I was feeling grubby with city living.
Tired of air you can taste and see.
Bothered by the inescapable noise:
Traffic, sirens, generators.
Dreary with the constant humidity,
Frequent downpours.
Achingly missing
Soft greens and blues,
Quietness of our Canada home.
I got ready for bed and flopped down,
Arranging the pillows to try block out the city drone.
That night the sound was extra loud - even pillows didn't muffle the noise.
I was grumbling to myself and whining to God,
Then I recognized the sound I was trying to block out:
A mighty chorus of peepers - a sound straight from my childhood home far from any city.
So I went to sleep with the sounds of the city drowned out by a colony of frantic peepers seemingly right outside our window...
A love-gift from a tender-hearted Father indeed.

The latest summer pastime...
Making all their animals give a concert from the back of the couch...
...which happens to be right in front of the fan (it's really hot right now).
It's pretty good entertainment - Mommy gets to find out what they're thinking about, what songs they know, and what they think a good show should be like - except for the times they decide to keep things "realistic" and there is simply happy, monotonous choruses of "baa!" and "neigh!" -- as the animals dance on stage, of course :o)

About that surprise move to Bangkok...

We have been in Manila for a year now, and have enjoyed getting to know and working with the Area staff here. Manila is the main office for our organization in Asia, but the Area has been working to establish a presence in Bangkok. Bangkok is especially strategic because it is the headquarters of key multilateral partners such as UNICEF, UNESCO, and SEAMEO. Also, Area personnel,including our boss, travel more often through Bangkok than Manila because of its central location.  With these strategic goals in mind, we have been asked to move to Bangkok, as our executive assistant job is location-neutral now that we have completed the Manila-specific tasks assigned to us in this first year. After some prayer and consideration, we have set June 15 as the target date for our move. Our position, title, and responsibilities have not changed; only our location.

Since Thailand has not been an easy place for us to be in the past, Mommy's immediate "sure, why not?" response to the request was a surprise even to her - just one of a number of signs that this is God's plan for us at this time.  Grace and Jasmin have taken the idea of a move in stride.  Grace especially has been asking on and off for the last few months, "When is God going to ask us to go somewhere else?", so I don't think this was a surprise to her at all :o) She is now constantly asking Mommy, "how do you say this in Thai?" so we spend a few minutes every day on YouTube learning a word or two of Thai. Since we have chosen a Thai preschool for them for the first year, this is a good development!

Mommy was looking forward to beginning homeschooling with them this year, but an extra year of preschool will give them Thai and hopefully a network of friends.  This school is part of an outreach to children in a nearby slum (a paying school to fund the outreach activities) run by a local church.  We are all happy to find a Thai Christian school. While we were there visiting schools, both Grace and Jasmin kept telling us, "We don't want to go to a school where they worship other gods."!

Now we wait and pray for visas to come in time for us to move.  Since the girls' new school (Rainbowland) starts May 18th, the sooner we can go the better.

Our church held a VBS last week; for the first time ever I paid to register for a VBS! And what a VBS… over 600 kids ages 4-12! No wonder the finale Saturday was somewhat chaotic :o)

Grace dove in and thoroughly enjoyed herself, as usual: learning all the songs and actions with enjoyment and seriousness, chattering out each day’s verses and goings on all the way home each day.

Jasmin had a wonderful teacher-volunteer in her class who was an answer to prayer: because of her special attention to Jasmin, Jasmin enjoyed herself and participated more that she ever has in Sunday school. It was such a delight to be greeted with a smiling, enthusiastic Jasmin at the end of the morning instead of a sad, worried, or relieved one!

Of course, Jasmin pulled out of singing on stage for the finale – can’t blame her: 600 kids and all their camera-flashing parents is enough of a crowd to scare anyone! But then, she thoroughly surprised all of us by marching up on stage all by herself to answer a review question for a prize!

On Saturday, we had Grace’s birthday party. She and Jasmin finally got to put to use all their howdini.com bake show watching as we made and iced a cake for the party. A great success if you keep in mind a 4 and 5 year old made it, and Mommy had to improvise ingredients so Jasmin could eat it!

Sunday was Mother’s Day, but we forgot until it was mentioned in church :o) Some providential rain (SO out of season!) kept us in the mall (we only had 1 umbrella with us for the 4 of us) after church so Mommy did get her traditional meal out, but the best gift was the loooong nap we all had after the rather hectic week!

And an extra picture I couldn’t keep off – too sweet!

Grace in retrospect...

Manila, Philippines

Kid's Brain, Manila, PhilippinesBarrhaven, Ontario
Cumberland, OntarioPhnom Penh, CambodiaHalifax, Nova Scotia

Our Grace is 5!