A TYPICAL DAY

Tom and Helen and Gary and Joanne are busy at work in Bangkok now. We have enough readers to keep us very busy and are also doing what we can to help and encourage the Christians in the Watcharapon Church of Christ. Tom is teaching a Sunday morning class for the adults and Helen and Joanne are getting ready to share some ideas about teaching children's Bible Classes. Gary has been asked to teach a Wednesday class. We enjoy the Christians here and they have made us feel so welcome and loved.

A typical day?? Well it begins with a COLD shower. There is only one knob in the shower stall for a reason. The water comes directly out of the ground and is very 'invigorating'. We keep thinking that we will get used to it, but that has not happened yet. But, we are clean and we so enjoy the modern facilities and the very nice home that we are staying in.

After dressing, the four of us gather in the dining room for breakfast together. (Joanne is the official cook.) Joanne heats water and we have instant oatmeal, yogurt, raisins, juice, coffee and usually fruit of some kind. The oranges and bananas are especially good here. After breakfast we get together in our room for a morning devotion to begin our day. We also plan our day and share experiences from the previous day. It is interesting to share the questions and comments from our readers. One of Gary's readers asked, "Why did Mary and Joseph have to go to the stable to stay when they were in their home town. Where were their relatives?" That took some thought. Thai people are used to sharing their homes and people sleep wherever they can, but in the house. Another wanted to know if Mary was still a virgin after she got pregnant.

After brushing our teeth and trying to remember not to drink the tap water, we walk about one half mile to the church building to begin our reading sessions at about 10:00 AM. Each of us has at least 15 readers that come several times each week so we are busy. There are still people on the waiting list to read with us. At noon we all try to save a free hour to have lunch together. There are several sidewalk cafes within walking distance. We can get a Thai meal for about $1.25. That includes rice (or noodles), vegetables, a small protion of meat, and a coke. Sometimes we even splurge and get dessert which might be banana soup or ice cream. The meals have been quite tasty. We do try to avoid the hot spicy peppers which can actually burn the mouth.

Then it is back to our readers. The vast majority of our readers are professional people over the age of 30. They are very bright and ask very good questions. Some of the readers cannot understand why there are English words that are spelled differently but sound alike. How do you explain that one? They ask, "How do you know which meaning it is?" They want to learn English so that they can improve their jobs. We have enjoyed getting to know them.

At 9:00 PM we say good-bye to our last readers and Tuly (our host) picks us up in his car to give us a ride home. He says that he does not want us to walk that late at night as we go past some temporary workers' shacks. This is an area where there is a lot of new construction going on. It feels good to get home to our air conditioned rooms and rest. Before going to bed however, we must have our evening snack since we have had only fruit and granola bars since lunch. Our 'comfort food' continues to be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before bed. Tuly thinks that we are pretty silly, I think. Tuly's wife works for a catering company and sometimes brings home some pretty good treats that they share with us. Last evening she brought some petite cakes and stewed chicken tarts. They were VERY good.

It does not take us long to get to bed after our evening snack as we are usually pretty tired. It is a good feeling, however.

We are relieved that jet lag has finally subsided and we can actually sleep until at least 6:30 AM now and we are ready to go to bed at night.

Today is Sunday and we were blessed to attend worship with the Thai Christians here. It is such a blessing to us to have an interpreter for the lessons through headphones. We also have English hymnals and can sing with the Thais. It is amazing how many of the same songs that we sing with the same melodies.

Monday and Tuesday are our 'free' days. We plan to visit the Royal Palace and a special temple in Bangkok. This will also provide time for us to do our laundry and grocery shopping and shopping for the parties that we hold for our readers on Fridays.

Once again, thank you to all of you who are keeping us in your prayers and for the support that you have given in so many ways. We feel blessed.

Tom and Helen, Gary and Joanne

BANGKOK WORK HAS BEGUN

Tom and Helen and Gary and Joanne Nading have arrived in Bangkok, Thailand. We arrived in the middle of the night on Wednesday, January 18. The LST Welcome sign was a very comforting sight for us after 33 hours since leaving Lisa and Kelsey's home in Dallas, Texas. Thai people welcome special visitors with beautiful wrist bracelet flowers and we were so honored. It was good to get to our place to stay. We are staying in the home of one of the leaders of the congregation here, Toolee and Nui Prawit. It is a beautiful home and each couple has our own bedroom. We are quite comfortable.

On Thursday we held an information meeting at which we signed up about 14 readers apiece. There are so many here who are eager to practice their English. We held reading sessions all day on Friday and Saturday. We begin reading at 10:00 AM and read until 9:00 PM. On Friday all four of us had difficulty remaining upright our last hour of reading as our bodies were telling us that we should be asleep. It was better on Saturday. This will soon pass, I hope. I know that we will reamin busy while we are here as there are people on a waiting list to read with us. They are very open to learning about the book of Luke and we have also enjoyed learning things about the Thai culture and people.

Today is Sunday and we attended worship services with the Thai Christians. Their building is very beautiful, open to the outside. They sing most of the same songs that we sing at home and we were provided with song books and numbers so that we could join in the song service, we in English, they in Thai. We were also very pleased that we were provided with earphones and an interpreter for their Sunday morning lesson. This congregation is prepared to minister to both Thai and English speaking people.

We had lunch today with the AIM students from Sunset School in the US. They are working at the Christian Student Center at Ramkhankaen University about an hour from here. They have been in Thailand for about 8 months and it was interesting to hear their discussion of their work and time in Thailand.

We have been eating rice and stir fry at most of our meals. We have to be careful when ordering or we will get the spicy, very hot peppers that the Thai people enjoy. Other than the hot peppers, we really enjoy Thai food. In the evenings we have come back to the house and had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as we have been too tired to cook and that seems to be our 'comfort food' at this point. We have found several very nice small sidewalk cafe's near our work place where we can buy food very cheaply. We will not have a problem staying within our budget for food, I think. Gary has also found a place for his Diet Coke! soo...we are doing fine.

We will try to keep you updated as we continue our time in Thailand.

Miss you all, Tom and Helen Norris and Gary and Joanne Nading.