April Update
Friends & Family,
What a past several weeks it has been. We have now been in Thailand for over 3 months! Back in the end of March we were granted our Education Visas which will allow us to stay until the end of the year. Yay! Thank you all for your prayers around that process.
We've been continuing to settle into our lives here in Bangkok and just when we were finding some routine and rhythm, a "third wave" of COVID, hit Thailand. The numbers are far above anything that has previously happened in Thailand, and all schooling has been moved online and there are no large gatherings allowed, which means church is online too. As of now there are no plans for a full lock down, but we are praying that the numbers decrease and we don't get to that point.
We just finished our first week of language school via Zoom. It's definitely not ideal, but we are adjusting. We only have one more week in our second level course before we go on to the third level (which will also most likely be online). Some days we are super excited about our progress and amazed at how much we are learning. Other days we want to throw the textbook out the window, but overall we are so thankful for this season we have to dedicate to learning this language.
Every April Thailand celebrates its biggest holiday of the year called Songkran. In the picture above, we are wearing the traditional Songkran flower necklaces we made with our teacher. It's a big week long celebration that used to be the Thai New Year. (They switched over to Jan 1 some number of years ago). Traditionally Thais celebrate by going back to their hometowns to be with family and by having a giant country wide water-fight. Because of COVID, the government did not allow any water throwing this year, but people still found ways to celebrate. In order to encourage domestic tourism, flights and accommodations during the week of Songkran were incredibly inexpensive. And we had a week off of language school! We decided to take advantage of the unique opportunity and travel to the South of Thailand for an incredible price with hardly any tourists around at all. It was an incredible time of relaxing, adventuring and seeing another part of this beautiful country.
A fun little language mishap story from our vacation: On our last while hanging out by the pool we got thirsty so Adam went to get some water. (At this point in our language learning journey we can just about always order our food etc in Thai. So getting some water? No problem.) So Adam goes up to a crowd of workers nearby and says "Pom Koo Naam bplaao song gEEO Krap" (May I have two bottles of water please) the workers rush off and are gone for a bit and come back and in English say with the most sincere apology, "I am SO sorry sir, but we do not have ANY Coconuts." Adam was slightly confused and then laughed and said in Thai "Pom mai aaoo maapraoo, aaaoo naam bplaao." (I don't need coconuts, I would like water) Water and coconut being two very similar sounding words in Thai. The workers all looked at each other and started laughing and got us some bottled water.
Our original plan for this month before the COVID increase was to begin jumping into some new ministry opportunities, but obviously COVID has a way of changing things up when we least expect it. We had plans to go with a couple from our church to Northern Thailand to do evangelism and English teaching in schools, but because of government restrictions it's all been postponed. People are very fearful of COVID and right now, so other people being in their space makes them feel uncomfortable, which is not very conducive to ministry. We are feeling bummed but we feel the Lord giving us peace and trusting that he isn't surprised by this. We long to be out in the communities and going on ministry trips, but for now we will continue to prepare our hearts, connect with our new church community, learn the language and intercede for these beautiful people.
Kayla making some homemade tortillas in our quaint little kitchen.
Prayer Requests:
Pray for us as we continue our online studies, that we would be able to get the most we can out of our classes and that we would have motivation to study and keep on going.
Pray that we would continue to build community and make new friends.
Pray that as we move out of the first season of transiton (3 months!) and into the next, we would continue to lean into Jesus and have passionate hearts for all He has for us here.
Join us as we spend extra time in this season interceding for Thai people, for their hearts to soften towards Jesus and that they would be so aware of their need for a savior.
We love hearing from you, if you'd like to reach out you can just reply to this email. If you are interested in seeing more of our daily life please follow us on instagram @kaylacoupe and @coupetroop (I (Kayla) also try to post my IG stories on Facebook Stories)
Much Love,
Adam and Kayla Coupe