The Hamletts’ Blog

Hello everyone! So much has happened since our last post (I feel like we say that every time!) so we will try to recap as best as possible. We’ve continued to stay busy… again, we’ll take your through the day-by-day =)

The left picture is in front of the school… Will Firpo on the left and Matt Firpo on the right. We teach them history everyday!

On the right is Katie jumping with Caleb Firpo and Amy Firpo on their trampoline. Bobby calls this picture, “Katie and the tramp” =)

Last Friday, we went to the Firpo’s and had lunch. Brian and Terry had a date night/get away, so we watched their kids, Will, Matt, Amy, and Caleb for a few hours. We had history class at their home (Will and Matt are our history students) and we did our reading comprehension there as well. The Hunt’s graciously invited us over again for dinner, so we had grilled cheese and tomato soup. It’s was really good! We did grilled cheese in croissant rolls – yummy! We brought over a bunch of chips and had a wonderful time, as always! (See bottom of post for our “Focus on the Family” section! The pictures below are from the Hunt’s yard before dinner. You can see John (the other adult) and Bobby and all the kids playing “American Football”.

Saturday we woke up early and “baby-sat” for the Alward’s (Hokie enemies J). They also had a get away time! We had a great time with their kids: Robert 9, Ellie 7, John 4, and Becca 2. They were so wonderful and very well behaved. We played legos and a lot of cards. We taught them “peanut butter” and “Egyptian Ratscrew” (or “Egyptian War” as we call it here). They loved them both! They then taught us “Kings in the Corner” and some magic tricks. We had ham and cheese for lunch which we both agreed was the best ham and cheese we’ve ever had!

We then went over to Kristen’s and started to make this chicken and asparagus casserole for Steve’s 40^th birthday party. For Steve’s birthday, Marie (his wife) organized a huge potluck at the church with all the families bringing their favorite dish. Since we don’t have a kitchen here, we teamed up with Kristen and made the chicken and asparagus casserole! We arrived at the party and it was amazing! There was a ton of “Fa-rung” (or foreigner) food: pastas, ribs, lasagna, mashed potatoes, spinach casserole… mmm it was all so good! Then, the deserts…don’t get me started! Carrot cake, chocolate cake, pumpkin pie, cookies and many other wonderful treats! Here are some photos…

Terri is uncovering all the yummy food!

Bobby and Katie with our meals!! Yum!

All the tables of families and friends! Lots of fun!

This is Marie and Steve Lyndenmeyer (Steve’s 40th b-day) with their children Andrew (left) and Aaron (right)!

Dessert was excellent!!

Sunday was church - John Hunt gave the sermon. These past two weeks he has been doing Romans 4 – talk about a tough chapter of the bible to cover in two weeks! He did a wonderful, thorough job and everyone said it was powerful. Usually on Sundays, we participate in the worship part of the service. Then, during the sermon (since it’s in Thai), we help out with Sunday school.

The side of the church - still under a little construction!

Sunday afternoon, we were able to get online briefly and see some scores! UCF lost (and bad) but at least VT beat UNC, which was encouraging. We decided to watch a big soccer game here on T.V. Here in Thailand people are big into European soccer, especially the European Champions League. Most people like Manchester United. We watched MAN-U vs. Chelsea and were pulling against the favorite, MAN-U. It wound up being a 1-1 tie. It was exciting, but just doesn’t compare to American Football. J

Bobby and Katie with our Thai teacher, P-Ying!

Monday after teaching school and PE, P-Ying, our Thai teacher, and her husband P-Guy invited us over to their home for dinner. She made a wonderful meal – meatloaf with mashed potatoes and vegetables. She also made a wonderful homemade BBQ sauce (from a Better Homes cookbook). It was delicious; it tasted like Sweet Baby Rays. P-Guy has been on staff for about 7 years, and P-Ying about 5. It was so wonderful – they both shared their testimonies with us and we shared ours with them as well. They both had such powerful testimonies and it really showed how God has and continues to move through the campus outreach team. The way CO evangelizes is by building relationships with the students. Continual time with the students is the most effective way to share Jesus and allow Him to work on the hearts of the students – it is amazing! It’s not like mass evangelism it’s just steady day to day, week to week, building trust and relationships. We’ll share P-Guy and P-Ying’s testimonies later when we do a “Focus” on them.

We ate at the Hunt’s again on Tuesday (chicken noodle soup! Mmm!) And we ate taco/enchilada/burritos last night at the Alward’s (one of Kate’s favorites!). The families here are so good to us!

Also last night when we were on our way home, something kind of exciting happened! We were turning the corner, off of the main road toward NaAck’s house and we saw all sorts of flashing lights near her house. P-Nid started to get scared, and shouted to P-Seua, “Lell, Lell”, which means Hurry!! As we got closer we could see fire trucks, about three of them actually, right in front of NaAck’s house. P-Nid and P-Seua jumped out and asked the firemen what was going on! They were watering down the street – we thought there had been a fire! It turns out they were just washing the street due to the flooding that happened last week (there was a lot of mud!)! It was just kind of exciting, so we thought we’d share. We haven’t seen a fire truck since we’ve been here so that was neat!

Last thing…we just received our absentee ballot in the mail. How exciting! Our first piece of mail! We also received a political advertisement for Thad Altman for Florida State Senate, district 24 and for Sheriff Jack Parker. We were so surprised that someone would send us something like that even when we are in Thailand. It was also surprising that it only cost his group a 94 cent stamp and arrived in about a week.

Please continue to pray for us, our family, and those which whom are being taught the gospel. If you would, please pray for the KKU (Khon Kaen University) students as well as the NEU (North Eastern University) students and the city of Khon Kaen as a whole. We hope and pray that God will continue to raise up the next generation here for Christ.

Love you all,

Bobby and Katie

Lisa gave us a really good idea – to focus on a family or staff member every week and kind of “introduce” you to them! We thought we would do someone from CO/church and then also a family member! We’re going to call it “Focus on a Family” (Kind of like Dr. James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family” for those who have heard of it!) We will also post all of these on the tab called “Know the Family” at the top of our blog (next to “knowing Jesus” and “contact us”).

Focus on the Hunts:

John and Melody
Joseph, Megan, Mandy, Josh, John Mark (from left to right)

We have really enjoyed getting to know the Hunts! They have really made us feel at home. A lot of the time, it is their home where we hang out after school and check e-mail, post, etc. We love to eat with them! Not only is the food always good, but the Hunt’s have such a wonderful “family around the table” type dinner. Everyone talks and usually everyone has to say what the best part of their day was. Whenever we eat over there, the dinner table is like a “mob scene”. The five kids (Megan, John Mark, Josh, Joseph, and Mandy), 2 parents (John and Melody) and then us! Nine people around a table - crazy, but great! The Hunt’s are one of the closest families we interact with here. John and Melody also do marriage discipling with us! =)

John and Melody met in college, I think in Campus Outreach at their school, Montevallo in Alabama. They came to Thailand in 1990, first to Bangkok, then to Khon Kaen in 1999. John and Melody are the administrators/principals of the Covenant School. They are in charge of everything that has to do with the school – teachers, schedules… etc. We meet with them often to talk/be discipled on marriage.

Megan is the oldest, 15? She is very creative, especially with drawing! She can sketch just about anything! She also is a good leader, she helps her parents out by being responsible and keeping the younger kids in line.

John Mark is 14; he loves Star Wars, adventure/sci-fi novels, and is always ready to challenge Bobby in Xbox.

Josh is 11; he’s always cracking a joke, wanting to play American football, enjoys P.E. and video games and is really good about helping out. Katie does one-on-one reading with Josh everyday, as well as read-aloud with Bobby and Joseph!

Joseph is 12; He is full of energy and extremely talented on the guitar! He is adopted from Guatemala and Bobby thinks he seems to be a natural athlete. Bobby does one-on-one reading with Joseph everyday, and both Bobby and Katie also do read-aloud with Joseph and Josh.

Mandy is 7 or 8; She is full of joy and love! She is Joseph’s biological sister and is creative & always ready to laugh. Katie does one-on-one reading with Mandy every day!

Here is what is written about them on the Campus Outreach website:

“The Hunts have been ministering in Thailand since October 1990 along with the original Campus Outreach Thailand team. They began in Bangkok and then made a strategic team move in 1998 to KhonKaen – strategic for both ministry, team as well as for their family life. Melody is home schooling their five children (Megan, John Mark, Joseph, Josh and Mandy) while John disciples men, helps evangelize men on campus, coordinates seminary training for our Thai staff as well as the church ministry and teaches at the church. He also helps oversee teachers who work with our in-house Covenant School.”

http://thailand.campusoutreach.org/Home.aspx

Focus on Ba-Lot and P-Suck:

BaLot and Katie

Ba-Lot is one of Bobby’s mom’s older sisters. She lives kiddy-corner across the street from us and takes care of everyone! She cares for Bang, Apple, and P-Suck, who all live with her. Every morning, she comes to say hello to us, then goes to the market up the street and buys us some sort of food gift! Thais love to eat, and love to make sure you’ve eaten! Sometimes she brings us something we like, and sometimes it’s something “weird” to us that we don’t really care for! But she has such a giving heart and really loves us. She tells us all the time that she loves us and wants us to stay here!

P-Suck is Bobby’s half-brother who lives with Ba-Lot. He is mentally handicapped, and cannot care for himself. He doesn’t speak a lot, but we like to try and practice what we’re learning with him. He loves to wear baseball hats – you can see in his picture the FSU cap Bobby gave him!