Kathmandu...

We are here in Kathmandu visiting with the Pastors Raju and Bhwani as well as Raju's family Kishor and Lettie who are pastors in Malaysia.  Great time of connection!

Here are the kids playing soccer and volleyball in the courtyard of the church...

Our kids had a great time connecting with others via sports.  

Beginning the day to meet the Jersaks for lunch...

Riding a micro bus into Thamel to go for lunch...

Sights of Thamel...

I thought it would be a great idea to walk back to the church from Thamel as I heard it would take 45-50 min.  Two hours later after passing chickens, cows, dead rat, dog and bird while toddlers play among the streets filled with garbage and beautiful colours, we flagged down a cab to take us to the area we needed to be to have dinner.  Kids were amazing not complaining but just joining me in my walking adventure.  After all I really was craving exercise and what a better way to get to know a city than walk it?

The part of Kathmandu where another Canadian spotted us and told us we were in an area that usually foreigners do not venture in.  Ah ha that would explain seeing the dead animals on the street among the Nepali shops and local children playing.  These are the sights and smells of Kathmandu.  

2 more days until Mike and Mikayla arrive.  Right now they are in Delhi.  Communication between us has been weak due to sporadic wifi and electricity. Electricity goes off here for hours as well as water turning off.  It's a great experience for the kids to get a taste of what lots of folks in the world live like.  No central heating when temps drop have a way of encouraging us all to go to sleep early and stay huddled in our sleeping bags.  Lots of reading with flashlights!

More soon...with love from Kathmandu!

Arrived in Kathmandu!

After almost zero sleep we took the shuttle to airport and spent our last few Thai bhat on breakfast before boarding the plane to Kathmandu!

Bangkok airport...

These kids are troupers.  They loaded up all the huge bags to check in to save their mom's back. And I'm talking HEAVY bags as lots of them are toys and school supplies for kids in Nepal!  I owe them big-time.  

Thai airways...lots of fun on this plane!

Arrived to Raju and Rod there to pick us up.  Spent day visiting with Kathmandu friends in afternoon and WCV friends in the evening!  Thanks Raju and Bewani and Rod and Elisa for your hospitality!  

Kids are noticing differences already between Thailand and Nepal!  For starters we pulled out long underwear and wool socks here and the other noticeable difference to kids are the roads and sidewalks!  Again the kindness with people in both countries is remarkable.

So excited to be here!

More soon!

(No time to take pics in Ktm yet but soon)

A Day in Krabi and "one night in Bangkok!"

Had a great day in Krabi.  It was extremely hot  (sorry friends and family from the Peg).  Kids were really needing a relaxing day and because of the intense heat and evening travel we took it easy.  (Although we were tempted to explore more caves!) 

I know it looks like we are having the time of our lives in this pic.  Everyone is laughing because they can't believe that I asked a guy with a broken arm to take the pic.  What the family didn't know is that I didn't ask him, he offered!  I didn't want to point out the obvious to him so I passed him my iphone!

See the giggles?

 Kids enjoyed an amazing brunch, swim in hotel pool and walk along shops and beach.  

The brunch at the hotel...

Look at the options for drinks!

Feeding the fish...

Sisters having fun!

Guess where they wanted lunch?  I couldn't join in as the street vendors were amazing!  Fresh pineapple was so juicy.  

There's so much about Thailand that we will miss.  Mostly it's been an amazing time as a family.  

We just landed in Bangkok.  Kids are wiped and early flights tomorrow to conquer.  Pray for us!  I'm off to Katmandu with 6 HUGE duffle bags and 4 carry ons and 3 helpful kids.  Can't wait to connect with our Kathmandu church friends and our WcV friends! Mike and Mikayla have a stop-over in Delhi for a few days.  

Arrived in Krabi for 1 night & day!

Mixed feelings leaving Ko Kradan today.  Here's the view where we had our daily morning coffee...agh I'm going to have to get a poster size pic to remember this when I'm back home...

And I'm including this one because I was reading today about not thinking more highly of yourself than you ought.  Well here we are after 1 week of sea water!  No washing hair for that long.  Mike said he felt like his hair took on a permanent gel look.  What do you guys think?  

Kids are already anticipating what this dip in the pool in our hotel in Krabi will be like after 24/7 salt water for the last week.  (Even while brushing our teeth)

Does it look like Samuel is going over?

Off to bed.  More on Krabi tomorrow then off to Bangkok enroute to Kathmandu!

Ko Roch and Emerald Cove

Again no words to describe today.  We rented a long tail boat and travelled 2 hours to Ko Roch to snorkel.  It was beautiful.  We swam with schools of fish that allowed us up close and touching.  The beautiful coral around us drew us in to snorkel for a couple of hours.  Some of us even saw an eel!  

The dad who planned this day's adventure...

The start of the boat ride...

Snorkelling...

After a couple hours here our driver took us to Emerald Cove.  History has it that pirates used to store their stolen treasures here.  To get to this enchanted hidden cove, you have to swim under caves.  All of this is crazy breath-taking.  No pics available as we had to swim under caves to get there.  (Although I did see one traveller with his camera in his mouth as he swam but not us!). The scene that we were gifted with will be forever etched in my memory.  Unreal beauty.  

The caves that we swam under to get to Emerald Cove.  

All these hours in a long tail boat have Mike and I feeling like the floors are spinning.  It's gonna be an early night for us anyway!  Teens want to sleep in hammocks as its our last night on this beautiful island.  We will miss this magical place BUT all of us are looking forward to a fresh water shower!  

Tomorrow we take another long tail boat to Krabi.  (PS...I am overcoming a lot of fears that I simply can't hang on to out here!  One fear is being on a small boat with the family in open seas rocking back and forth with massive waves crashing in around.. There's such a vast enormity of the ocean and we vulnerably trust this dear local on a somewhat rickety structure called a long tail boat.  More of this tomorrow as we journey from Kratan to Krabi.  Ok bring it on...oh yeah.)

We love you all family and friends!

Love from Ko Kradan.  

Happy New Year everyone!

Well Ko Kradan has an interesting rhythm.  Even our guest house owner sleeps on the beach as we interrupt his nap to ask for a few necessities.  And so is the island life out here.  

Mike, Mikayla, Joseph and Sarah kayak...

Our new year celebration was FULL of surprises!   The food here is crazy expensive leaving no options but to eat at  one of the 10 restaurants.  We took a break from our budget New Year's Eve  and told the kids to order whatever they wanted for dinner.   To our surprise we had a free coupon underneath our table!  What a gift from God that dinner was no charge!  There are no ATM's on this island and no one takes credit card so we did not anticipate the higher costs in our food budget.  This is the context behind the free New Years meal!  The kids won t-shirts and other various prizes.  The Thai folk encouraged us Labuns to dance with them which had us all laughing of course.  

Mikayla's meal served in a pineapple bowl...

Samuel and Sarah enjoying New Year's Eve meal...

What a fun party we took part in!  Samuel and I retired earlier and the other 4 brought in the New year with paper lanterns...

New Year's Day we attempted to "walk around the island".  We were encouraged to do this at low tide.  It seemed to work better with our schedules to embark on this walk at high tide.  Samuel had and still has a painful rash.  So going against my mother's instinct we left him at the guest house with his book.  

Even though we've never watched this on TV we felt like our walk took on a survivor episode.  Suddenly we were waist high in water 2 hours away from Samuel and working hard against waves and sharp coral all while the sun was setting.  I'm kinda like Cinderella with night fall as my vision becomes a whole new ordeal to reckon with.  My back is also in recovery from an injury I incurred in Ko Lanta.  I'm also thinking of my 10 year old anxiously waiting for his family and his dinner.  Well these Labuns made it!  Mikayla lost a toe nail and we all had some scrapes and cuts but are here to laugh about it.  I have been extremely blessed by my kids' endurance they have acquired through their many summers at pioneer camp!  

The onset of the survivor ordeal...we didn't know what was coming yet!

Mike, Sarah and Joseph on the walk..

Joseph...

Samuel lounging on the hammock..

The view from our place...

The girls playing volleyball on the beach...

We have another 2 days and then we begin to journey back to Bangkok enroute to Nepal.  We are excited about what lies ahead...

I've been digging into Romans this week in Kradan.  Thinking about the various folks we've been connecting with here and the ones we will in the future. 

 "And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him?  And how can they hear about him unless someone tells  them?  And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent?  ...'how beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!'" Romans 10:14-15

As we talk with folks exploring Buddism here we are reminded of the good news we have.  We pray for all of you to experience the good news of Christ in 2015.  What amazing hope we have!

 With love from all of us.

A walk in the jungle and swim in the sea

Today we had a jungle walk to sunset beach.  We had a great swim among the waves and looked onto the beautiful landscape.  Here are some pics...

A snake on the beach.  Guess where it decided to hide?  Inside a leg of a lawn chair!  

The walk began along the beach...

Then a stop over for lunch...

Looking to read the menu..,

Thailand jungle...

To the rocks...

And finally a refreshing swim!

An attempt by Mike to get some reading in...