January/February 2022

Greetings from Thailand!!!

Hello from the other side of the world – literally – we could not get any farther from home that we are!  I want to thank all of you have supported us this far both financially and with prayer.  It is such a comfort knowing that we have prayers going up daily for our family and our mission here in Thailand.  Keep it up – we feel those prayers! 

This newsletter will be lengthy because January and February have been a whirlwind of … pretty much everything!  So, just hang in there and I promise they won’t be so long in the future!  We spent the first ten (10) days in Thailand in quarantine in Bangkok.  Our highlight of the day was when they rang our doorbell for meals and the forty-five (45) minutes per day they let us out of the room.  Exciting, huh?  Our “outside” time was an escorted trip to the 26th floor balcony of our hotel.  However, there was a hot tub …. EMPTY!  We used it as a massive Bey Blade arena – it was actually pretty cool!  We cherished every single one of those minutes outside!

Once we provided the hotel with many, many temperature checks and multiple brain … I mean NOSE swabs, they decided they would let us leave the hotel.  Upon our release, we spent a whopping five (5) minutes outdoors before we hopped in a car and were shuttled off to the airport.   We boarded yet another plane and flew to our final destination for the next few months – Chiang Mai, Thailand.

We hit the ground running once we got here … we had a lot to do in a short amount of time.  I had booked a hotel room for five (5) days and really did not want to spend anymore than that in ANOTHER hotel room!  We needed to find a house FAST!  The kids were ready to unpack and stop living out of a suitcase and I was ready for them to have some space from one another.

Within the first week, Garrick had learned how to drive on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, in a city we don’t know with road signs we cannot read.  Did you know that anyone with a current driver’s license, a few bucks, and the internet can get an international driver’s license?  It’s true - mine was just delivered by DHL today!  What could go wrong?!  Plenty, but I said a prayer every time we got in the car and I thanked God every time we got out of the car for our safety.  Basically, driving rules in Chiang Mai are this – drive fast, honk your horn just because, scooters ALWAYS have the right of way, and if it is wide enough for a scooter, it’s considered a road and you can drive on it!  Regardless, between Google Maps, pure luck, and mostly God’s protection, we found a house by the end of the week.  We moved our suitcases over and took the weekend to relax and unpack. 

The next week consisted of finding and trying Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Ballet studios for Perry and Ruddy and settling in and finding the necessities we needed for the house.  Funny story – you can basically get anything you want delivered to your door here – Door Dash doesn’t hold a candle to the Grab drivers in Chiang Mai.  It does help tremendously if you can speak Thai … or at least be able to say your address in Thai – I learned the hard way.  I ordered dinner because we hadn’t been to the grocery yet and everything was going smoothly until the driver couldn’t find the house.  He called and I said, “I don’t speak Thai.”  He said, “No speak English.” Uh oh – we’re in trouble.  All of the sudden, the emotions of the past several weeks came at me at once – mostly because I don’t know how I am going to feed the kids that night.  I’m at my breaking point, when, all of a sudden, I hear a little shuffling around and I look over to see my THAI neighbor!  I basically shove my phone into his hand (because he also speaks no English) and he starts talking to my driver.  He directs him to our house and I get to feed my kids.  God is good…even in the little things!

Once we had all that squared away, Garrick started going to EMA (Earth Mission Asia) office to begin to get familiar with the operations there and what he would be able to do to help.  We also needed to acquire a vehicle of our own since we had been borrowing one up to this point.  Fast forward another week in and we have found a vehicle that fits our needs and is in our budget … and then we were told the cost of the vehicle was covered within a couple hundred dollars – AMAZING!  God provides!  Garrick is settling in at EMA and helping to procure materials for an operating room building project.  His many years of finding the impossible for Toyota is really starting to pay off!!  He is pretty skilled at finding those things that don’t seem to exist – or at least coming up with some kind of contraption that will work.  I don’t pretend to know what he is talking about when he mentions things like “flap disk”, but he is very eager to tell me anyway.  I mean, you never know when I might need a flap disk for something, right?!  It’s exciting to see his enthusiasm for something that he knows will one day serve many with its physical purpose as an operating room, but also, through the doctors and nurses who will work there, the spiritual needs it will fulfill.

I have been taking a Thai language course so I can better communicate with the surrounding community (and make sure the Grab driver can get to the house!!) and get involved in some different organizations.  It’s funny how God shows us that even things that seem so trivial can prove to be a mission field.  For example, I have been in contact with an organization that has been teaching sewing and crochet skills to families who are unable to return to Myanmar/Burma.  They are families of patients in a Children’s hospital that came here for different types of surgeries, but have been unable to return home due to the ongoing effects of Covid restrictions and the military coup that is happening there.  They also cannot leave the dormitories of the hospital and have asked for things to do.  Who would have thought that could be a mission field?!  If it works out, I will need your prayers to find a store that sells yarn, material, and a sewing machine – or you guys will have to send me care packages!! 

I have also been in contact with Safe Haven Orphanage that is located about 5 hours from Chiang Mai.  For those of you who aren’t aware, this is the orphanage we have visited in the past with Dave and Marty Sperow and La Cima World Missions, Inc. We plan to visit the orphanage in a week or two to deliver some items they need there and visit with the children for a weekend.  If you would like to help with this, I will be pricing the items they need this week and I will add them to our Facebook page/website.  You can sponsor some of the items if you want to!    I will definitely keep you posted on this as well as anything else that comes up.  I will also do a better job of updating Facebook and our website – it’s just been super busy and I didn’t feel like I had much to share – the pictures would have all looked the same – selfies of me terrified as Garrick navigated the roads.  I asked the kids if I could just sit in the back with them at one point! 

With all the good things we have going on here, there have been struggles too.  Garrick’s dad is actually going into surgery soon after I finish typing this newsletter.  He had a couple of spells where his memory and thoughts weren’t clear.  After a couple of visits to the ER and some scans, they found a lesion on his brain.  They will be removing that and sending it for a biopsy.  It’s so hard to be away from our family at times like this, but we know God hears our prayers as we lift them up and we also know there are many of you praying at home. 

There are other times since we’ve been here that are trying – especially on a Mama’s heart.  Aislinn misplaced her passport the night before she was leaving for Ecuador.  I wanted to be there to help her find it.  It was found – my mom and Emma came over and they found it – all three were VERY happy.  Emma has had car trouble several times.  Because Aislinn isn’t home, she has had something to drive and support from friends.  Perry and Ruddy were missing their friends and activities and they were getting bored.  They both found places they really like and are doing well at them.  Also, can I brag for just a second?  These are two of the bravest kids I know – they have gone into new studios, some with very little English spoken - and they have totally rocked it!  It is often very hard for me to let go of the reins when it comes to my kids, but God proves to me time and time again that He can taken much better care of them than I can.

There are also the “creatures” that live among us.  I call them creatures because I know no other way to describe them.  We have encountered a couple of cockroaches in our bathrooms that are about the size of a mouse.  And they are not scared of humans – in fact, I am pretty sure they run after me.  It could be because I despise the sight of a cockroach and they’re laughing at me, I’m not sure.  Either way, the two I have encountered haven’t made it out alive.  Who’s laughing now … insert evil laugh here!  I have been telling Garrick and the kids about a movie that I watched years ago about a couple of girls who went to Thailand and ended up in prison here for allegedly smuggling drugs. In the prison, a cockroach crawled into one of the girl’s ears.  This movie traumatized me as a teenager … yet, here I am … in Thailand …. with roaches in my bathroom.  Please Lord, keep me out of prison and the roaches will stay out of my ears!!  It probably helps that I sleep with headphones in my ears every night!  (BTW …. The movie is called Brokedown Palace for anyone who wants to inflict this type of trauma on themselves.  I’m sure it isn’t a very wholesome movie, so don’t let the kids watch it!)  There are also lizards living among us.  I’m not talking about tame lizards like Ruddy’s Leopard Gecko, Lizzy, at home.  There are wild little geckos running around our walls chirping and fussing at each other.  They don’t bother me so much, but the foot long gecko (that we coincidentally named “Foot-Long”) that has taken up residence with us – he bothers me.  He’s big and he’s fast.  Also, you know the old wives tale about getting bit by a snapping turtle?  It won’t let go until it thunders?  Yeah, they say the same thing about the Tokay gecko – that he won’t let go until it rains.  Also, I think he knows I’m talking about him, because he just chirped at me!!  We’ve also had not one, but two, bee swarms land in the tree that is directly out our back door.  Both thought it was a great idea to do that on laundry day.  So guess what?  The laundry got to stay outside to dry a little longer those days! 

If I were to wrap our experience this far into a few words, I would choose humbling, overwhelming, and fulfilling.  I have been humbled time and time again since we’ve been here.  We have had to depend on others for so many things – a vehicle for transportation, directions, advice, projects at home, and even food!  It is pretty hard when you are a control freak who usually depends on no one but yourself!  I have learned to trust people that I cannot even carry on a conversation with!  Overwhelming just speaks for itself – there have been so many things to learn and  do that my mind feels like it is going to explode sometimes.  Little things like grocery shopping take so much effort – because I have to Google Translate half of the packages.  And you have to be careful – what looks like the green Lay’s sour cream and onion chips is actually Lay’s SEAWEED chips here!!! Lastly, fulfilling.  Although I feel like I really haven’t done a lot yet, I know that this is just the beginning of many doors opening and many hearts being touched by the one true God that so many people on this side of the world haven’t even heard of yet. 

Please continue to keep our family and our mission field in your prayers and thoughts!  And don’t hesitate to send us messages if you’re feeling really spunky, send some Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion chips – I’ll send you my address, because I had my Thai neighbor write it down for me! 

With Love and Gratitude,

The Gays

-        Garrick, Kelly Jo, Perry, and Ruddy

Prayer Requests

·       Garrick’s dad – Mike – a successful surgery

·       Operating Room Project and the people it will serve

·       Continue to open doors to introduce the Gospel

·       Our trip to Safe Haven

·       Learning Thai language

·       Find a church/youth group

Praises

·       We found a house and settled in

·       Vehicle cost covered by donor

·       Kids have found activities

·       Settling in