were home!

wow, I'm so sorry everyone. I'm not sure how i haven't written this yet. many apologies!

as most of you know, we are home! and have been for quite some time.. i guess ill just update a little bit of our last week in Thailand since the last blog was only up until the end of april. we spent our last week living in Kris and silk's house with them. most of the week was preparing to come home. we taught at the psychiatric hospital and compassion international for the last time. both programs had mini goodbye parties for us.

On Sunday the 5th of May we left our beloved little town of Ubon, and headed to the Giant city of Bangkok where we spent our last 2 days. Kris and silk came along with us and we spent one last afternoon with our REACH team friends and the rest of our time hanging out with kris and silk. one of the nights we went to Silk's parents house and had dinner with them. it was nice to be able to say our final goodbyes to the friends we made in Bangkok when we first arrived to Thailand. On Tuesday, May 7 at around 11:55 pm we began our journey home. our first flight was about 11 hours long and i slept through most of it surprisingly! Karla was awake for most of it i think. when Vicky gave us our itinerary, i read it wrong and thought that we had a 16 hour layover in Germany! both of us were dreading it, and just wanted to be home. i looked at our boarding passes in Germany and it ended up that we only have 5 hours to waste, not 16! that alone was a huge blessing to us. our second flight seemed super long to me. i was just ready to be home! finally on may 8th sometime in the afternoon, we arrived to Philly and were reunited with our families.

we were home for about 4 weeks before debrief, because we were waiting for the spain team to come home. i would say those weeks were somewhat of an emotional roller coaster full of being excited to be home and see old friends and family, to being extremely sad about being home and missing thailand and our new families there. some days were better than others. i think the best way i can describe it is saying that i feel like i haven't been in "reality" for the past 8(ish) months and now I'm back in reality and don't know how to be sometimes. since we have been home, i think i can speak for both of us in saying that were now learning about the new "me" because were not the same Bekah and Karla we were when we left.

on June 9 we reunited with the rest of the step teams for debrief. it was a relaxing and helpful week to be able to decompress everything we were feeling together and also learn how the others were handling their time at home (at least the colombia team) and try to help prepare the spain team for some things they would be experiencing when they got home. Over all the week was great.

Now we are both doing our best to find our place at home and continue to readjust. thank you all so much for all of your prayers and support and reading every week. sorry again for the slacking! this is the last blog post for this trip. thanks again :)

God bless you all

Time To Catch Up a Bit: Sung kran, Camp, Bekah's Birthday

Sawatdii tuk kon; hello everyone. Hope you all had a good two weeks since I believe that’s about the time its been since we last talked.

I think a lot has happened since we last spoke; I believe Bekah left off with me about to tell you about Sungkran which is the three day nation-wide water fight. The first day, we went to Det Udom with a friend on the back of a truck. We had filled up barrels of water and threw water from the back of the truck onto the people on the side of the road and onto people from other trucks. It seems that if you hit the fahrang, you get 1,000 points! We did that and then went to a friend’s house and threw water onto people from the side of the road. The second day, we went to TookTa’s house after church and threw water onto people for a while. And then the last day we went to a big park that had hoses and sprinklers everywhere. We walked through that with our friend and then sat and talked for a bit and took some pictures. Also, they like to put this pastey stuff on your face; it seems like the white males with blonde hair get paste the most because our friend had over 100 people touch his face as he walked through. Bekah had like almost 100 and I had about 60. (For those of you who don’t know, Im short with brown wavy hair and I was tan then)….so! That was fun and tiring. We rested on Monday; plus that’s our Sabbath so of course we would!

That takes us to the 16^th of April and we didn’t really do that much that day. On the 17^th we went to the Psychiatric Hospital, had a big prayer meeting in which everyone shared what they had been learning and then what they needed prayer for and then! We prayed for each other; it was super cool.

On the 18^th we had breakfast at our leader’s house, team worship and prayer. After that, we all went to the village and Bekah and I played with one girl while Kris and Silk talked to some friends.

 

On the 19^th we had a prayer meeting and then we went to the Psychiatric Hospital. I don’t know if you guys remember the movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids, but it’s a good one. :D

 

Saturday was chill day and then Sunday we traveled to the beach in a van with some friends, Took Ta and Geng as well as Kris and Silk. We went to the beach with the orphanage and had a camp with them, played with them on the beach and taught them some English songs, had worship, played games and watched some movies. It was lots of fun! The camp was only two days but it took about 9-12 hours ot travel to the beach soo! It was a four day event.
 

Bekah’s birthday was spent in a car so tonight, the 25^th, we celebrated with some good food, chocolate cake and Phase 10. Super fun!  Now, Im gonna have to leave you guys because Im a bit tired. Hope you all have a great day. Tune in soon for one of the last updates from us here in Ubon…the time is dwindling. Please keep up the prayers! Theyre still needed. Thanks for all your support guys! Fantastic!! Yall are absolutely fantastic! ;D

End of Bangkok/ retreat

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone's week was wonderful, ours sure was! Let me tell you about it

I think karla ended last week with taking the Mast kids to the water park. That was a whole lot of fun!

The day after that we did some
Shopping at imperial world (department store) to get craft supplies and some other things for SEAAR (south east Asia anabaptist retreat) we will
Talk about that later though! Then we bought some fun gifts for a few friends and headed back to JP (where the reach team stays) in the evening we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant (SO yummy, but we decided it can't compete with chipotle! I guess we'll have to wait a little Longer for that!) after dinner we went to a farang market (more like A Grocery store) and bought exciting things like pretzels, and pop tarts, things we don't have in Ubon and miss from home! We paid a pretty penny for them, but it was worth it! Its funny how excited we get about silly things that are so easily accessible at home. After the market we headed to the red light district (one of them anyways) and did a prayer walk around the area. It was different than what i was expecting, but still shocking. We prayed to ourselves while we walked and then headed to a near by McDonald's get coffee and talk about the things we were thinking or feeling. We had some really good conversations about that, and other things about life with the REACH
Team. I'm not sure if karla mentioned this before, but we enjoyed our time with them a lot and it was fun to reconnect and see what God is doing in their hearts and minds. We love them!

The next day we headed to SEAAR in a big 15 passenger van. That evening when we got there we just hung out and caught up with Sarah!

For the whole retreat karla and I, the REACH team, and Sarah were child care workers. Karla worked (by herself!) with ages 6-12. She had 3 girls and did some fun bible school type things. I think they enjoyed their time a lot, and karla did too! She didn't have a weekly theme, but she made a theme for each day. Nikki and I worked with ages 3-5 and our theme was Gods
Promises. We taught different stories such as Noah, Daniel in the lions den, Abraham, and the Easter story, and learned about the promises God kept to each of those people. We made crafts and read LOTS of books, and played outside. We had the kids from 9-12:15am, and then from 3:45-5:15pm.
Mornings were more structured and learning and afternoons were more
Laid back and play time. We loved getting to know the kids, and we had a
Lot of Fun!

For 3 days after the retreat, we stayed at the resort with the REACH team and Sarah to relax and have some more time together. We spend most
Of our time at the pool and the beach.
It was beautiful!

Yesterday we came back to reality and traveled back to ubon. This weekend is song kran festival (3 day nation wide
Water fight!!) we are excited to see what its all about. I believe it starts tomorrow! Karla will be back next week to tell you all about it! Until then, thanks for reading and for all your prayers and support!

Goodness gracious! So its been like almost two weeks since we last wrote-thatd be my fault. Whoopsy! Thanks for waiting dear friends! :D

So I believe we were walking about what the Jesus Festival/Miracle Night/Henry Madava (they’re all different names for the same event just in case I say different things, Im still talking about the same night, alright? Alright!)

 

So Friday and Saturday morning, the 22^nd and 23^rd of March, we had early morning seminars with Pastor Henry for the leaders and pastors of the churches in Ubon. He talked about prayer and the power of Christ within us. That as we would see miracles happening that night and within the next three days, we needed to remember that it was God’s power working through us. He talked about a verse that told us to 1) preach the gospel.  2) heal the sick.   3) cast out demons and 4) raise the dead. It was very good. We had worship and then he spoke and they provided lunch. Yum! On the first day, Bekah, Piak (our friend from the house church) and I went over to the field that we were going to have the Miracle Night to help set up but it was during the hottest part of the day so no one wanted to work yet so we ended up just sitting under a tent and talking to some guy that wanted to sell us some Organo coffee. Haha! Make new friends everywhere. Then at about 4:00 Bekah and I went up to help Kris and Silk set up for the Prayer Team time. The first night…so many things happened! So many things went wrong! Lets see here: the projecting wasn’t projecting onto the screen, the sound wasn’t working properly, Henry Madava and his team were lost in the University (where we were having the Miracle Night). Guess what? As people on the prayer team started to arrive, those prayer requests were lifted up to the One True God who hears His people and answers them. And He did! I don’t think there was a prayer request that wasn’t answered within the first five minutes of us praying. IT WAS CRAY! GOD answers us soo fast! Hurray for Jesus! :D  So yeah. We started at like 5:30 to pray. We sang songs and prayed for people to come, for people to be open, for Henry to have the right words, etc. At about 9:00 some of the team went down onto the field because Henry was having a time of prayer for the sick. There was a row of people that were sick-paralyzed, slumped over, hurt backs, hurt knees and legs, blind people, deaf people, people that couldn’t speak…it was nuts! Ive never seen some of that before! :O  Yet, GOD is the Provider and the Healer now and forevermore. Bekah and I stayed up in the Prayer Room and prayed for the people on the field. AS the night went on, Henry asked anyone that was healed to come to the front and give a testimony. There were lots of people healed. Some people who couldn’t see were gradually beginning to see. An older lady that couldn’t hear out of her right ear for 20 years could finally hear. Lots of older men and women with hurt backs who had to walk bent over, could finally walk up straight. Let me tell you what, guys. You hear this kind of stuff and you can see videos of it but sometimes you still may have a bit of doubt in the back of your mind…I was that person. Not so anymore! I saw the before and after of people who couldn’t hear well or who walked funny walking perfectly fine! :D  GREAT! It was sooo cool! GOD is such a cool God guys! There are no limitations to His wonder and His power and His healings! After the prayer, we helped clean up the Prayer Room and went home.

We pretty much went through the same thing the second day-Saturday-except that we went home in the afternoon from 1-3:30. That’s a two and half hour break, folks! It was a long day to say the least. And more healings the second night! Bekah went down to the field the second night but I stayed up in the Prayer Room and just watched what was happening and prayed for everyone. All peoples; the helpers, Pastor Henry and his team, the translators, the Prayer Team, the sick, the other people praying for the sick.

On Sunday, we did not have a seminar with Henry in the morning so our house church went to a market close to the field by the university and handed out fliers to the workers there. It was hot but I think it was good! :D  We ate with our house church and got a wonderfully delicious dessert. It was sticky rice with coconut milk and sweet mango on the side with these little crunchy things. Oh my stars! It was soo delicious Especially because this is the season for mangos now! Yummy! They were all so surprised that we had never had it before. :O  GASP!  Haha. That evening was the last evening for the Jesus Festival. Both Bekah and I went down to the field and prayed for people. For the whole group and with people personally. Nothing really changed to the sick people that I prayed for as I was praying for them but we know that God can continue to heal them! :D  We stayed afterward to help clean up and that was actually really fun. SO!  We learned a ton and lots of miracles happened and God did His stuff there and stirred in the peoples hearts…and ours as well….and yeah! Just all around good stuff. We were ready for Monday to come though because we were exhausted.

Monday evening we went to Pizza Company with the House Church to celebrate Geng’s birthday and because Bonus is leaving for London soon! :O  Soooo that was a celebration and goodbye and that was fantastic!  Afterwards, we went bowling and Took Ta & Bonus’ mom and dad came as well. That was super fun. They’re both super cute. Also, our friend Katie’s brother was visiting so that was nice to have him join us as well.

Tuesday we had Thai tutoring, as usual, but theeeennn! We went over to Took Ta and Bonus’ house to make some Hamburger Soup!  It was delicious! We were so happy to have a stove to cook something with and we taught Bonus how to make it. She said she wants to make it in London…score one for the American Cooks! Aww yeah! ;D

On Wednesday we went to the Psychiatric Hospital and then went out to dinner with Geng, Took Ta and Bonus. We got delicious dessert after that. It was bread with this green milky, sweet sauce. Yeah! Don’t remember what it was called but still good! :)  Oh! And guess what guys!? Les Mis is out there on watch32.com for free! Bekah and I watched it. Good times!

Our last day of Thai tutoring was held on Thursday the 28^th from 12:30-2:00pm. Thank you very much to all you people who supported us in this long journey! ;D  teehee. We got coffee with Bonus and then watched a movie with her and went out to dinner. It was our very last time to see her so we exchanged some gifts. What a good friend we have! :) 

On the 29^th, we flew to Bangkok and joined some of the friends that we went to Thai school with! It was great to see them again and have a bigger group of girls to spend our time with/ We went out to lunch and then just caught up with them until the sun went down and evening came. We went to a steak place with some of our other friends with the Team we were with before-we’re going to be spending a few days in Bangkok with them just to see what theyre doing now and to encourage them and then we’re all going on a retreat and staying a few days afterward to hang out at the beach! It’s gonna be great! :D  

Saturday we went shopping with Brittany (one of the girls on the team. There is also Rachel and Nikki and they’re terrific girls! Glad we can hang out with them!) and her leader, Lynn. Got lots of stuff! Super hot but good. I think we shopped for about five hours, I believe. We went with them to the park and joined Nikki and Rachel in the late afternoon, got some grub and then went back to our room in the apartment.

Sunday the 31st we had an Easter service at their leaders house with a whole bunch of people. Bekah and I have become accustomed to being with about 8-12 people for church. There were 30 people there…bit of a change but it was fun. So we sang some songs and shared about what we learning from God that week and what we wanted to thank Him for. Then we split up. There were a lot of visitors there; people from Laos, Nicaragua, America, Thailand and the Philippines…soo! We split into Thai, English and Spanish speaking groups and read the Easter Story together and then talked about it. There was some leftovers candy so we gladly helped the little kids finish that up! :D   We went to another friend’s house and went swimming. We babysat their six year old boy-all five of us…haha!-and got some street food. Then we watched Ice Age 3 with him and talked until it was time to leave.

Today is April 1^st which is crazy to think about because April seemed so long to me in November when I left. We took Claire, Eliza and Silas (Tom and Candice’s kids…I believe we talked about them…oh my….back in December maybe?) to the mall to go to a waterpark on the top level. Went down slides, played in little pools and fountains and such. Then we got some ice cream and now I am writing this as we are back home relaxing. Tonight we will grab some supper on the street and watch a movie. Bit tired now. Busy busy busy! :O   Hope you guys were okay holding up for so long. Thanks for reading this everybody! :D

      Until next time!

Pictures!

They might be out of order. They are from anywhere between the last time we posted pictures until now. Some of them are from when we went to India/Bangkok. Enjoy! Sorry again that they are so late