Just Love Mom

Life with the mom of a missionary family

Tag Archives: Bangkok

English Camp

There’s something special about our neighborhood. Maybe it’s the way we consider each other family.

We Are Family

This week some Bible college students from Canada visited and helped us show our neighbors just how much we appreciate them.
We had a “Cultural Exchange”. The students taught our neighbors English and some North American games and songs, and our neighbors (mostly the children, but not only!!) taught the students some Thai and some Thai games and songs.

Not Sure if Mrs Chicken is a Thai Game or North American..

Every day women from the neighborhood brought drinks and lunch (real lunch, fried chicken or pork or noodles) for all the participants

Our Fairy God Mothers With Lunch

Gimme Some of That Real Food

We topped it all off with a big neighborhood party this morning.

It's Not a Party Unless There's Ice Cream!!

Face Painting!!

Crafts!! Snowflakes in Honor of Team Canada!!

Balloons!!! (these boys are taking a rest from chasing Ami with the balloons.)

Whew! busy day! Any body else tired?

One Night in Bangkok

It was a perfect day. Almost magical.

'Cause a chicken is a person in our neighborhood

An adventure walk across the street with Dagny to see chickens and doggies.

 
Crowded!!!
A trip on the busy BTS Skytrain to see a movie with the littles;

 
What a lovely surprise!

A walk home under a beautiful sunset, only to run into a balloon vendor half a block from home.

 

"Pooh Bear is smiling, Mommy"

A new floaty friend.

 

YUM!! Best noodles around, for only 25baht

All followed by a late snack at the noodle stand on our street.

 

It was everything good about Bangkok.

 

And it would have been the perfect day if I’d just stayed home. But I had to run out to the corner store for peanut butter.

 

And I came across the woman and the little boy on the bicycle. She was on our street because Dag and I had been on hers with the DeWits.  We were offering to teach English to whoever was interested. She needed more than English lessons. She was looking for a job. Her boyfriend had died and she just needed to do enough work to get 250baht to pay her rent or she and her little guy were out on the street.

 

There is one very lucrative option for her if she doesn’t find work. This is, after all, Bangkok.

 

Verge 50, the church plant we’re a part of, has the goal of facilitating microloans so women in this situation will have more options.

 

Until we have this in place the memory of this young woman is going to keep me up at night. Like it did last night.

Rahab Ministries


I wrote this soon after arriving here, in very early November. It’s taken me this long to amputate it from my soul and put it out on to the internet.

I haven’t really written anything since arriving in Bangkok. I’ve even really been awol from Twitter and Facebook. Not like me at all. Writing for me comes out of thinking. I usually wake up with three or four blog posts and twenty-five tweets pinging around in my brain. It could be the coffee. I’m usually a very caffeinated person. Not here. Haven’t found a great brand yet. I haven’t had the pinging thoughts here. My thoughts seem to sort of wade through my brain. Never really forming a perfect post. Just sort of slogging around.
Thoughts are heavier here. Thoughts are really heavy after yesterday. Yesterday I visited with Rahab Ministries. Rahab Ministries is an outreach to women and girls who work in the bars as prostitutes. They have a Bible study, English classes and a business making jewelery and crocheted stuffed animals so that girls who want to leave the bar scene can make an income. They don’t make alot. In the bars, the girls can make a whopping $10 a day. At Rahab, they only make minimum wage. (These are the numbers they gave me, not sure what minimum wage is here). After a girl has been out of the bar scene for six months, Rahab invests in retraining, education or trade, so that they can go on to support themselves. Slow thoughts here. A group of us went yesterday. We got to hear the testimonies of two of the women who had left the bar scene.

Outside Rahab


I’ve met prostitutes before. Their stories are painful and tragic. I’ve met former prostitutes before. Their stories are victorious and powerful. I’ve never met women like these before. These two ladies were moms whose marriages had failed who had no other way to support their kids. If you thought prostitution was dehumanizing before, come to Thailand and experience people being degraded on a whole new level. A guy walking in the red light district will be approached with a catalog of girls to choose from. Or they could pick one in a bar. Girls can be rented for days at a time. They’re encouraged to drink and take drugs so that they can put on a good face and please their customers. When you see bar girls with a Western guy, it looks like they’re having a great time. The better time they seem to be having, the more money they can make. But some of these are moms. It makes me wonder, who’s looking after their kids while they’re away? How can they parent dealing with the hours, the drugs, the shame?
I get to this point in my slow thought process and I’m bogged down in despair. It’s like my thoughts are wading though mud. We met some very young girls, some young moms. One little pregnant girl who was probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. How will they live? At Rahab they’ve learned to make stuffed animals. They were something you’d use to decorate a baby’s room, or give to your teenage daughter for Valentine’s Day. I bought Dagny a little puppy dog.
I was struck by the dichotomy of prostitutes making something so innocent.

Each stuffed animal takes one day to make and gives them one day’s wage. For every stuffed animal they sell, they can stay out of the bars for one day. They can live in freedom for 24 hours. They can work in a place that encourages, instead of one that degrades. They can learn about God and how much He loves them. They can see proof of God’s love as His people reach out to help them. They can stay awake during the day and be there for their kids at night. They can choose what to do with their bodies.

A better life

Reading this a few weeks later, I realized that I should include some contact information for Rahab. If you’d like to learn more about this ministry, support them or order Jewellery or some of the stuffed animals, you can contact them here: Rahab Ministries

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VERY URGENT REQUEST – FLOOD RELIEF

We got a call last night from the DeWits in Bangkok. The drinking water in the city has been compromised because of the floods. We have been given the opportunity to purchase personal water filtration straws at the wholesale price of $6. We can bring as many as we want. The straws will filter 200 Gallons. Whole families will be able to have safe water from just one straw. We have already been given enough for our family to use, but there is a huge need in the city for safe water. If you have been wondering how to help with the flood relief efforts in Bangkok, this is the perfect opportunity.

We drive down to Toronto tomorrow (Monday) to catch our flight, so we need to pick the straws up in Cobden today. We are looking for people to sponsor at least ten straws at $6 each. These straws will open amazing doors into bringing the gospel to Bangkok. The more straws we have, the more people we can help. If you would like to sponsor the purchase of these straws please email us at JustLoveMinistry@gmail.com

Moving To Thailand Daily Freakout – Stress Eating

I’ve been stress eating. Well, I haven’t. I’ve been using stress as an excuse to over eat. On purpose. Not sure why. That’s pretty dumb. But that’s what I’ve been doing.

I didn’t think much of it until I saw this. My dad took this picture of me last week.

This photo has been deleted

Really it’s for the best

See that?

A BELLY!! I DON’T HAVE A BELLY! WHAT’S THAT BELLY DOING THERE?

So, this is my new plan.

Carrot sticks.

We went to Wendy and Scott Couper’s for supper on Saturday, and she put out a tray of vegetables. Face palm moment. How did I not think of vegetables? I’m the “eat your veggies” queen around here! I’ve been craving something crunchy that I can eat continuously, and I’ve been making popcorn because it’s fairly low cal. Carrots are NO CAL.

Why does a missionary post about weight loss and weight maintenance? Because being my best and healthiest is important to me. And because every Wednesday, when I start to totally fail and all I can think about is chocolate icing topped peanut butter sandwiches…

Alicia is over there at Confessions of a Snowflake encouraging me to stick with it. I have had so many “how did she know?” moments reading her blog. You should check it out too.

Moving to Thailand Daily Freakout- Old Friends, New Friends, Drunken Parties and Weird Connections

The weekend went like this:
  • Drove to Peterborough in a wind and rain storm.
  • Competed in the “I had a bad drive” competition with Scott who had taken his own vehicle. And I totally won. 
  • Dinner at Scott and Wendy Couper’s house (New friends!!) with the Coupers and kids and with Brian and Carey Clark and their kids (old friends!!)
  • Stayed up all night because the people in the motel room upstairs had a party until 5am.
  • Hung out in the Nursery at Northview Pentecostal with Dagny while Scott spoke.
  • Met Sam Wilson, who we went to highschool with, his wife Angela, whose awesome parents made the sign for our ministry. That was a big surprise! We had no idea that they were married or that they were in Peterborough or that they’d be at Northview that morning.
  • Met Helen Cowan’s daughter. Helen Cowan was Scott’s grandmother’s neighbor and good friend. No idea she was at Northview either!
  • Went for lunch with the Coupers and completely devoured a baked potato with Swiss Chalet sauce.
  • Drove home. No wind, no rain.
My brain is still recovering from the party and the drive, but there are so many other things I want to say in this post, like what great friends the Clarks are and how supportive and encouraging they’ve been through our waiting. How great Wendy and Scott and their kids are and how I really felt we connected even though we only just met. How wonderful the people at Northview were to me, especially Bruce Lindsay who hung out with Dag and me in the Nursery and Murray Lincoln who talked to us after the service. How weird it was to run into Sam Wilson and Serge and Jamie’s daughter who is also Sam’s wife, and Helen Cowan’s daughter! And how it felt like God had picked me up and put me down in Peterborough because I was supposed to be there. that. day. And how sad I was for the drunken kids at the motel. And how grateful I was that I wasn’t a drunken kid any more.
This morning I found out we may have a house in Bangkok, that a ministry that we really like is looking for volunteers, that the church we’re working with is going in a direction that I think is so fantastic. Life is like a fast forward movie right now.
And there’s a teen friend applying for a job in my dining room and three boys having a sword fight in the sun room and the baby needs to be changed.
My mind is living in two places.
Too much to process now. So here’s some pictures.

The kids always set up our display table. I've been fired because I suffer from a creativity deficiency.

This looks like a nice place for a little nap

A little cuddle before Daddy talks

 

Moving to Thailand Daily Freakout – Getting a Grip on Honesty

Wednesday night I had a very uncharacteristic meltdown. I stayed up all night crying. But you’ve already read about that. I’ve gotten a grip now. Thursday was much better. But I think everyone was surprised that I could have so dramatic a freakout. I was even more surprised that I told anyone (never mind EVERYONE) about it. I like to play things close to the chest. I don’t like to melt down, and if I do, I like nobody to know about it.

But I’ve realized that that’s really pretty dishonest. (See how I throw all those qualifiers in there, it’s dishonest. That’s it.) People seem to assume that I’m doing this missionary thing because I have some quality that separates the missionaries from the non-missionaries. (The wrongness of the “non-missionary” title is a subject for another post). I don’t. I’m not braver, or stronger, or more together. I’m just a people. I just happen to be called to go to another country and I’m relying on Jesus to get me through each day, just like you. That’s honest. And it appears that sometimes I meltdown and cry all night. And you know what? That’s okay. And I found out that when I’m honest, I get help.

Help arrived! The troops rallied. Scott came home early (he left work at 8:30am so he was home at 4pm). My mother and sister came down for lunch today. Everybody is treating me as if I’m very delicate and looking at me as if one of my limbs may suddenly turn into a killer python or something.

Photo Credit: Rough Green Snake by Crookrw on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/richardwc/4938625118/

It’s okay. I’m all better now. No more crying. I promise. For now.

But staying up all night Wednesday did take a bit of a toll on my judgment. Thursday I did what every rational person does after only getting three hours of sleep. I bought a domain name. Then I haunted GoDaddy on Twitter until I figured out what I was doing wrong. (Translation: I bought a domain name and had absolutely no idea what to do next. I’m sure I’ve earned a reputation at GoDaddy already)

This is it!! Isn’t it so pretty? It has red in it!

Then I went to sleep and woke up and bought jeans to replace the ones with the holes in them.

I have had a couple of moments today, but they weren’t meltdown moments, they were more like “Did I just stand here at the counter and stare into space and eat three pancakes?” moments.

So, this may not seem like a very productive day, but I actually got four things checked off my moving list,
Have Lunch With Mom and Sister,
Buy Jeans,
Eat Pancakes and Not Realize it While Staring Into Space,
Be Honest About Being Human

Moving To Thailand Daily Freakout – Up All Night Crying

I was up all night crying.

I’ve decided to abandon my Weekly Countdowns to Thailand for Daily (or almost daily) Freak Outs and since I was up all night crying anyway, it seemed like a good start to the series. Sobbing your head off is the best kind of freaking out.

I’m not a cryer. I just don’t cry. Not often anyway. I hate negative emotion. But I started crying after the kids went to bed and here it is, four in the morning and I’m still at it.

No idea what’s causing this. I’m super excited about the move. But I do have alot on my plate so it must be a neurological response to stress. (can I sound any more like Spock here?) Also, I’ve recently had to get rid of a few things that have sentimental, but no real practical use to me. I guess I was a bit more attached to them than I thought. But I’m crying like someone just shot my dog. And my grandma. I’ve been distracting myself with twitter but if I try to sleep I just start crying again.

Big crying. Loud stuff a blanket in your mouth sobbing and half a roll of toilet paper bunched up on the floor. Emotional vomit.

Stay tuned for the continuing adventures as I Freak Out about Moving to Thailand!!