Happily checking back in with you all in the new year…how’s your 2022 going? If we haven’t heard from you, how was your Christmas? Send us a message! Here’s our ’22 Quarter 1 Update:

We left the country for the first time since coming to Thailand…it was an…um…immunity-boosting experience… We had smooth sailing through Dubai (wished we could have left the airport). It was a surprisingly long and tiring journey. We made it through customs in NYC and felt like we were “home” but still had one more flight. That was hard, so next time we hope to land where we’re staying.

It was so sweet to see family in-person, meet our nephew for the first time, go to church, and meet up with friends!!! Made everything worth it. A few days in, we realized the sore throat and tiredness wasn’t just a travel cold + jet lag… so we isolated ourselves at a hotel for a while so grandparents could enjoy Christmas as planned and head home without exposure.

Most of our trip looked like:

We then continued on with the trip, as socially distanced as possible until we were feeling better (which took a good week and a half), when we played new board games, participated in house projects, and experienced winter power outages!

Some of our trip looked like:

Not without anxiety, but with God’s grace, we made it back to Bangkok and out of test-and-go with negative test results. The ICS semester started online but quickly resumed in-person (hopefully for good). We do have community spread so there is a lot of contact tracing, with some students continually learning online. This adds another level of difficulty (and lots of substitute teaching for Lyndsey…she really really enjoyed teaching HS Science for a few weeks). It’s so nice for Jonathan to be seeing projects come together and teaching 3D in-person …ceramics is going much better!

We’ve been thrilled at all the extracurricular events/experiences that have come back, like Truth, Temptation, and Transformation week, where students contemplate tough trending topics, Eagles day-camp, Serving and Learning Together trips, where students engage in community service learn how they can impact the world in ways that use their God-given passions and talents.

It is awesome to get to do these and feel a new level of connection with the students. There have been many positive non-teaching interactions, which is why we are here. It means a lot to be trusted enough to be opened up to and for opportunities to speak into their lives and offer encouragement and hope. Students have told us that it is so special and unique how we are invested in them, their life, and their hearts, not just their education. 

After so many emotionally exhausting engagements and extra prep work, we are definitely in need of time to recharge and catch up on regular work. (OH, and L took her swimmers for an away-meet for the first time in two years! We took a van to an international school on the other side of the city, where seven teams were competing and every athlete got at least one personal best time! It was exciting.)

Lyndsey has been getting so much encouragement from locals excited about food since learning from her. Hearing women realize that food is more then just “food” is inspiring because it really is neat what nourishment can do for your body! When women share having tried something new or feeling more energized, Lyndsey is encouraged, knowing she is supporting them and enabling them to do what they do with even more passion. 

Songkran Break is in 4 weeks and we will have our first visitors! We are beyond excited to share favorite finds and find new ones with family…you should come too 😉 As always, thank you for the emotional, spiritual, and financial support that enables us to do all we do. It makes you a part of the great Kingdom work too, and we love being on a mission together, with you!

…and because L’s such a foodie and hopes you are too…she wants to share some food pics: