Learning Thai

Our Christmas time was full of celebrations with our extended Thailand "family." Here are Claire and Eliza, ready for the team party on Christmas Eve.

This was our first Christmas with a tukey to cook (Thank you, Dan!). Apparently it's a pretty uncommon bird around here and some of our Thai friends have never eaten it or even heard of it! Ours was an imported Butterball and the hardest part was finding something to cook it in. We finally scored with a large wok. The only problem was it's shape made it very unstable and we had several spills and oven fires during the cooking. When the turkey was in it's last 10 minutes of roasting our oven ran out of gas. If it had run out an hour earlier we would have had no solution to this problem as most of our neighbors don't even own ovens. Was God watching over our turkey? Anyway, we all enjoyed our Latin style, late meal including beans and rice, mashed potatoes, rolls, salad, cookies, cake, and gravy (cooked over a "picnic" gas burner that our landlord brought over).

After the meal, we all enjoyed sitting in the glow of the living room singing Christmas carols in two languages and hearing the Christmas story read in three. With the party getting a late start and the gift exchange and more singing afterward, the party continued until about 1:30, although the girls crashed before that.

Christmas morning the girls slept a little late and then we opened our gifts (forget trying to eat anything first!). The girls were blessed with many presents from our church in Ohio and our families- thanks guys, you made our Christmas extra special!

Santa baby even got to open one gift. His big gift is a baby gym mat that he's been enjoying all month. We thought there wasn't much point in waiting!

On Christmas night we went to our friend Yupim's to hang out with this great group of kids, mostly from Thippawan and the slum area behind Thippawan (along with most of our team). It was so fun to see their excitement for Christmas- they enjoyed the gifts, loud singing, snacks, and games and blessed us with a really sweet Christmas pageant.

And the next evening we got blessed again when a group showed up at our house to carol for us!

We are thankful for a really special Christmas and for our team and friends here, especially at the times when we missed our families back home.We're looking forward to hearing about your Christmases! And and especially thankful......

"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." Titus 2:11

-Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We just enjoyed our Christmas beach trip to Hua Hin over a long weekend. It was a fun time of getting away as a family and enjoying some holiday relaxation. We had a mostly good time although Claire and Eliza both came down with a stomach bug again so we had one day that was a little miserable. Otherwise, the weather was great- in fact, it was so cool and breezy we were more worried about Silas getting too cold than too hot! Fortunately the jelly fish were out of season this time apparently and although it was the high tourist season, it wasn't crowded (that airport incident wasn't too good for Thailand's tourism industry). We enjoyed some really awesome Thai seafood and lots of playing in the sand and relaxing.

It was so much fun introducing Silas to the beach. He seemed pretty overwhelmed by the wind and had a hard time napping at the beach, but it was easy to keep him in the shade and he met lots of admirers/friends.....

Silas was adopted by this fruit vendor who liked to cuddle him. (that's me getting a massage in the background :)).

Claire was a fish who continually begged one of us to take her into the waves.

And of course both girls can never get enough digging in the sand. (they loved our hotel pool a lot too).

So, it was a great time and we were happy for the family time away. We were amazed again by the contrast between the scantily clad Euro-sunbathers and the fully dressed Thais (this time of year they were fully outfitted in jackets and scarves) huddled around tables eating seafood in the shade.

Now we're getting excited and doing a lot of baking and shopping and getting ready for the Big Day! Claire actually has school all this week (her vacation will be over New Years) but we're skipping school on Christmas day!
-Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I can't believe it's taken us until December 17 to have any Christmas on our blog! Blame our constantly crashing computer! We have managed to sqeeze in some festive-ness in between all the attacks of sickness and team busy-ness. We're all getting very excited about our beach trip this weekend and Christmas next week. Some very exciting packages have been arriving at our door and turning up under our tree, making the wait almost unbearable for two of us! :)

A few weeks ago we had our annual family tree decorating party and here is the result. We made our ornaments this year- stringing popcorn and making cinnamon bundles and salt dough "cookies." Lots of fun craft times in homeschool.

Gazing at the tree. We love turning off the lights at night and having our advent devotions around the tree..and tearing off another day of our countdown chain. Only 9 more links!

The perfect arrangement of the manger scene. All hands had to help with the exact placement of baby Jesus in the manger.

Santa baby.

The girls with the giant Christmas tree at the mall.

Nobody makes you laugh your head off at nothing more than a sister (that sounds wrong but you know what I mean).

We also had a fun day out celebrating our 10th anniversary in Bangkok......

We ended our day of adventure with a beautiful and moving performance of Handel's Messiah at a Thai church.

As I mentioned, we've had a lot of team things going on too. The new Reachers are fitting right in and have dived headfirst into a very intensive few weeks of language school. We really appreciate their positive attitudes and are having fun getting to know new friends.

Here's the whole team together this week for a meal and worship.

We also had a unique experience with an impromptu gathering of some believers here at our house- EMM workers as well as Thai friends from the North East and new Vietnamese friends....as well as some of the Thais who have been meeting with us. It was an encouraging day of sharing what God is doing as well as praying for each other.

Silas was entranced by the loud Isaan music filling our living room.

We've received some encouraging e-mails from RMM this season from other workers experiencing the holidays overseas and it was interesting hearing how everyone handles that in different ways. While we miss our families a lot and also some of the traditions from the States, we are really enjoying the holiday this year and are feeling at home. I've really come to appreciate some of the difference in celebrating here although it's taken awhile! I was so struck while listening to the Messiah by the Thai chorus singing "for unto US a child is born." So thankful for Jesus' incredible gift to us and to all Thai people.

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last Friday was the King's birthday - an event which serves as Fathers Day and a national holiday in Thailand. Our landlords brought over two new flags (the national flag and the flag with the King's emblem) to hang outside our gate. Many other houses were similarly decorated with new flags. In the evening people gathered all over the country to light candles and set off fireworks in honor of the king. Even though we had commemorated the American version of Fathers Day earlier in the year, Candice and the kids took me out for a nice steak dinner and then gave me some of my favorite snacks and a delicious banana cake.

Eliza explains the card that she drew.

Claire made her card at school. She said the teacher had to help her write part of this message, but she did some of it on her own. She's doing a good job of learning to recognize and write Thai characters.

My first Fathers Day with 3 kids.

In other news...we're glad to have the REACH team here. The six young ladies arrived late Saturday night. We were thankful that the airport reopened so quickly and that they only had to delay their arrival by a few days. (In case you're curious, the constitutional court disbanded the ruling party due to fraud during the last election. So now the country has a caretaker prime minister until a new one can be chosen by the parliament. This satisfied the group that had occupied the airport and they promptly left.) Anyway, we've been busy helping the team move into their apartments and start language school along with trying to give them the basic information that they need to survive their first weeks here.

On top of all that activity, all of the girls in the family have been sick with stomachaches, headaches, fevers, coughs, and sore throats. Claire and Eliza are mostly recovered but Candice is still feeling pretty bad. Hopefully it will clear up soon (without spreading to us guys) since we're planning a quick vacation to the beach next weekend.

-Tom

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 05:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Silas shows his delight at acquiring an American passport. This is the one he'll use until he turns 5.

Please continue to pray for the REACH team. They've postponed their arrival by two days, but the situation at the airport remains unresolved. Some flights are arriving and departing from alternate airports, but thousands of people remain stranded both inside and outside the country.

-Tom

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)