A Summary of Our First Two Weeks into Thailand

So we are alive and well in Bangkok, Thailand! Hopefully you were able see we made it safely via Facebook.

Arriving here has made us all the more thankful for the people who helped us get here, as well as continue to support us while we serve here! We really have come to see that God has given us the unique opportunity to serve The Well in what ever way possible.

We thought we would give a short overview of what we have done in the first two weeks! Mind you, this is not all the details, but thought you would want to know why we have not updated yet :). We have been pretty busy, which is great!

Day 1:

Arrive in Thailand. Attempt to stay up to 9:30pm to get off jet leg. Sort of succeed :)

Day 2:

Come to the Well. Meet most of the women during the weekly worship. Get a tour of the two main buildings the Well operates. Basicly there is the education center where most of the counseling/teaching happens and the Business center where the women are making different things as a form of income. The staff here put us right to work! I help do some photos, and Jess helps organize

Day 3:

Go shopping for essentials. Phones, pillows esc. Go to an evening church meeting

Day 4:

Church in the morning, Jessica's Birthday celebration!

Day 5:

Get further orientation on how the education wing of The Well works, as this probably would be our focus while we are here. Sit in on a few classes. Get into our new apartment. Buy a few more essentials we need for our apartment.

Day 6:

Jess talks to the main person in charge of managing the girls counseling. They decide together to let Jess manage 10 women's cases. Basically she is going to be a social worker for 10 women! This is a lot of work and will take up most of her week especially in the afternoon.

Day 7:

We deal with some of the difficulties associated with moving to a different country and being paid by support. Don't worry it all got worked out! I find out that one of the volunteer Bible teachers had to cancel his class last minute, and decide to take up the class till he can get back. O and the first class starts tomorrow!

Day 8:

I teach a Bible class, Jess sits in on her first counseling session to get an idea on how the process works here. We find out that the teens our going on a youth camp to the north east Thailand, and that they need more adults to travel with. The staff also think it would be a great time to get to know the prevention side of the ministry (called Cycle Breakers) that two women have just started. These women are the ones doing the teen camp. So we decide to go. O and they leave tomorrow and the trip is five days! I go to a mens leadership group that meets every Thursday.

Day 9-14:

Travel up to North east Thailand via taxi and bus with a bunch of teens and other leaders. Spend the next days learning about the issues of north east Thailand, the culture, and what type of work the Cycle Breakers are doing. Also have an awesome time with teens! If you know Jess and I you know we love teens!

Day 15:

I teach my second Bible lesson, Jess does some more counseling, we purchase internet. Our bed breaks in our apartment, we some how communicate to our land lord and get it fixed. We find out we can't figure the internet out, because its in Thai, our computer cord breaks :(. We find a ok price on a new computer cord, I go to the mens group again.

Day 16:

We find out that one of the women at The Well has a child that got in an accident on a motorbike. She also happens to be one of Jess's future cases she is going to work with. So we go with her to the hospital and pray for her and her child. We return and write this letter. We look forward to our first weekend where we are not doing anything!