Thailand!

We have arrived in Chang Mai, our new home!
However, Its been awhile since the last update, i must back track...
Bangkok...We arrived at Bethel, and they kindly set us in a wonderful air conditioned room, we went to the local Thai meeting that Sunday (after Nepal by now we were quite use to not understanding anything that was said at meetings). At meeting were introduced to this awesome sister Kai-Ou (when translated her name literally means fighting chicken hehe ) anyways, she offered to take us around and get our phones/other random things set up, which was such an amazing help! Afterward she took us to her families restaurant, our first real experience with authentic Thai food, OH MY WORD so delicious.

Bethel

 

The next day at bethel we joined in for morning worship, a tour, then lunch. There is 61 people at the branch, all working hard. We meet a great Gilead graduate couple, originally from California, they just got arrived in Thailand from Malaysia only a week before us. The tour was eye opening, I didn't realize how much effort went into translating the literature from English to Thai...there are five translation groups, each made up of three different people, one working as a translator, one as another composer, and the other as a proofreader.  There isn’t a computer program that helps with translation here, these brothers and sisters translate all of the literature that spiritually feeds thailand, pretty amazing.  After feeling quite spoiled and meeting wonderful couples from around the world on all different assignments we were eager to head to Chang Mai and begin ours...

Where they do audio recordings

 

One of the translation teams

After yet another 10 hour long bus ride we arrived at our final destination.  The first few days we were focused on finding our way around, memorizing the city roads, and going on a food tour...you know, all the important things.
An overview of Chang Mai:
The older part of the city is a delightful square surrounded by a moat full of heaps of fresh food markets (especially fruit) tasty coffee, and cute shops.
Its clean, green, and hospitable here. For being a city that almost holds 1 million people it has quite a small town feeling in some areas.
There is a huge Night Bazaar that's teeming with fresh food and local crafts, this is put on every single night so its not unusual to see locals and some foreigners walking around the streets, sitting in coffee shops, and selling food at midnight or later here...they work late and sleep in.  Public transportation surprisingly isn't huge here, so we now have a scooter that we putt around on. 
We have gone to multiple grocery stores and priced out food for cooking ourselves, surprisingly enough it is not cost effective to prepare meals here. Making our own coffee is the only coast effective thing to do, otherwise you can get safe, delicious, healthy meals prepared fresh on the streets for under $1.

A Cardamom Latte...Not quite like Backporch, but enough to feel a little bit of home

 

Every morning the side streets are filled with fresh flower markets

 

Living like locals: Breakfast...green curry and pad Thai anyone??

Beautiful Grocery store right?!

 Wednesday night we met the congregation for the first English meeting we have heard in 7 weeks!! It is quite a mix of people, a few other Americans, ones from New Zealand, Myanmar, Japan, England, and a ton of Aussies (I'm already working on my aussie accent).  The friends in the congregation instantly took us in, and not a day goes by that a big group doesn't get together for a meal or an activity...after service of course. 

The Kingdom hall (one of the 4 in Chang Mai)

We often get to the territory in the back of pickups, I love it!

 

Me and 'Dream' in the Thai ministry

Details about service, our new apartment, our new friends, attempting to learn a new language, and how the days already seem to be full of plans is to come!