INTO THE WORLD

     The time is flying by as it is already October. It feels like Mallory and I just left home. There have been so many experiences in this short time. Leaving Thailand was filled with many thoughts and feelings. We were excited to move on to new places and meet new people that would soon come into our path, but also a sense of sadness as we left. After being there only 5 short months I could already find my self not wanting to leave the people I now call friends. These feelings I knew would happen and this was not really what bothered me with our departure.         Being involved with missions in general, whether national or international, you quite often are asked the question “Did you feel a great darkness or lostness?” This is especially asked about countries that are massively under the influence of Buddhist, hindu, anthisum, etc and where Christianity is largely unknown. A good friend and mentor of mine used a word that, in my opinion is mu...

                                            We have arrived in Vietnam! We have been busy meeting with our contact here and will update you when things settle down for us in a few days. We are currently in Ho Chi Minh City and will be here until Friday night. Then we will get on a sleeper bus that will take us to Nha Trang which is about 9 hours away! We each will have our own beds as we ride to our next destination! We are excited as this will be the first of many of this type of transportation for us here in Vietnam. We will write another post when we get settled in to Nha Trang!          Love, Mal

    A couple weeks ago we packed our bags and flew out to Bangkok! I was very excited to go to Bangkok because it was there that my parents met each other 33 years ago! My mom who is from Massachusetts, and my dad, who is from Georgia were each on separate mission teams going to Bangkok, Thailand. Their teams were assigned the same college campus! After they became fast friends my dad realized he couldn't let my mom slip away! They decided to date and the rest is history!                                                        I too actually had already been to Thailand! My parents took us back for a summer to continue the work they had started years ago. Here are some pictures from when I was there in 1999.      Dad, Mallory, Casey, bonus points if you can find  Audrey (The Grand Palace)  M...

 One of the main things I wanted to do before we left Chiang Mai was to see the elephants! We got in a Songtaew and drove about an hour away to the Jungle. When we arrived there were several other foreigners all there to experience an authentic elephant adventure!  *side note*   When you think of Thailand you might think of riding elephants and petting tigers, but many Thai people do not like these tourist attractions at all. While the Thai people once used the elephants for transportation (and probably still do in the villages) some of the places the animals are kept for tourism are not good for their health. Elephants eat 300lbs of food a day and when kept in enclosures and kept on a tight riding schedule there is not enough time or natural food for them to be healthy. While riding an elephant would be pretty cool, we found something even cooler!  So, after going over safety precautions they called for the elephants and they came running! First we were given b...

 These last couple of days have been full of last minute tasks and sad goodbyes. We went to church at Promise Church for the last time this morning. It was the last time we would see our friends and fellow teachers. I don't think it really hit me until this morning that we would be leaving these wonderful people and new friends...    We are so thankful to have been apart of this school and church. Everyone who is involved, whether pastors/leadership, students, cleaning  ladies, cooks, and teachers welcomed us in and treated us like family. They have such a passion for helping others and sharing the love of Jesus and we are so blessed to be able to know them and have served along side them. We will miss them greatly!      We have experienced and  learned many things in Thailand. We learned that teaching is hard, especially when the students do not speak the same language! We learned that even though we do not speak the same language we ca...

       This year the school put on their very first Science Day! The Thai teachers planned out all the activities for each station and what the day would look like. We sat in on the information meeting and had no idea what was being said because apparently the meeting was only for the Thai teachers, whoops. So after they showed pictures and discussed between themselves the plan we heard our names. We were given a station...and not just any station... the slime making station! One of my favorite parts about being a foreigner is trying to understand what they are saying to us and vice versa. It makes everything so light hearted and funny. For example as they are trying to explain how to make the slime it took way longer than it should have, there was a lot of laughter, and it ended with Brandon and I acting like we understood when, in fact, we did not. We felt like we got the gist of it and hyped each other up for a super successful day of slime making!    ...