Week in the Thai Islands

Brian and I were so fortunate to enjoy a week of relaxation together after our outreach here in Thailand. We headed down south to an area called Krabi and spent 6 days exploring the nearby beaches and Islands of Ao Nang, Railay beach, Ko Phi Phi, and Poda Island. We had incredible weather the entire time and enjoyed the breathtaking scenery and warm ocean water.

Brian and his new friend (you may have to look closely)

View from Railay beach

This was such a wonderful time together, but we are both very much looking forward to coming home in less than a week to see all our family and friends! We have a very busy travel schedule ahead of us, so please keep us in your prayers. Below is our itinerary, so you will know each day what leg of our journey we are on:

Itinerary
Tuesday, Dec 1st: Bangkok overnight
Wednesday Dec 2nd: Depart Bangkok in am, arrive in Qatar for an 18 hour layover (yikes!)
Thursday Dec 3rd: Depart Qatar, arrive in Cape Town in evening for Brian's graduation
Friday and Saturday: Visit friends in Cape Town and repack all of our things for trip home.
Sunday Dec 6th: Depart Cape Town in afternoon and head for home (2 layovers)
Monday Dec 7th: Arrive home in morning. Yay!

Can't wat to see you all!

Love,
Liz and Brian

Last week of outreach!

Hello!! Our apologies for not being able to update our blog more often but our schedule has been quite hectic and internet not always available. That being said...we are now on our final week of outreach!!!! Both Liz and I have been saying how hard it is to believe we have been gone for almost 6 months.

Outreach has been going well but I think we are all ready to head home soon. Everyone is feeling a little homesick and ready for some extended rest! I know Liz and I are looking forward to putting this Thailand heat behind us. It is SOOOOOO HOT here!!!!

Oh, my birthday was good! Liz and I spent my 38th riding elephants through the jungle and getting to ride a bamboo raft down a river that we had to stear with bamboo sticks. Much different from paddling a canoe! It was a great time though and then we finished off my birthday by going out to dinner with the team to a great Mexican restaurant. Yum!! Almost forgot...I got treated to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast!! Double yum!! (see photo!)

So as I said, outreach is winding down and we will be leaving Chiang Mai on Sunday to head back to Bangkok where we will catch a boat to the island of Ko Samet. The whole team will enjoy a couple days off there before Liz and I separate from them on 11/25. They will fly back to South Africa while Liz and I will head down to the Krabi area of southern Thailand and likely stay in either Ao Nang or Railay for a week. It will be so nice to have a week to ourselves - finally!!! And then we fly back to South Africa for 3 days, pack up, and fly back to America on 12/6. We are so excited to see you all!!!

Guess that's it for now. Not sure if we'll get another update posted before we fly home but that just means you'll have to get the update from us in person because we'll be back in 19 days!! See you all soon!!

Chiang Mai

Hello Everyone!

Brian and I have been away from each other for a week now--Brian is in a village with his DTS team, working with 2 different people groups, one is unreached and they are building relationship and trying to get a vision for how YWAM can best minister to them in the future. In the village with the other people group, they are speaking in church services, cell groups and putting together children's programs. I will see the team tomorrow where we will continue to work in Chiang Mai for 3 more weeks.

While the team has been away, I have been staying in Chiang Mai to help my friend Candace with her two children, while her husband is away in another village for the week. Candace was going to be alone with her 2 children the entire time, so Brian and I felt that it would be good for me to stay with her and her children to help

them in any way I could, even if it's just to be an extra set of hands and a sense of security, so as not to be all alone in a foreign country.

Candace and I have had a great time together. She was my small group leader during my SBS, so we got to know each other well, and have had a blast reuniting this week. I have enjoyed getting to know her kids better as well. Her son, Jack who is 2 1/2 and her daughter, Chloe who is 1, have been a lot of fun. We took them to the zoo the other day and they loved feeding the elephants and giraffes (something we could never do in the zoos in America). It was so fun to see their expressions when they saw all the animals (especially the extremely loud monkeys).

Candace and Jack feeding the elephant

Liz and Chloe feeding the elephant

Liz and Jack feeding the Giraffe

Liz and Jack hanging out with the elephant

I am looking forward to seeing Brian tomorrow! He is not in an area with internet, but he sends his love. We will update you more when we move to the next area this weekend.

We love you all!

Liz (and Brian)

Made it to Thailand!

Sawat dee kaa from Thailand! Our team made it safely last night after about 18 hours of traveling from South Africa. All our flights went perfectly and we had no problems with any visas or getting through customs, praise the Lord!

We were picked up by our contacts from YWAM Bangkok and taken out to our first Thai dinner. Delicious! I don't think any of us will have a tough time with the food here. :)

Today, we had orientation of Thailand and were sent out on our own for a scavenger hunt of the city. Our group was made up of 3 westerners, 1 South Korean, and 1 South African- we were quite a sight going around the city, trying our best to communicate in Thai in order to pick up all the things we needed! We managed to find everything, but not without complications and a few wrong turns. :) It is a little overwhelming when everything is written in Thai and many don't speak our language. Overall, we had a great cross-cultural lesson and could all empathize a little more with those who visit our country and don't know our language.

We are now 11 hours ahead of home (5 hours ahead of where we've come from) so will have a little adjusting to do, but both feel fairly energized and are very excited about being here! We will update you more soon, once we have a better idea of our itinerary.

We love you!
Liz and Brian
Liz and Katie saying good-bye in Muizenberg before heading to airport. They were sad to have to leave each other again after a great few months on Titus outreach.

The team arriving in Thailand and hopping into their transportation.

A Thai market-- one of the many stops on our scavenger hunt through the city. Here we were looking for a specific Thai dessert and fried bugs to purchase and eat...we only found the dessert...too bad! :)

Outreach begins!

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been so long since our last posting but as you can probably imagine - we have been busy!! Outreach officially began on Monday so all of us moved out of our rooms over the weekend to make room for the new students. We stayed at a hostel until yesterday and then relocated to a home in the town of Capri. Let me just say...our current accomodations are by no means typical for missionaries! As you will see from the pictures, this place is absolutely amazing and a nice blessing prior to leaving for Thailand.

This is where we are currently staying!

View from our deck!

Our bedroom for the next 4 days!

As for Thailand...we fly out on Tuesday (10/6) - and yes, we are very excited!! The details of what we will be doing while we're there are still being worked out but as it stands, we will be in Bangkok for about 10 days and then head north to Chiang Mai for 4-5 weeks. We'll try to provide more info as it's made available to us. One thing we do know is that once outreach is finished, our leaders have graciously allowed Liz and I to take an extra week for ourselves and fly back to Cape Town just in time for my graduation. We are planning to spend the extra week somewhere in southern Thailand, perhaps on one of their many islands. It is extremely cheap and so beautiful so we are excited to have this opportunity and time for ourselves! So that's where things are at with outreach right now. We hope to be able to continue to post throughout outreach but will obviously have to see what technology is available to us in Thailand.

Other than that, things are good. I will let you know that our base did experience a tragedy yesterday that shook everybody up a bit. One of the staff was killed when he fell from the rooftop deck where he was playing guitar. Really sad but the base leaders did a great job getting grief counsellors in immediately.

That's it for now. Our love to you all and thanks for keeping us in your prayers!!

Two years already!

Wow! We can't believe we've just celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary! We are blown away that we get to be celebrating it in such an incredible place, surrounded by so much beauty....We are so blessed! We are planning on taking a day off this weekend to formally celebrate, since we have both been very busy this week.

Tonight is my (Liz) last teaching in the township. I finish tonight and then head back tomorrow to Muizenberg to stay with Brian until we leave for outreach in Thailand in 2 weeks. We felt that it would be good for me to be with the DTS team for the next 2 weeks to continue bonding with them and be in on the preparation time for Thailand. I am mixed with emotions as I realize that my time here with the Titus Project (the teaching team I have been working with) is coming to a close. It is a new thing for me to be in this transition of moving from one outreach team here in South Africa to another team heading to Thailand, with very different people, culture, and ministry opportunities... However, I have great anticipation and excitement for what lies ahead. I already feel my heart growing for the Thai people and for the opportunity to work along side them.

Once again, thank you for your words of encouragement and prayers! we love you all!

More on Thailand

I just wanted to post a brief update to let you all know how things are going, especially as it relates to our outreach in Thailand.

Both my DTS and Liz's Titus program are continuing to be amazing experiences! It's hard to believe that I only have 3 more weeks in my lecture phase, which makes it just as hard to believe that we've almost been in South Africa for 3 months! Time certainly has flown by! Liz will finish Titus on September 12th and then have some down time prior to Thailand - which I know she will need considering how busy her program has kept her. It has been a huge blessing getting to spend a few weekends in the townships with Liz and being able to see her preach and teach.

As for Thailand...we've made some progress towards some of the specifics of our outreach. Right now it looks like we'll be flying from Cape Town to Bangkok on the 27th of September and returning to Cape Town somewhere around November 28th. When we arrive in Bangkok we will initally be staying at the YWAM base in Bangkok to receive an orientation on Thailand and its culture and people. We will stay in Bangkok for 3 weeks. After that we will travel north to Chiang Mai, which takes about 11-12 hours by bus (curious to see what kind of bus we're talking about!). We will be in this region for 6 weeks and are still working out the details of what we will be doing there but I believe for part of that time we will be staying in some of the hill tribe villages. This is also an area that is a primary source for human trafficking so we could be doing some work to help combat that problem. We will update the blog as we learn more. Anyway, class is about to start so gotta run but as always, our love to you all and thanks for keeping us in your prayers! Love, Brian & Liz