Learning Thai

This past week has been very busy...here are a few of the highlights.

We now have a REACH team in Thailand! The six young ladies arrived around 1:00 a.m. Thursday morning and so far everything is going very well (at least from our perspective). We spent some time with them on Thursday, giving them a quick orientation and then helping them move into their apartments. They're living a short bus ride away from us and their main goal initially will be to build relationships in their two neighborhoods (in addition to going to language school). Yesterday I took them into the city to register at the school. Today they are on their own - catching up on sleep and exploring. It's been a lot of work to get ready for them - and we definitely feel an added responsibility having them here, but we are very excited about their addition to our team and seeing how God will use them during their 9 months in Thailand.

We are still teaching several English classes and looking for opportunities to do more of that. We'd love to get a conversational class for adults started in our neighborhood and are thinking through the logistics of getting that off the ground.

And finally, the work permit & visa update. This continues to be a case of "We've got good news, but..." The very good news is that I now have a work permit. But, we now need to get new visas for the rest of the family and we'll not be able to do that without leaving the country one more time to get an additional 30 days. So, another long day on the bus is in our immediate future. (Only Claire is excited about this. She told me that she wishes "we could go to Cambodia every day.")

Tonight we've been invited to our neighborhood's party in honor of the King's upcoming 80th birthday. (We went to a similar celebration last year). So, we'll probably have some pictures of that tomorrow.

-Tom