Happy December! We hope you enjoying the holiday season as much as possible while staying safe. We wish we could spend Christmas with you, but are thankful for video chats and opportunities here in Thailand. Jonathan initiated crafting a unique Christmas tree, we attended the band performance, volunteered for school Christmas parties, and are having fun contributing to festive potlucks! Read on for the latest and enjoy the pics:
Jonathan’s Work & Art in the Park
Jonathan is glad to have successfully completed teaching for the semester and now has a tall stack of projects to grade. A highlight was the end-of-semester art show the high school students put on in the gallery space. It was well-attended and a fun way to celebrate the hard work and creativity everyone put in.
Most of his classes were only one semester long, and he will be teaching new classes in the spring. This provides an excellent opportunity to start fresh and he is particularly excited to be teaching a drawing course, a skill-set he has had the opportunity to begin tutoring in too! Outside the classroom, he has been finding opportunities to be creative, like painting a a swan boat at the park (while Lyndsey jogged and chatted with friends).
Lyndsey’s Work – First Mae Sot Visit
My first visit to Mae Sot was more than worth the trip! The mountains are stunning and their residents are so kind. It was neat to learn more about Imagine Thailand’s programs in the area and see them in action. The soy-milk they produce and serve is nutritious and delicious! The clean water systems they have installed in clinics and schools are impressive. It was inspiring to see their focus on sustainability, training locals to service them.
I visited markets, where locals buy toiletries and ingredients for cooking in order to learn about the items available. I visited a community of Burmese migrants to interview women with infants about birth experiences, daily lives, current diets, and child feeding practices. They were very honest, providing valuable information for learning how to serve them best.
The two children’s homes (orphanage/boarding houses) I visited, the migrant schools board, clinic nurses and midwives, the development officer for the migrant/refugee hospital, and coordinator of the ethics board were all open to and excited about partnering. Every meeting went fantastically with so many promising opportunities for Maternal-and-Child Nutrition!!! I cannot wait to learn more from and work together with the individuals and families in the communities, as well as the individuals and organizations already serving them!
On my next visit, in about a month and a half, I plan to hold Health and Nutrition workshops with staff and children in the boarding houses, teaching them about food groups, nutrients important for their bodies, and how to obtain them affordably and conveniently. We will also walk the older students through the markets to see what is available and how to make wise nutritious purchases, as most have never been to a market, but will start their own families soon.
The Mae Tao Clinic will set up interviews for me with inpatient and outpatient women, the midwife team, and the reproductive unit doctors. Staff and I will brainstorm maternal nutrition classes, identifying barriers/facilitators to hosting them and to women attaining adequate diets for healthy pregnancies, bodies and babies. We will discuss strategies for success and outline next-steps for program development/implementation.
Our Bangkok Community
Integrating into the community and relationship-building in Bangkok have been so life-giving! We love our church group, who celebrated Jonathan’s birthday with a surprise ice cream cake! Lyndsey’s 9th grade life-group has become pretty tight-knit this first semester and looks forward to the next! Jonathan is getting more confident rock climbing, hangs/chats with friends have been so sweet, and market/city excursions have been a blast!
All About the Angle
We’ve also had the chance to visit some cool museums! …and there are so many more to check out!
The Ask
Continue to pray for both of us and our influence here in Bangkok, and praise God that we have felt so welcomed and our work is being so well-received! To meet my fundraising goal, I need:
five $100 monthly donations & five $50 monthly donations
Would you please consider taking one of these slots? Simply start an automatic monthly donation of $50, $100, or any amount through Asian Outreach International (Fund: “Imagine Thailand, Lyndsey Preg”), or manually each month via PayPal or Venmo. I hope you join with me in showing Christ’s love to Burmese women and children in Mae Sot!
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
Thank you for reading, providing feedback, and supporting! Let us know what you have been up to. We hope you have a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year! Can’t wait to hear from you and update you on all to come!
Such wonderful work you are both doing! I am incredibly proud to know and love you both as our totally sold out for Jesus, grandchildren! You are a lovely couple making a difference in this world! I know you thank the Lord for every opportunity given you.
So excited about your first trip to Mae Sot! Loved seeing your giant-sized small group and pics from Jonathan’s first semester. Cannot wait to come see it all in person. Much love!