I made it!

A little over 2 weeks ago I arrived (very tired from my 22 hours of traveling) in Chiang Mai, Thailand!!  And what a busy 2 weeks these have been!

The house I am renting was not ready right away, so almost a week was spent getting it ready before I was able to move in and begin settling in. I'm not supposed to be totally engaged in working in the office yet, as they want to make sure I have adequate time to figure out what it means to live here ... how to get groceries, how to get around the city, where things are located in the city, how to get clean drinking water, etc.

I've been attending two different churches, Chiangmai Christian Fellowship (CCF) and Chiang Mai Community Church (CMCC), in hopes to begin to plug-in and find my place here. CCF supports the foundation and organization that I work for and CMCC is the church I visited when I was here for my semester.  I've really appreciated being able to be a part of both services, but wish a Sunday school/adult ed service was also held, so I'm looking into finding and joining a Bible study.  If you could pray that I find a good and encouraging Bible study, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I've begun to make some friends here ... even meet up with some old ones!  My neighbors, the Wades work at the foundation with me and at Grace International School. Sam, their daughter, and I have become pretty good friends in these past 2 weeks ... funny thing is she was at Calvin the same time I was, graduated a year before me, and we know a lot of the same people, but we never ran into each other at Calvin.  It's been a joy to get to know her, hang out, share stories, work together (we share an office at the foundation), eat together, work out together, and explore Chiang Mai together.

As for old friends, one of my oldest and best friends, Malcolm is here visiting!  He's been in Nepal with the Mennonite Central Committee.  They had a regional meeting in Bangkok earlier this week, and afterwards, Malcolm decided to use some of his vacation days to visit friends in Chiang Mai!  We had a wonderful time together along with another of our friends who is here with Messiah College for the semester, a new (for me) Thai friend, and a Messiah alum (another new friend for me).

This next week will bring another exciting adventure my way!  In order to get a Thai work permit, I need a different visa than the one I entered on.  In order to get the correct visa I have to leave the country, apply for the correct visa, and then return ... so I'm going to Vientiane, Laos! This isn't my first time to Laos, or even to Vientiane, for that matter, as my semester program took us there and into Laos for a long weekend.  Even though this trip has been difficult to figure out and plan, I'm looking forward to this little trip.

As far as updates on my brother's health goes ... the last I heard was that he's doing better and most of the water weight he gained (almost 40 lbs) has been lost.

Finally, continue to pray for my transition.  In the next few weeks I'll begin to take on more at work and hopefully begin to get into some sort of routine.  Also pray for this trip to Laos ... that all the logistics get worked out, that the traveling goes well (no delays or accidents), that my visa gets processed quickly and without problem, and that the return trip goes smoothly.  Lastly, please pray for my financial situation, while I have enough for a couple months, it'd be great to have enough donations coming in on a monthly basis so that I can be here the full 2 years.

Grace and Peace!