We leave tomorrow! Tonight will just be a fun time with all of the people who put our trip together. Hopefully we’ll be able to update once we get to Taipei. Be home soon!!

-Trayce

Hello all!

We’re leaving today for our debrief/retreat time. Not sure where we’re going, but it should be fun. We’ll be back Wednesday afternoon in time to pack up and leave bright and early the next morning. We leave Thursday at 1:50 pm, but when flying in a foreign country you have to be their super early or something. We land in Taipei 4 hours later, but then have a 5 hour layover there. We’ll land in LA at 8 pm Thursday. I can dig the whole gaining an entire day back thing. Pretty neat. Then Friday morning I fly back to Austin! Can’t wait! Thanks for all your prayers!

-Trayce

Hey everyone! We’re back from the villages and had a wonderful time! It was great to experience a new culture and just dive in. I think we were blessed more than they were. We got to build houses and bamboo fences and hang out with the kids pretty much every day. I don’t have much time to write because our internet isn’t working at Tong House. We had to come up the road to a restaurant (that serves fantastic desserts, might I add) to get wifi. I can’t wait to tell everyone about our week and show you the pictures. I still can’t figure it out, but I emailed some to Niko, so if you want to see them ask him.

The Family Connection Foundation has a huge prayer request that I’m forwarding on. Matthew, who is the first ever Ban San Rak foster child passed away on Tuesday. He was the product of a failed abortion with a coat hanger and because of that had Cerebral Palsy. He couldn’t speak or walk but was a huge light for Christ in his short 3 years of life. The doctors didn’t think he’d life to be a few weeks old, but FCF took him in and the rest is history. There are so many people who raised him as their son and they are deeply grieving. You know when people say they could see the face of God in a child’s eyes?- that describes Matthew. He led 2 people to the Lord in his life. Although he was very sick, his death did come as a surprise. There are many hurting people and FCF as a whole has asked for lots of prayer, they’ve never experienced the death of a child. The service was today. We never got to meet him because he was in the hospital every time we were at Ban San Rak. But I feel like I know him. He’s the cutest. Anyways, please be praying for FCF as they have to face this hard time.

I don’t have much else to share. I guess I’ll save that for when we get home, which is in 5 days!!

Mom- don’t forget to check me in online for my flight on Thursday!

Love you all!!

-Trayce

Today was awesome. We went into a national park and swam and hung out with the kids. It was a lot of fun. I tried to attach pictures… don’t know if it worked. It’s been funny lately. Today is our last day in Chiang Mai. Tomorrow we leave for the Lahu villages. We will be there till the 28th, then back to Chiang Mai for some debrief time. There won’t be any blog posts before then. Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement! Love you!

-T

Today was so fun! We went to the elephant camp and got ride some elephants.We took lots of pics and I’ll get them up asap!

The military is making their presence known here, so it made me feel a little bit safer. All the banks and major super markets have shut down. In Bangkok many banks and large malls were burned, so they’re doing their best to prevent anything like that from happening here.

Thank you for all your prayers! Tomorrow we’re going to a national park with the kids from Ban San Rak 1 and 2. It should be a lot of fun. Love you!

-Trayce

Please be praying for Thailand. The protests and riots have now been prohibited in Bangkok. Chiang Mai is feared to be the next city the demonstrators will move to. The officials in Chiang Mai have put the entire city under curfew. This doesn’t really conflict with our ministry, just the recreational stuff we get to do at night. Please pray for a quick end to this. The government is finally moving in the right direction with this and we need it to continue.

Tomorrow morning we will be going to ride elephants! The rest of the day will be spent stocking up on supplies for the village. We leave in 2 days to spend a week in the Lahu villages, about a kilometer south of the Myanmar border. It will be nice to get out of Chiang Mai for a little bit. While there we will be mixing concrete, painting, hanging out with kids at night, and rebuilding bamboo houses destroyed in a recent fire. Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement! Love you!

-Trayce

Can you guys see the posts? There hasn’t been a comment posted in a few days so I was just wondering if you were able to read them.

Today was great. We went to Ban San Rak 4, which is a ministry for sick babies. Connie and her family, who are Americans, established a ministry to take in sick babies from hospitals where they would otherwise die. It’s probably one of the coolest ministries I’ve seen. She had us doing some much needed yard work at her house. We weeded out her back and side yards, dug little moat like things around the newly planted trees and watered them. We woke up at 5:45 this morning, got there by 7, and by 8 it was already 90 degrees with 100% humidity. Don’t worry, we stayed very hydrated. It was a lot of fun. When we got there Connie told us about her ministry and how excited she was to get one more baby today. It turns out one of the girls in her house has a sister they just found. Just like in the states, they try to keep siblings together. She was really excited to meet the sister and introduce the two girls. A few hours later she got a phone call that the “dad” of the two girls wanted them back. A few months ago, he denied that either of the girls was his, but now he wants custody of them. Connie is just torn up about this. She knows what happens when supposed parents want their kids back. In Thailand kids can work at 12 years of age. A lot of parents try to get their kids back when they get to be of age so that they can go to Bangkok and make money. Most of the time, girls are sold into the sex industry. She’s very afraid that this man will take the girls and exploit them. She’s asked for prayer that the request will get denied and the sister will be sent to someone who can take care of her.

Later today we’re going to Ban San Rak 1, which is an orphanage for all boys.

I hope everything is going well at home. We heard that the Red Shirt leader was killed today by a sniper. Things in Bangkok are only going to get worse. Please pray for the people of Thailand. There is so much corruption here. We’re all praying for a quick resolution to this.

Here are some more random pics from Chiang Mai. Enjoy

Today was awesome! I have so many stories to tell you, but I’ll just tell one for now. Today we went to an orphanage in Chiang Mai. We got to hang out with the kids, eat great food and just have fun. Stefan, who runs the orphanage asked for 4 of us to follow him to some of his neighbors houses to meet them. So I decided to go. We walk into some of the poorest slums I’ve ever seen. Way back in the series of houses we found a woman who Stefan considers his second mom. She was laying on the old wooden floor with no blanket or pillow. Her name is Me Samsi, which means “mother Samsi”. She is 86 and still lives in the same house she was born in. She told us stories of old Chiang Mai and what it used to be like. She said that the city used to be cool because of all the trees and now that there’s cement everywhere it attracts heat. She also told us about her sister. She had tuberculosis about 10 years ago (when she was Buddhist) and was pretty much on her death bed. While she was being treated in a hospital she had an out of body experience. She saw herself robed in white, surrounded by an infinite amount of others all singing Hosanna (in Thai). She had no idea what that word was or what it meant. After she came out of that she learned that her heart had stopped beating and that she was essentially dead but that the doctors had brought her back. Since then she’s been a christian and she converted her sister, whom we met with. She was just the sweetest old lady. We had the opportunity to lay hands on her and pray for her.

We also had a water fight with all the kids in the orphanage today which was a lot of fun. We’ll be going back there a few times and I’m really looking forward to it. Tonight we went to the night bazaar which is just a HUGE market in Chiang Mai. Anything you could ever want is there and you can get it for really cheap. A few of us found a Hagen Daas and totally splurged. Surprisingly, the ice cream was awesome. We sat in there for a while in the air con. Air con is air conditioning and it’s highly valued here. I guess that’s about all I have for now. Tomorrow we will be going to church in the morning, then doing laundry and stuff after. Thank you guys for all your prayers!

Also, I’m sure you’ve heard about the horrible things going on in Bangkok currently. Just to assure you, we are nowhere near Bangkok or any of the riots. Apparently there was a demonstration yesterday here in Chiang Mai at the market we were at. We never even knew something was going on. We only saw one police officer and he was sitting down having coffee. That’s how much the media blows everything up. So please don’t be worried, we’re ok. Love you all!!

-Trayce

Hello everyone. I hope this works. We had a very long day and are heading to bed… it’s about 9:40 in the evening here and we are still trying to recover from jet lag. Tomorrow we will be hanging out with kids from 2 orphanages. Please pray that the language barrier will not be an issue and that we can just have fun. Love you all!

-Trayce

Hey! Wow… where do I even begin. I have so much to tell all of you. Chiang Mai is awesome! But DREADFULLY hot. Texas does not know hot. Thailand does. Also, everything is bigger in Thailand, not Texas. Spiders are everywhere. I don’t have much time to write but I’ll tell you what we did today. We went to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep which is the biggest Buddhist temple in Chiang Mai. It’s up on top of a mountain and there are close to 400 stairs to reach the top. It’s so extravagant. I was really excited about it, but the second we walked in I got really depressed. There are so many people there praying to false gods and doing rituals that get them nowhere. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll try to attach pictures maybe later today. After the wat we went to the market. That was an experience too. We’re leaving in about 10 minutes to go to Nate’s in laws house for dinner and discussion. Please continue to pray for us to adjust to this new life style and for our health. I’m going to try to update later tonight. Miss you and love you all!!

-Trayce

Hey everyone! We landed in Taipei, Taiwan just a little bit ago. It’s 7:45 on the dot here.  The flight over here was pretty good, just realllly long. Apparently there were 3 meals served, but I only remember two. The first one was chicken smothered in some sort of mashed potato sauce. It was actually pretty good. I was woken up to eat that one, so I only had a few bites before I passed out again. Then I tried to sleep more… that didn’t happen. I would dose for a few minutes then wake up thinking I had slept for hours. They served us breakfast this morning. I opted for the Chinese rice soup which was a not so good choice. The soup is served with intestines. So I didn’t have much of a breakfast. The plane was really nice and the flight attendants were very polite. Our next flight leaves in about 2 hours for Chiang Mai. When we arrive there we will be taken back to Thong house (where we’re staying) and go get lunch at the market. The rest of the day we will spend learning some basic Thai sayings and numbers. Thanks for the prayers for traveling safety! We definitely felt it. Everything went very well. I will be writing in a few days, or as soon as we’re allowed. Love you all!!

-Trayce