Peter & Kelly + Lukas + Emmet Passchier

Team Lampang 2010

This is our team in Lampang at the end of 2010: the Cho family from Australia, the Bekker family from South-Africa, Mandisa from South-Africa, Tomoko from Japan and our family. Compare with last year’s photo below..! Our team-website is: www.teamlampang.org.

Team Lampang

This is our team in Lampang: on the left side Rich & Lisa Cho from Australia with Luca (5), Aidan (3) and Sianna (0), in the middle Nick & Trish Bekker from South-Africa with Jonty (5), Emily (3) and Nina (2), and us on the right hand side. The Bekkers are the team leaders, and the Cho are leaving for Home Assignment tomorrow. And we just arrived..!

Our foursome

After Kelly and Emmet had spent two nights in the hospital after the birth, Lukas and Peter came to pick them up. This is in Kelly’s room (which is not the room where Emmet was born…)

Our kitchen

This is how our kitchen typically looks. It’s the only sink in the house, so it’s where we also brush our teeth. We only have cold water here (although it’s usually at least luke-warm). To the left is the door to the bathroom, to the right is the window looking out onto our ‘carport’.

Our car

Mid December we bought this Isuzu Wanderer 1996 diesel station wagon for a wonderful price from fellow missionaries. The price, the model, and the reputation (“no problems”) were just what we had been hoping and praying for! It has been a real blessing, and even a bit of a money saver on trips to the hospital to check up on baby Tuck. We now have 2 car seats in the back, so only 1 extra seatbelt when the whole family is traveling. We hope we can transport all our belongings in one go when we move to Lampang — it has quite a bit of room in the back..!

Jesse tree

This Advent and Christmas season we’re trying something new, it’s called a Jesse tree. Starting on 1 December, every day we hang a symbol (this year: a hand-drawn picture on a round piece of paper, coloured in by Kelly and Lukas) in the tree (this year: a branch that Kelly found outside). Every day a story from salvation history is told, starting with the Spirit of God hovering over the waters, through the Old Testament, until the stories around the birth of Jesus. Lukas really enjoys these times, and insists that he is allowed to pray on his own - we then hear back parts of the story of the day, and sometimes he prays for people far or near.

Orchid nursery

Here you see the edge of the Orchid nursery next to our house. Also in the picture is the guard dog, “Cola”, some kind of Belgian Shepherd. The tree in the background is a mango tree, which is currently bearing fruit (towards the end of the season).

Washing machine

In our ‘garage’ under our kitchen window is our two-barrel semi-automatic washing machine. Looking though our kitchen window, you see through the kitchen, through the living room, and see the light coming through our front windows.

Back door

We use the back door as the main entrance to our home. The padlock is being used when we leave the house. All windows and outside doors have a screen door to keep mosquito’s at bay. Next to the door we have the typical shoerack, because footwear is left at the door while entering any decent Thai house. In our leisure time we often wear sandals or slippers, but when we are ‘in function’ we wear closed shoes, as is expected of teachers — even though we are still only language students, we are missionaries too..!

Our Canada Day goodies

We found some very expensive and rather tired looking strawberries in the supermarket, some yummy chocolate ice cream and were generously given the chocolate caramel squares by a friend to help us celebrate our first Canada Day in Thailand. There were no manufactured fireworks this evening but as we ate our dessert there were some nature’s own flash and boom followed by welcome rain to cool off our “35 C, feels like 42 C” daytime heat. Hope you all have a great Canada Day in Canada!

Canada Day Press Release

“The entire Canadian population of Lopburi Thailand gathered today at one house in a usually quiet neighbourhood near the Thesabaan. In this country where the celebration is not marked by any public holiday, merry makers rose early to celebrate before the work day began. By breakfast time rousing renditions of “Happy Birthday, dear Canada” and “O Canada,” complete with prominent waving of portable Canadian flags, were ringing out across the local orchid plantation. The festive fare planned for this evening consists of red apples, strawberries and chocolate ice cream and chocolate caramel squares. The guard on duty for the property where the festivities will be continued this evening is on full alert to ensure that high levels of chocolate consumption do not result in any rowdy behaviour that might offend the neighbours, who, also foreigners, are rumoured to be planning independent celebrations of their own for later in the week.”

On the motorbike

Andre, Lukas and Tiaan on auntie Lee-anne’s motorbike! Andre and Tiaan, South-African brothers, are Lukas’ friends ever since we got to Asia. Andre is 6 and sort of a big brother to Lukas, and Tiaan is 3, more of a peer (but better coordinated and able to speak much more). Lukas is really propelled in his growing up by the interactions with older kids.

Our veranda

We have sort of a square veranda upstairs on the corner of the house between the bedrooms (Lukas’ bedroom is sticking out on the left side). It has tall wooden shutters that we can fix open or closed with a latch. We often keep some open to let whatever breezes there might be blow into our room through the screen door. We haven’t spent any time on the veranda just lounging but maybe that will come one day. The porch area on the ground floor leads to our front door (which we don’t use).

Three times a day

The custom in Thailand is to shower at least three times a day - and possibly more if it is very warm or you have gone exercising! It is considered proper hygiene to wear a clean set of clothes after each shower, the last being your pajamas. Smelling nice is very important here! To get the water flowing, turn the red lever on the tap by the wall - standard temperature of the cold water about 20 degrees. Cold showers are welcome in warm afternoons. To get warm water, choose your temperature by turning the dial on the water heater mounted on the wall. Warm water is welcome in the mornings, especially after a rainy stormy night has cooled the air down. When we first arrived in Asia all we wanted was cold showers but now we often use at least lightly heated water. We must be acclimatizing!

Splashing about

Lukas loves playing with his bath animals - he tries to count them or has little conversations often featuring an emphatic “come on!” from one duck to the other! When the bath is done, we tip out the water onto the floor which doubles as a shower stall, with a drain in one corner! Watch out for wet feet when getting to the toilet! Our manual flush feature toilet is water conservation conscious - dip the dipper into the blue tub and wash down - water use per flush, 1-3 litres, depending!!