Vacation in Thailand (Back Issue #6)

On February 12, our family and my visiting brother Barry, traveled to Thailand for a vacation at Dolphin Bay, near Hua Hin. We spent the first night in Bangkok at a mission guest house, then traveled by taxi to the beach. Here's a glimpse of our trip in photos...

Getting ready to fly from Phnom Penh to Bangkok

About to go through Passport Control in Suvarnabhumi Airport (I can't pronounce it either!)

Riding a water taxi to a Thai/European restaurant on a pier along the river

Ryan, Benji (stuffed animal), Juliana...
...Bethany, Kai, Loofy (stuffed animal) and Barry before eating one of our best Thai meals ever!

The view of Dolphin Bay (Gulf of Thailand) from the Juniper Tree Resort (we were just across a small street from the beach)
Playing in the warm water

One day we rented kayaks and sailed to an island about 1.4 km away. We were looking forward to a fun excursion and checking out the beach on Monkey Island - but got more than we bargained for! Juliana played it cool while I did all the paddling...

... but when we got there, one of the monkeys the island is named for came onto our kayak, attracted to the bags we'd put our things in to keep them dry. Before I really knew what was happening, he stole the ziploc bag I'd just taken the camera out of - making off with my cell phone and our room key! (Worst part: we didn't remember that the room key was in the bag until we'd rowed back across the bay!) While I comforted a scared Juliana and bewildered Kai, Ryan and Barry rose to the challenge of getting my cell phone back. The glass/plastic front was cracked and the keypad was missing - since the monkey cracked it against a rock to get to the soft, chewy center (or so I assume)!! Needless to say, we'd had enough of the naughty monkeys and turned right around to paddle back to shore. (Then discovered that Ryan and Barry needed to return and look for the room key, since it was the only one Juniper Tree had for our room! They both got sunburned in the process.) It makes a good story, but if we never get that close to monkeys again it will be too soon!

Returning from Monkey Island (in background) with Kai
Juliana and Ryan, with the beautiful shoreline as a destination

Kai really enjoyed the children's pool, separated from the deeper pools by a wall

Uncle Barry tows Juliana in the deep part of the big pool (Ryan and Kai in background)
Getting ready to leave Juniper Tree. We stayed in a suite on the ground floor of the building on the right, and really enjoyed our time. We returned to Bangkok with Barry on Feb. 16, since he was flying home early on the 17th, and we were traveling to an EMM Retreat on the same day. -Bethany

Bits & Pieces, "Uncle Barry!," etc. (Back Issue # 5)

More catching up - making our way through January and February! : )


Here's a birthday photo of Ryan with the really expensive cheesecake that his wife lovingly made him (my idea, not his). You're only 31 once, but this was almost ridiculous, considering that the spring form pan came from Bangkok (carried back from my medical trip), the cream cheese was imported from Australia or somewhere, and the graham crackers were imported from the USA (and imports of odd items that only expats know what to do with cost an arm and a leg here!). The things we do for love!

My older brother, Barry Freed, came for a two-week visit the beginning of February. We enjoyed showing him our lives here, spending time with Uncle Barry, and then going on vacation with him in Thailand. He did an excellent job of chronicling his trip with albums on Facebook - if you're his friend, check them out. : ) The photo above captures the doubly-sweet treat of greeting him at the airport and eating Dairy Queen ice cream together!

Pastor Dady and his wife SreyRoth welcomed their third child and second son, Benjamin, into their family a few days before Barry arrived. We got to visit them still in the hospital, since it's standard to stay in the hospital for 5 days after delivery (no matter how the child was born).

Since we were on that side of the city, we played at the playground again, this time trying out the jungle gym with Uncle Barry. : )

Some Christmas gifts and other goodies came along with Barry, and here Kai is thrilled with his new trucks, two of which make very realistic truck noises. He refers to the ambulance now as "Wheee-oooo, Wheee-oooo!" Thanks again, everyone who sent stuff!

We'd been wanting to go on a river cruise on the Tonle Sap river here in Phnom Penh sometime, and Barry's presence made the perfect excuse to finally do it. We took a picnic supper on this boat, and had the boat to ourselves (besides the female captain and her assistant).

Watching the sunset from the boat and viewing the riverfront action from the water was a neat experience.

Here we are enjoying breakfast together at home.

It just so happened that Barry's trip coincided with the first-ever PPMC "potluck" meal held at our house. Sopheaktra Hem (married to Mark Fender) initiated it, taking the idea from their time in California on home assignment. It was a great time of fellowship, even though something brought in that day made many of the attendees spend the next day in the bathroom, me included. : ) What's a little intestinal trouble among friends, anyway?

Praying before diving in to the food contributions. The Men's Dorm and Women's Dorm each brought a collectively-prepared dish, and Barry even made a chocolate wacky cake, which was devoured in about 4 minutes, no kidding! By our estimation, it was a success, and plans are to continue having such gatherings here about once a month. We're glad to use our large yard to foster fellowship like this!

- Bethany

Christmas Break/Vacation (Back Issue # 4)

Juliana had a three-and-a-half week break from preschool over Christmas/New Year's, and we took the opportunity to get out of town for some R & R. We decided to check out Kampot, a sleepy little town along a river that's become a tourist and vacation destination. We stayed at a place called "The Mango Trees" in French (I forget the translation, and we couldn't say it right, anyway!), which had neat bungalows right along the riverside, a lot of room to run and play, and good food. We enjoyed five refreshing days there - and coincidentally overlapped a few of those days with another missionary family who are good friends of ours from Phnom Penh!

We enjoyed time on the water in kayaks, and even took a night boat ride upriver to see some phosphorescent algae that glowed when disturbed in the water. There were also hundreds of fireflies in the trees nearby, so we had quite the show! It was so beautiful, but sadly we can't show you how cool it looked - so you'll just have to come see it yourself sometime. ; ) What an awesome display of the Maker's creativity!

Another fun treat was visiting the Baker-Evens family. They used to live in the house we live in now, but moved to Kampot in August 09 to work with victims of land eviction. Juliana especially enjoyed playing with her old preschool classmate and all the kiddos had fun climbing around on the trains at the station next door (a French NGO is repairing the track and refurbishing the railway).

Here are Chris and Sam(antha) Baker-Evens with sons Isaac and Patrick. (Patrick went to Hope before they moved.) Chris is Australian and Sam is from the US.

Ryan enjoyed playing some ping-pong at the resort with Kai and Juliana. No, Kai wasn't chewing on the paddle...

When we ate meals at the resort, we would eat on "piers" built over the water. Such beautiful scenery, and so fun to feed the fish while while eating breakfast!

This is Juliana doing Starfall (www.starfall.com; an educational, phonics website to which Nana Umble introduced us) at a yummy cafe in town. Juliana met her "twin" there (same birthday), and Bethany got to hear the owner's amazing testimony of God's faithfulness in rescuing her from trafficking, giving her loving foster parents, and a husband who became a Christian and now pastors a local fellowship!

Enjoying one of the swings at The Mango Trees resort. Juliana and Kai brought their own bikes and had fun riding around the grounds. It was a great vacation, although a bit too short!

After we returned to the city, we took another morning to go to a playground on the opposite side of town. Kai LOVED the rocking animals, and would probably have stayed all day if it were possible!

Here Juliana gets a great, big push on the swings by her Daddy, Swing Pusher Extraordinaire!

- Bethany

Traditional Dance (Blog Back Issue #3)

This is a clip of three young women from Phnom Penh Mennonite Church doing a traditional dance in the Christmas program on December 27, 2009. They are (from L): Thavy, Sony, and Sophea. Didn't they do a great job? : )

Celebrating Christmas (Blog Back-Issue #2)

Here are some bits and pieces from our Christmas celebrations and festivities in December...

In the middle of December, we made a weekend-trip to Kompong Cham, the home province of Srey Roth, Pastor Dady's wife. We joined her mother's family for their Christmas service and dedication of the newly-constructed church building/house, which included a great pageant/concert by the children and youth.

The day before Christmas, I was finally feeling good enough to tackle my desired project of baking Christmas cookies for our family and several other families. Ming Nyaw's daughters, SreyMom and SreyLaek, stopped by in time to get in on the fun - perhaps the first time they made Christmas cookies? Despite some gas-stove issues, the cookies turned out pretty well!

Christmas morning, the kids wanted to open up the MOUNDS of gifts lovingly sent by our family and MST (thanks again, guys!) before eating a proper breakfast - who wouldn't? - so we stopped for a bread break amidst the gifts and wrapping when our bellies grumbled.

Our tree was up in the corner of our upstairs room/bedroom, and along with the stockings, really helped to make it "feel" like Christmas in the tropical heat.

Christmas night, our family enjoyed cookies and a showing of "The VeggieTales Christmas Special" video in the family room, and Juliana and Kai got extra silly, thanks to the antics of those crazy vegetables and some added sugar in the bloodstream!

The following Sunday, Phnom Penh Mennonite Church celebrated Jesus' birth in typically festive style. Along with lots of Christmas songs and special sharing, several members performed a special, Khmer-style "opera," lip-syncing along to the CD which told the story of Christ's birth. Above, Joseph and Mary praise God in "song." : )

Here the three Wise Men entertain the audience as they search for the new King. I couldn't understand everything said, but the congregation got a bang out of their part of the performance. : )

Lots of gifts were given out in the service as well. Mothers, leaders, and random-drawing winners were among those blessed with small tokens of Christmas joy by PPMC. Here, the children of the congregation receive gifts. (L to R: Kai, Juliana, Mittaphum, Daniel, Rachel, ____, Davey Will, and Allison.) It was a great day of celebrating the Lord's birth with brothers and sisters in Christ!

- Bethany

December Birthdays (Blog Back-Issue #1)

Dear Blog Readers,

We are doing some blog back-issues for the past 3 months because we have many pictures and stories we've not yet shared here. December was a busy and difficult month for us. Besides the busyness of 2 birthdays (Juliana on the 4th and Kai on the 17th) and Christmas celebrations, we were saddened to experience a miscarriage. We were 9 weeks pregnant when we miscarried on December 15th. So within two days we mourned the loss of our baby and celebrated the life of our 2-year old son. We sensed God's grace in special ways and felt very cared for by family and friends here and in the U.S. Thanks to the many of you who prayed for us and sent encouraging e-mails our way!


Birthday Bits:
Juliana had been looking forward to her 5th birthday party for quite a long time and frequently asked us, "How many days 'til my birthday?" On her big day, she got to go shopping for new sandals with Mommy, ride bumper cars with Daddy, and eat macaroni and cheese with the whole family.
Above: Daddy and the birthday girl at the bumper-car rink which we had almost to ourselves in the late afternoon. It was good that it was nearly empty, considering there were no seatbelts in the bumper cars and Juliana was excited, but also a bit nervous about her first experience in this kind of entertainment.

The next day, we had five of Juliana's preschool friends over for a party. Mommy made a yummy cake. Here we're singing. Other activities included facepainting, playing in the sandbox, and musical chairs...

Here Juliana poses for a picture with her friend Hannah after receiving a finger print/doodle pad for her birthday.

As for Kai, his party was much more low-key. We celebrated it as a family, inviting Nyaw, our househelper, to join us.

This boy knows what to do in front of a camera!

A family friend offered to make a cake for Kai's birthday because of Bethany being in the hospital and weak from the miscarriage when she would have liked to be baking. Kai loves cars, trucks, and trains so we were blessed that it was such an appropriate cake, complete with a little car on top.

We love our children and were happy to celebrate their birthdays. As we experienced the loss of a little baby in the same month, we were reminded again to not take for granted the wonderful gift of life that God has given us and our two little ones (who aren't so little anymore!).
- Ryan

Our New Home, Part Two

Welcome to the second half of the tour of our new place!
One of the best things about our new home is our neighbors. We get to interact with our neighbors much more than at our old place, primarily because only half of our first floor is indoors. The rest of the space feels like a big open porch, great for biking and all kinds of fun activities!
Above: Juliana and her neighbor friend Liza play with our neighbor's puppies. So fun!

One of the two downstairs rooms in our new place is the kitchen/dining room. We eat many good Khmer and American meals here. While most of our lunch and supper meals are rice and stirfries, we often enjoy yogurt, oatmeal, bread, or Bethany's homemade granola for breakfast.

Juliana poses in our family room on the first floor. Though there's quite a few toys in this room, the toys get played with mostly outside. VeggieTales and other fun DVD's get played in this room.

The second floor of our house is made from a dark wood and not a lot of overhead light. We like the cabin-like feel of this floor. This is Ryan and Bethany's bed. We have no closets in the house, so as you can see, we make good use of under-bed storage opportunities. (No picure of Juliana and Kai's room, which is pretty small and only holds their beds, a changing table, and a couple of fans.)

With Simon contentedly on her lap, Bethany sits in the 2nd floor office. Email-checking, accounting work, and most other computer-related tasks get done in this room.

We continue to enjoy the new house and look forward to sharing it with others. Who knows, someday maybe we will use it to host you!

-Ryan

Our New Home, Part One

On September 23rd, our family moved into a new house! It's a traditional-style, concrete-downstairs-wooden-upstairs house, which are plentiful in the countryside but in the minority in the city. After some weeks of adjusting to a much smaller living space, we all agree that we really like it, especially that we're outdoors so much more of the time. We're grateful for a decent-sized yard where Juliana and Kai can ride bike, swim in a wading pool, and play in safety.

In the photo below, Juliana is sitting on the only stairs to the second floor, so when it's raining, we get wet if we need to go up or down. : ) (The rainy season is nearly over, though, and we're looking forward to the cool/dry season - my favorite!) This house is cooler than our other house, which was made all of concrete and kept the heat in at night.

Juliana and Kai enjoy playing in the sandbox that we bought. A motorbike-pulled cart delivered the sand for a whopping $5!

Another feature of our new home is the abundance of wildlife such as birds, geckos, lizards, snails, etc. Some creatures we don't appreciate as much, like the rodents, spiders, ants and mosquitos that are more prevalent here than at our old place. We actually took in a domesticated animal as well - introducing our cat, _______! (We're still just calling him Kitty, since he'd been named Stoopid and we have yet to all agree on a new name!)

Above, a huge snail we discovered on a water tank, and below, a very shy lizard that lives in the corner of our yard and loves to sunbathe.

More to come, but that's good for starters! : )