Welcome to Our Neighborhood

When we came to Thailand, some of my family had visions of outhouses and kerosene lamps. We do have an outhouse. But we also have not just one, but TWO, wonderfully western looking toilets and fairly reliable electricity. Our neighborhood is a mix of traditional living and modern conveniences. Perhaps some pictures would show it the best.

DORMS

The view from our dining room.

 

If you exclude the local cockroach population, most of our neighborhood’s residents are college students. Hence lots of dorms. This one (along with several others) towers over our home and peers into our back-yard. (Or should I say back concrete. The “yard” part in the back of our house is about 6 inches wide, but it yields several delicious pineapple plants. Not a bad trade-off in my opinion.)

We love living in this proximity to the students that attend the school where Nate works.

BARS

View from our front gate early in the morning after the night owls of our neighborhood have gone to bed.

Unfortunately, a plethora of bars sometimes accompany college students. Within 100 meters of our home, there’s at least 5 bars. Some tame and some not. As of yesterday one of them was a strip bar, but by God’s grace we think this is in the process of being shut down. Praise God!

CHURCH

Learning about God's creation.

 

Despite some of the lesser desired establishments, Christ is becoming known here. There’s a tiny Thai church that meets behind our house consists of 12 college students and 20-some neighborhood kids. The pastor and his wife, good friends of ours, are on fire to share God’s love with this community. We're excited to see what God does through these believers.

FOOD

Thai chicken noodle soup. Delicious and spicy.

Ahhh. One of the many things I love about Thailand. Within another ¼ mile there are literally dozens of little restaurants and food stands. It’s a wonderful thing. Minus the MSG and pesticides. And the occasional congealed blood. For $1 you can get a plate of delicious stir-fry or curry and sit down for a chat with the restaurant owner. BONUS: Thai people love kids. They'll hold the girls while we eat and don’t even seem to mind the mess of rice and egg that we always seem to leave on the floor.

NOISE:

The view from our bedroom window. A pile of shoes in the morning from the students who spent their entire Saturday night gaming.

With so many people and souped-up motorcycles on one street, noise is inevitable. But the greatest source of noise (now that the strip bar is shut down anyways) is from the internet café next door. College students and teenage boys stay there all night (literally) playing online games. When we wake up in the morning there’s usually still a dozen shoes outside the door indicating the number of (shoeless) gamers still playing inside.

There’s also stray dogs and fights. And trucks that drive by with loud speakers announcing various services. And firecrackers exploding at all hours of the day and night. (Last week we even saw the gas station attendants smoking and lighting firecrackers beside our local gas pumps. Perhaps the laws of science work differently here? Or perhaps I don't understand the mechanics of the local pumps? I didn't stay around long enough to find out.)

On the upside, our girls can sleep through anything. I mean ANYTHING. This is the blessing of living in such a crazy environment and never having the windows closed.

THE PEOPLE:  

One of the many vendors who has graciously extended friendship to our family.

We think our home is very nice, but there ARE many “cleaner” parts of town we could choose to live in. Yet the thing that we love the most about our community is not the fact that I can walk down the street and buy fresh coconuts and mangos. Or the fact that I never have to worry about our kids or music being “too loud” for the neighbors. Or even the blessing of Nate having a 5 minute commute (by foot!) to work. The thing we love is the people. Fun-loving, kind, generous, people. People who, just like us, are in need of a Savior. That is why we hope we can stay in this community for years to come.