Hello, Mamazhenya

My cousin, Jenni, is about to leave for Russia to be a missionary. It has been so neat to see how God has led Jenni over the last 10 years or so preparing her for full time service. Jenni has such a big heart for the people and the country of Russia. She is bright, intelligent, and funny. She has a servant heart and most of all loves the Lord and wants to be used by Him.

She has her own blog. Check it out at : http://www.xanga.com/mamazhenya
If missions is near to your heart, please pray for her as she goes.

Jenni is the one in the middle in the picture. By the way, I am not sure where her blog name came from. Jenni, if you see this post, maybe you can comment!! :)

Don't Make Me Count To 3!

Do you hate that saying as much as I do?!

Well, I promise not to do too many commercials on this blog, but I couldn't pass this up, especially since it is the most exciting thing going on in my life right now besides packing...!

If you have children, grandchildren, will have them one day, or just like children, may I HIGHLY recommend this book. I will be subtle; I LOVE IT!!

If you have ever read Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp, this is the practical application of what he was trying to teach.

If you haven't read his book (another great read), his basic principle is train your child's heart first. His behavior will follow. As a man/child thinks, so he is. If you train him to behave correctly, but his heart never changes then you will have raised a pharisee. Of course there is much more to his book, but this is it in simple form. It's so basic but so profound. I loved this book, he just didn't teach me how to do it.

Then I found Don't Make Me Count To 3 and it was just what I needed. Concrete examples and instruction on how to apply God's Word to my children's hearts. Wow, I have my work cut out for me!! But I feel more confident and hopeful.

Our ladies Bible study at church spent several weeks using this book as a basis for discussion and further search in the Word to find answers to our particular challenges with our own children.

Don't Make Me Count To 3: A Mom's Look At Heart Oriented Discipline
Read it. Tell me what you think.

Our Church's Website

Pun has just put up our church's website. Click on "Our Home Church" under "Favorite Ministries" on the side bar to check it out. Once there and after perusing through the entire website, go to "Recent Posts" within the website to find out how you can help improving the website. Thanks so much.

A BIT OF THAI NEWS FOR YOU>>>

Part of the purpose for this website is for you to learn along with me about Thailand. For those of you who don't know, Thailand is in the middle of a huge celebration for their king. The Thai people adore him, and he has done much good for them. Not only is he celebrating his 60th year as king of Thailand, but also he is the world longest serving monarh. Quite an accomplishment.

Just a bit of monarch trivia for you:

He was born in Cambridge, MA.
He had an accident in teenage years and lost an eye. He now wears a glass eye.
He is an accomplished jazz musician.
He is a civil engineer and brainchilded most of the dams built in the country.
He is an inventor. He has a patent for a technique he developed to produce rain
artificially!!

A friend sent me an article on the celebration:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB115007269891277452-lMyQjAxMDE2NTEwMjAxNzIyWj.html
If you are interested, check it out!

HOME, AGAIN

This week we headed to Beaver Creek, Colorado (near Vail) for a little family vacation. It was so nice to take a break from all the details of moving. Here are a few highlights:

Swimming...a highlight of any child's vacation! Helen has finally decided that swimming is "so fun!" We only got to go twice because the heater was broken. I am sure we will be swimming more this summer.





Seeing the wildlife: a racoon, dear, lizards, and this fox playing with two birds!




Helen and Pun had fun picking out "pretty rocks" to bring home.





One afternoon on our way back to the hotel to put the kids down for a nap, we walked passed this gentleman playing his horn. He was quite the entertainer, so we stopped to listen to him. He played "the itsy bitsy spider" song for Helen and Daniel. They were speechless! :)



Helen and Daniel listening to the man with the horn.




Finally, on our way home we stopped in Fruita, CO, a little town just before the border of Utah, to give the kids a break. Fruita is known for dinosaur fossils that have been located in the area. We decided to take a hike on "Dinaosaur Hill", a very rocky hot walk, especially at 2:00 in the afternoon. We told Helen we were hunting for dinosaurs. We even called out to them, but sadly, none came out to see us. So when we found this little guy, Helen was pretty happy.


So were we. We chased him all over taking his picture and had a great time. All was not lost, though, we did find a dinosaur and took his picture, too.



We had a great time, but we are glad to home once again.

SOLD!

Yep, that's right. We have sold our home and have Pun's condo under contract.

You know how those cable shows about selling your home always have bidding wars? This kind of thing would never happen in Payson. Well, after listing Pun's condo for 6 months and not having one offer, we decided to list both of our condos a little lower in price and hope for the best. Lo and behold, we had 3 offers in 4 days and the one that we accepted was more than we asked for! We were praising the Lord.

We now have closed on our home and are completely moved out and in with my parents--soooo glad that is over. They have been so kind to let us live with them during these months as we pack up and make our final move.

Pun's condo went under contract in the same way, with multiple offers for more than we asked. It should close June 30, and, incidently, be a much easier time since we won't have to move out of that one!!

OUR BIG NEWS...

I must apologize for waiting so long to tell you. As I shared in the first entry, it took awhile to get this thing going and I wanted to email everyone once to let you know about our site. So I thought I would wait until we started blogging to let you know:

We are moving to Thailand!!!

Let me tell you the story. Pun has always planned to return home one day. Once the Lord saved him, his heart longed for home even more. I had no problem moving overseas, in fact I had also hoped to live in another country eventually.
Right before Helen was born, Pun quit his job to finish school. After graduation, he was never able to find a job that would support our family and let me stay at home with Helen and Daniel.

After months of praying, talking, getting counsel, we both are confident that it is God's timing for us to move home to Thailand. And we are both so excited for all that the Lord has in store for us. We know it will definitely be challenging, difficult, and wonderful all at once.

We want to keep you involved in our lives as we move through this transition. Though we will be half a world away, we will miss you all, and long for your friendship. We hope that this will be a good forum for staying in contact and a part of each others lives.

If I weren't married to Pun, I wouldn't know exactly where Thailand is, so for those of you like me...I have included a map for you!

IT'S OFFICIAL!

I can't believe we finally have a blog! I have been thinking and planning for this for several weeks now, but everytime I would sit down at the computer to figure out just how to do it, my eyes would glaze over…enter Pun. That boy had this site up and running in less than 20 minutes. My hero! Thank you, Pun.

Which brings me to my next comment. As I pondered on "my blog" over the past weeks, I dreamt of how I would design it and the content I would put on it. I thought of it as my little domain where I could share with all those near and dear to me "my new life". I can see now I had it all wrong! Much of what you see has Pun's finger prints all over it. In fact the links, the pictures, the first entry–all him! I did get a say in the title . I am not sold on this template, so if there are any fellow bloggers who know where to find a good design, please let me know. I do plan to update this look. :)

But as I see it now, this is all good. It will be a conglomeration of both of our thoughts, experiences, and perspectives on our life togther with our children and all the major transitions coming ahead. We hope you enjoy, dear friends.


And now the true reason for this blog….