Three week anniversary

So it has been three weeks... what?! Time flies when you are preaching. We are still giving our toddler presentations of "read this" which is so frustrating when you want to give people something they can really get their teeth into. On Monday we preached in a territory that hadn't been touched in 10 years! Rebekka spoke with a woman whose friend had died in a plane crash and the woman was so touched by their visit, she gave Christina a fan. I was assigned with a sister who spoke no English- nada, zip. Besides our inability to communicate she took all the doors and actually talked right over me when I did try. I was so frustrated and prayed most of the morning, but showed no emotion because we're in Thailand, the land of smiles, so I just stayed Thai and smiled. As I was relegated to leaving tracts in doors of not-at-homes. But finally I spoke to three men in a metal shop and left them the magazine on how to be good fathers. They all just stood there staring at me, probably didn't understand a word I said, but they smiled and nodded and we all "wai"ed (little bow) at the end and they watched me tottle off all happy. If out of nothing more than curiosity they looked over the magazine to see what that poor little farang (foreigner) was trying to explain.  Then I happily went back to stuffing mailboxes. On Sunday the little sister came up to me and was making all kinds of gestures and speaking in Thai. Eventually I understood what she was talking about as she mimed baptism. I had asked her when she was baptized, in full mime, on Monday and she had told me something I thought was a year. I said chai, chai (meaning ok) and off we went merrily stuffing tracts in boxes and listening to her presentation. This chai business gets me into trouble because people assume I understand. Anyhow she was trying to tell me something and finally I hijacked a Japanese sister to verify that she is in fact saying that she is an unbaptized publisher of only four months. Well that explains the zealous taking over of all my doors. :) Glad I kept smiling. On Sunday she came and said that we are partners Monday again... O boy! Well training my new preaching buddy, with four words of Thai, will be an interesting challenge in the weeks to come! That same Monday I was given a Thai name too, that has apparently caught on like wildfire, because I'm now called on by that name for comments at meetings too. Ancheli- a flower, is now my name.
We've been talking about getting Thai massages since before we came. But every time we tried to get directions it was really unclear. One sister told us to take the bus to until we got to the round point where Robinsons is, when you are going the same direction as the horses tale you know you are going the right way for home. Christina and I looked at each other and laughed, well that was as clear as mud. Another sister drew us a little map to another place and we eventually found it. First we went into a hotel they said left, left... so left we went and ended up in a fitness room, where a trainer pointer and said left, left. Finally we came up to this fancy carved building and thought o boy we are out of our price range. We walked into the cool marble lobby filled with wicker lounge chairs and after some deliberation we realized that it was only about seven dollar an hour for a massage and decided to splurge. When the ladies escorted us upstairs and washed our feet with scented oils and in marble basins we were really glad we hadn't left and wandered down the dusty road in the searing heat. We changed into loose tops and capris, well they were capris on me anyways :) and lay on the mats on the floor. The girls came in and kept giggling and whispering. It was like the Vietnamese nail shops where you can't understand but you know they are making fun of you, if only our Thai was good enough to know what they were saying. For two hours they rubbed, poked, prodded, stretched and cracked us. A couple of times I thought she might twist me in half and she said relax, relax. At the end she had me sitting my hair hanging all in front of my face as she tried to twist my torso 200 degrees and she said relax relax! you no relax. I started laughing and so hard she couldn't get me to comply. When they left us we couldn't stop laughing. But we were really relaxed.
It dawned on us that we were hitting the three week mark and as is so often the case all we had seen of our new locale was our territory, the supermarket and the branch. Why is it you are never a tourist where you live. Eight years in DR... what did I actually visit, not much. So we decided to be tourists for a day and see a bit of Bangkok before 4 months had gone by. And so began the adventure. One of the first on our list were the floating markets, it featured on the front of the Watchtower lately.

But after we mapped out our route and planned everything we couldn't find one open on weekdays. One listed is open the second and sixth days of the waxing and waning moon... Great an algebraic equation for market day. Essentially it wasn't open the day we wanted :) So we decided to visit the Grand Palace and surrounding Wats. All went according to plan until we were told it was closed in the morning because it was a Thai holiday, the final day of

the Songkran festivities. Wasn't that two weeks ago? So a Tuk Tuk driver befriended us and took us to the river to get us to take a longboat, think Thai gondola. And we tried to explain in Tinglish that we didn't have any money etc.
We actually climbed back in the Tuk Tuk and the driver was really sad, because he wanted us to be happy- because we are friends. Where have I heard this before... Ooooh right! In DR and Morocco and Haiti and Peru and so many places. Same tactics all over the world. Eventually we ended up going on the longboat because our Tuk Tuk driver somehow got the guy to agree to half the price they were asking for one person, for the both of us. So off we went to Wat Arun across the murky river- that we really hope we don't ever end

up in. As we got off the longboat he said 20 minutes and sped off.
So we ran in to the garden area and of course it started pouring rain. But with only 20 minutes we forged ahead. All the tourists watched us from sheltered pathways, as we climbed the narrow, uneven, slick with rain stone steps to the top. I know my feet are longer than the average Thai but seriously a toddlers feet would be too big for these steps. Umbrellas in one hand and the rail tightly gripped in the other we tried to quickly, but safely scale to the top. I am not accident prone at all so there was no cause for worry there... :) It made for some really great pictures though with the wet stone glistening in the sun.

Then we floated down the canals of Thonburi and eventually made our way back to shore where we headed to IKEA.

A bus, two trains, a bus and a taxi later we wandered into the cool halls of IKEA and got lost browsing for a few hours. We were able to get a table and chairs and a Formica countertop that we put to good use on our little bookcases. Yay! Chairs!!! Now we feel quite civilized. On Saturday I stayed home and reconfigured our room so we even have a little makeshift kitchen now!! TO christen our new home we had some sisters over for snacks and Cuba Libres. Of course buying alcohol here is an adventure with all kinds of rules like no sales between 2 and 5 pm. But at last we managed to get some and even charmed the internet company into finally installing internet for us! What, what!!! Saturday it all came together, our little room, rum and internet :) Happy anniversary to us!
Next week we have to go to Malaysia for a visa run but when we get back I hope to post some pictures of our adventures there. Take care!!

Visiting the Branch

With the Zone visit sorted and done we called the branch to schedule a chat with the service department. They invited us for lunch so we headed out early for the 2 hour bus ride across the city. When we arrived a very kind brother from California came out to meet us and took us up to his office. He was obviously swamped with papers everywhere and signs for the public preaching campaign crammed into his office. But he took us around to meet everyone and sat us down and the first thing he asked was, how are you? do you need anything? We were both really touched by how kind and concerned he was about us. Then we went to lunch and had veggies (yay!), still coming off our bread and ramen rations this past weekend, and delicious salmon. They don't use chopsticks but a spoon/fork combo, where they push the food onto the spoon with the fork. All was fine until the cantaloupe, that I couldn't manage to stabilize and cut. First I stabbed a chunk and tried to cut it off with the spoon, the melon wedge flew off my plate onto the table, on my second attempt I stabbed the melon wedge and tried to carve off a piece, the piece I was trying to cut off launched into my lap and ended on the floor under the table. I started to laugh but the older couple at my end of the table just looked at me with horror and pushed a knife toward me. Later everyone else ate theirs like popsicles with the fork stuck in it. A couple newly arrived from Japan took care of us, they actually came to serve but were pulled into Bethel as he has video/photography training they needed. They let us go in the sound booth after lunch.

The other brother at our table has been in Bethel for a week. I think he might be in for translation... not so sure but he was serving in the North as a special pioneer. After lunch we went on a tour of the branch they have a really nice display of all the languages they translate literature into and the tribes locations,

some biblical artifacts

 

 

and the history of the truth in Thailand, including old missionary passports, dictionaries and preaching and survival tools and the first translators desk.

 

 

The first Thai magazine

Since most Thais are not familiar with the Bible, Jehovah's Witnesses, the concept of God or even sin, it is a really nice way to make things more tangible.

 

There are now about 3000 Thai publishers in 90 congregations in Thailand.

 

On our tour we met Crawfords (yb91 p.296) who served in Quebec before going to Gilead. We reminisced about Tortiere and Maple Syrup.

We also saw Brother Crockett (yb91 p291) again and saw this great old black and white picture of him.

This is one of the translation teams.

After our tour we met with the brother in the service department again, we discussed our options and they suggested we remain in Thomburi and take a Thai course. So this is where we`ll be for the next few months. We came home feeling refreshed and encouraged. As we waited for the bus we watched the fisherman in the stinky water.

Our bus never came so eventually I would call out to passing buses our destination and they would all shake their heads and look at me like I was odd. Haven`t quite toned down from DR to Thai culture, I guess.

Today we went out in the ministry and then had lunch as a group, spicy green papaya salad, yum! I continue to give my baby presentation...

After service I tried to figure out the internet issue and after haggling in Tinglish for the better part of three hours I hope I have found a solution so I can work in peace and load pictures. It was quite fun to see Buddhist monks at the mall buying books and magazines, they were also on my bus ride home.

Maybe after new years they head out to get new stuff for the year? Anyhow saw a lot today. The kid on the bus nearly fell he jumped up so quickly to give them seats... maybe it's extra good karma?! At the mall I found flip flops on sale so I told the girl I was a size 9, she looked, said something to some other girls, then said, 6 only no more big... ah Asia will I ever find shoes or clothes :) She asked me why I was here and as I explained with my elaborate sign language, the sales girls were staring and giggling. I am a source of great entertainment, everywhere I go. On the way home the bus I caught of course had to get gas, sigh! of all the buses, in all the world... I was greatly entertained by this sign though :)

We might head to IKEA tomorrow woot woot! I'm so easily pleased. Hope you are all well.