Life in Lopburi.

We have now been in Lopburi for almost a full month! It has been an amazing experience and we are loving the slower-paced living here. 

During our first few days in Lopburi, our language school director gave us "orientation" to find the markets/stores to buy food from, buy bikes to use for transportation, and help us with the logistics of moving here. The LLC (Lopburi Language Center) has been such a blessing as they have provided community, support, and encouragement while we settle here and begin language acquisition.

Ryan and I are enjoying our classes with our Thai tutors and are swimming in Thai vocab! It is energizing to be handed the tools for communication, but also takes a lot of mental energy to try to absorb it all. We have been wanting to use the little Thai we know when we have opportunity, which means we have made many language mistakes! For example, we very much confused our barista when we accidentally asked her if she wanted an Americano instead of ordering it for us. ;) 

Unfortunately, the day after we arrived in Lopburi, it was declared a "red-zone" province, meaning that there were much tighter Covid restrictions, including our language classes being moved online. Hopefully these restrictions will be short-lived!

Over these past few weeks, we have definitely seen God opening our eyes to the gospel in deeper ways and growing our dependence on Him. It is a sweet assurance of His love for us, and His bringing to completion the work He has begun in us. These lessons are not always the most comfortable, but we are thankful for the involvement of the Holy Spirit in our lives!

PRAISES & PRAYER REQUESTS:

- we got our visas processed, so we are set to be in Thailand for 15 months on our current visa!

- that we would take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

- Hans, an older European man who lives on our road with his Thai wife. He has lived in Thailand for many years, yet he doesn't speak much Thai, and is very lonely. He is an agnostic and claims he will be one for the rest of his life, but we are thankful that he is willing to discuss. Oh, that the Lord would save him and use him to reach his Thai wife and brother-in-law, who is a Buddhist monk.

- Pom, the barista at "Meena's," a coffee shop on the other side of our street. She speaks very little English, and we speak even less Thai, but she seems eager to connect and talk each time we go and buy coffee. We are looking forward to further relationship with her and are praying that God would be preparing her heart to hear the gospel as soon as we can share it. 

This is the "Sa Kaew" market that is close to our house and we love buying produce from the vendors here!

Our home for our time in Lopburi. It was amazing to be able to move into a fully furnished living space, biking distance from the language school!

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)