming back with an appetizer of fried squid eggs and some kind of fried Japanese shrimp/potato (we think) cakes. On a small scale that meal represented much of what I enjoy about living here. It's fun to explore this culture and it's comforting to find ways of balancing that adventure with what is familiar to us.

-Tom

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the sign suggests, it's a cup full of corn (sweetened with sugar, I believe). Corn is also a favorite ice cream topping in Thailand.

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Recently our team met with Pat and Peter, a couple that has lived and ministered in Thailand for 15 years. They shared some of their observations on Thai culture and in general encouraged us to continue learning and persevering in our efforts here. I really respected their attitudes toward ministry and cultural adaptation.

One of their observations was that Thais are very spiritual people and that this culture, as a rule, is open to the idea of a higher power. In our few months here I have noticed that as well. Judging from the number of temples and shrines and the amount of spiritually oriented paraphernalia available for purchase I would have to conclude that Thai culture is more oriented towards spirituality than is American culture. Buddhism (mixed with folk animism) pervades every aspect of this society. In a couple of weeks the government will sponsor a national merit making ceremony to raise the morale of the nation following the New Year’s Eve bombings and the ongoing political turmoil. That’s just one example of how attuned this culture is to spirituality. Thai people believe strongly in the importance of the spiritual word, in it’s relevance to daily life, and in the value of a moral lifestyle.

So, Pat and Peter reminded us, our job is not to create spiritual interest or to “bring God” to Thailand. God is here. He is at work. What we can do is shed light on what God is already doing. We can testify to His love and grace and we can gently point out his ongoing presence in Thailand.

When we think about our lives here in that light, this “job” we’re called to seems a lot easier. Thailand is starting to feel more like home (at least sometimes!) That really struck me when we came back from Malaysia. Even though all the Malaysians we interacted with spoke English, and even though there were more English signs there than here in Thailand, we felt off-balance and out of place. We didn’t know anything about the food. We weren’t used to seeing veiled Muslim women. We weren’t sure when or how we were being culturally inappropriate. Coming back to Bangkok seemed familiar, and even comforting. There’s an awful lot that we don’t know about Thailand, but we’ve made a start. Monks are more familiar than Muslims. Pad Thai is a comfort food. And speaking in our limited Thai with a taxi driver seems more natural than trying to decipher a Malaysian taxi driver’s English.

So we'll keep moving slowly forward and trust that God can use us in the process.

-Tom

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 09:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the second time, we needed to leave the country to renew our visas in order to stay Thailand for another 90 days. This time, we decided to have a day at the beach instead of just a long bus ride to the border (Tom had a day off from his classes). We traveled to Langkawi, an island in neighboring Malaysia for a quick two day trip. In spite of the fact that all three of us girls were sick with fevers and colds, a good time was had by all, most of the time (we won't say that no complaining occured)......

Claire and Eliza slept for most of the flight to Langkawi.

The largest mosque in Langkawi. The country is predominately Muslim which gave it a very different look and feel from Thailand even though it's next door.

The ocean was a short walk from our hotel.

Since we were on an island, we ate lots of fish and other seafood like squid and shrimp.

Claire was a little fish and sand crab all day. Eliza on the other hand preferred lounging in the shade with her ice cream. She wouldn't let her feet touch sand or water all day!

Tom and Girls. Just because I love this picture. :) (At a park near our hotel).

So, it was a fast and sickly trip but enjoyable and it felt good to return to Bangkok. Sitting in the taxi listening to our driver speak Thai, watching the food vendors and buses flash by and listening to "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (seriously) playing, we felt like we were home!
-Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)