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!!