Wrapping Up the School Year

The week after sending out our last newsletter, we went into lockdown. Covid cases surged locally—the highest rates they’ve seen since the onset of the pandemic—and Chiang Mai was deemed a “red zone”. In one of the neighborhoods near us, there was a cluster of covid cases discovered, and the local government shut down the whole neighborhood for two weeks—no-one in, no-one out; monitored by both police and medical staff. Others in the community stepped up to deliver meals and groceries to the nearly twenty families under severe lockdown. It got a little intense for a few weeks.

We have been grateful that we could still leave the house for groceries, and Nick was able to continue to report to the school for his responsibilities, but basically everything else was cancelled or moved online. We just wrapped up the last five weeks of the school year, via online learning. Things have just begun to open back up this week, and just in time for summer break. The heat index has been into the 100s every day, so pools opening back up will be very welcomed. We pray this will give us chances to meet other families and form some new relationships. As a quick mention—we have a temporary neighbor who is Thai, but she (she’s 28) and her parents speak English. We have already suggested they all join us for dinner soon, and they seemed open to it!

Summer Plans

Unfortunately, due to the covid spike, our initial summer plans to host an outreach sports camp had to be cancelled, and language study has also been on pause. With summer opening up, though, we were able to register for Cru’s main cross-cultural training (called X-Track). We were originally going to do this five-week training before we left the USA…but Covid. This summer they are offering it remotely, and we jumped at the chance. However, because this is still a training based out of the US, we will be functioning on a bit of a unique summer rhythm. Our online “class time” will take place from 11:00pm to 1:30am (for us), five days a week, for around five weeks…plus extra times for coaching and breakout groups. Additionally, we will have some curriculum that we will be covering with our children.

Yes, it feels a little crazy for us to commit to this, but we felt like it was a good use of our summer, and we are praying we can glean some great wisdom and training that will help us in the next year ahead. We felt a lot of peace coming to this decision and know God can give us the strength and energy to participate well, and still parent well, and we greatly appreciate your prayers toward this endeavor. Thank you so much for standing in the gap and praying for our family and the ministry here! We couldn’t be here without you!