philsquest

Happy New Year

 

A year has ended and the last hours are passing by. There has been much fruit this year in our work and many blessings in my life. This doesn't mean that the labor was easy. Often I got tired and sometimes I have been on the verge of giving up. Surely if I would have to produce the fruit myself I would have totally and utterly failed. It would be like a farmer who after plowing and sowing would have to make the rice grow. But we all know that this is foolish thinking. Why do we think or act as if we have to produce the fruit in the kingdom of God. It is God's responsibility to bring forth the fruit and our joy to enjoy it :-)

With this thought I wish all of you much fruit in all you do for the coming year. May fruit come forth from the things you do. Be this in the family, with friends, at work and in your relationship with God.

Happy New Year!

 

A new week and a hundredtrilliongazillion things to do

I think it is very funny how some younger children use numbers to express extremes. Today I will do that too. Sometimes, specially on Mondays, I can get overwhelmed by to do's, plans, should's etc. Often I thought it was about being not organized enough or even more not disciplined enough. But lately I feel there is another reason th is more likely. I don't want to narrow myself down to one thing I do. I really like options. Something which would be more my wife's attribute. I guess being married long enough rubs of certain qualities. When I sit down to write down all the things I do and all the things I am interest

ed in and all the things I would like to do I can get quite overwhelmed. On the other hand I am absolutely not bored :-) Be that work, family or my own personal interests. So there is another week I will try to pack all the things in and balance the different parts of life. 

This week I will spend two or three days in the mountains putting windows and doors in the newly finished center at Hui Kau Laam. I haven't seen the finished building yet. There is still alot to do. Painting, electricity and the surrounding landscaping etc. But I am so excited about it. 

Where did you see that chicken?

I was somewhere in a Thai village running errands when I came across this scene. A motorbike with groceries. There are those times when you don't by just vegetables but also some chicken wings, still attached and feathered.

Thai lesson break

This morning I took my last Thai lesson for a while. After over a year I lost my motivation and need a break. With work and all the other things going on I just don't have the capacity for the home work I should be doing to keep up with the lesson's which are quite demanding on that level. So what I'm trying to do till January is repeat vocabulary and practice my reading skills. The last seven chapters I studied were mostly about social problems from Birth control to environmental issues. I cannot put any more words into my brain.

I started Last year somewhere in January taking up Thai again going through the writing and Reading module 4. Then I went through all the books from module 5 (this is basically 1 & 2 grade Thai) After that I studied module 6 (all about Thai culture, geography and important things to know in Thailand) I skipped module 7 starting module 8 social problems in Thailand. 

Looking back I learned alot and I am glad I took the classes. My Thai improved alot and it helped in my work. So I feel quite good about the accomplishment. Learning Thai has been a great challenge. With all the other challenges meeting us here living in another country I sometimes wish English would do it. I miss the freedom and fluency of expression in the language like I would have in German or English. To be honest I wonder if I ever get there. But then I will not give up on it just yet. For now I will just have a break from School.

A bug in the system

There is a bug in my system.... I mean some bacteria thought my intestines were a nice place to move into and stay. But unfortunately those bugs are quite a nuisance. I am glad pixar hasn't made an animated movie about them yet, or they would be protected by animal advocates all over the world and I could have not taken the drastic measures needed to end my suffering. The suffering that is having someone steel all my food and therefore energy and in addition my un-welcomed visitors started a fight with my permanent tenants. This in turn gave me a high fever. In short I have been in bed for the last three days with diarrhea, fever and splitting headaches. After four days I definitely feel better. Yesterday I had go a shot of antibiotics and today I went for a short walk. I still feel pretty weak though. No trip to the villages this week.

Our kids start school again

After a long summer break school starts for my kids again tomorrow. I realized today that my daughter starts 9th. grade. What happened to my little baby? It was not that long ago when she started first grade. My boys start 8th. and 3th. grade. Tomorrow we all we go for the school start to welcome the new teachers.

So the long holidays are over. I started work already and I am busy with the building project in Hui Kau Laam as well as office work. This week I will also start again with my Thai language program. To be honest I am not to motivated right now, but I really want to finish at least this module. 

After a long break

I am back on my blog after a long break. I blame facebook for it :-) Because I spend way to much time on it. I was also on holidays with my family and before that my brother was visiting with his family. And then of course I was also working and on the road and in the mountains quite so often.

So I will try to get back into writing again.

Holidays approaching

The kids are off school for a week already. We finally get to get away for a long needed holiday. The problem is when we stay t home it is not quite a holiday because there is always something to do and people calling because of projects or other things.

We haven't been at the beach since Juli 2007. Okay I admit I have been alone in Kau Lak for three days in January for a diving course I had to post-bone because of the airport closure in November. But As a family we haven't to the beach for a long time.

No Internet for 8 days :-) Only sun, sand and wind. Better pack those books I wanted to read for a while and extra sun cream.

Here in Chiang Mai it is getting terribly hot. At least during the day. Our house is still pretty cool even without using the air-con. After we come back from our trip Thai New year (Songkran) will start.

Thai Unterricht

Ich bin Gestern Abend aus den Bergen zurückgekommen. Das Dmc Team wiird bis Freitag in den Bergen bleiben und in den verschiedenen Dörfern einen ihren Einsatz haben.

Heute Morgen war ich wieder im Thai Unterricht. Ich bereite mich auf den Test für nächste Woche vor. Ich habe wieder ein Buch abgeschlossen. "Thai Culture". Ich schaue zurück auf das letzte Jahr Thaiunterricht und muss sagen das es sehr viel gebracht hat. Lesen, schreiben und Kommunikation hat sicher sehr verbessert. Ich bin noch nicht auf dem Stand auf dem ich sein möchte aber sehe schon eher das tatsächlich möglich ist :-) 

Mich nach all den Jahren hier in Thailand wieder dem Thaistudium zu widmen hat sich auch sehr positiv auf die Arbeit ausgewirkt. Nun ich habe doch noch einen weiten Weg vor mir. Trotzdem bin ich ermutigt weiterzumachen. 

สวัสดีถุกคนเเพระเจ้าอวยพร

Dinosaurs in the house

Yesterday morning Timmy was vacuum cleaning the leaving room when he called me from my house duties. We had a visitor from another world. A dinosaur (a small one) was hanging at the fly wire trying to get through the glass window. We are used to having Geckos in the house (a friend of ours named them all Freddy) and we also had close encounters with snakes in the bed room etc. But this lizard was a first. There are very fast, speeding off on two legs. Not easy to catch. We eventually granted our little friend freedom in our wild garden hoping that Snowy, our cat, would not devour him like she did with Dino's friend last week. 

a new year has started....

I wish to all of my five English readers a very happy and great year!

May you have

Peace in a world of war,

Security where world powers fall,

May you experience the love that transcends all!

... und auch allen deutschsprachigen Lesern wünsche ich alles Beste für das 2009.

Möget ihr Frieden haben in einer Welt des Krieges,

Sicherheit, wo Weltmächte fallen,

Möget ihr die Liebe erfahren

die all das überschreitet

Broken toe

How can a little toe be so painful. I was on my way out of the house and quickly ran upstairs to get my ipod. There I kicked the bed with my little right toe. It hurt like mad. But I went downstairs and put my shoes of to go to the bank. When I left my truck I realised that walking was very difficult. How in the world can a toe hurt so much. Looking at my swollen blue toe I realised that I probably have broken the little thing. It is like double the size and won't fit in any shoe for a while. No Sports for a some weeks.

I found this webpage for Self-Help

Step 1
Remove your shoe and sock and feel for any deformity. Gently run your fingers up and down your toe. If your toe feels crooked or lumpy, it's more likely that it's broken than sprained.                

                   

Step 2

Wiggle your toe. Severe pain suggests the toe is broken.

               

                   

Step 3

Listen to your toe while wiggling it. If you hear a grating or popping sound, a piece of bone may be rubbing against another piece of bone.

               

                   

Step 4

Check for swelling. If your toe is double its size in puffiness and the skin is stretched, your toe may be broken.

               

                   

Step 5

Compare your injured toe to the same toe on the other foot. If the injured toe looks shorter or deformed, chances are it may be broken.

               

                   

Step 6

Check your temperature. Within two to three hours after a bone breaks, the body's natural defense mechanisms automatically raise your temperature. A fever above 99.6 degrees F (37.6 C) suggests the toe is broken.

               

                   

Step 7

Try to stand for a minute or so. If your toe is broken, it won't be able to support your weight. A broken toe will tend to buckle underneath you when you stand on it.

Facebook timeout problems

This last days I had annoying facebook problems. It had to do that my facebook account would drop me out after a view seconds and I would have to login every time I went to another page. After restating the browser, deleting all cookies, reseting the browser etc. I figured out that the problem came from the chat program in facebook. I use Adium, a chat program that connects the different chat accounts I have, like msn, ichat and facebook. It seems like if I have Adium and facebook open at the same time facebook logs me out after a view seconds. I guess some seriuos bugs in the facebook software or security issues with a third party software like Adium. To avoid this I cannot be loged into facebook and Adium at the same time.

Domain name gone?

Living in Asia I get used to all kinds of disruption. I mean coming from the perfect country of Switzerland where the people get informed when the train is two minutes late.
Here in Thailand we are used to power-cuts, Internet not working or so slow you could run faster, mail being lost, floods, no water, garbage not collected, the blocking of youtube and alot more. Still it can be annoying when things don't work. Since the first of September it our e-mail doesn't work. It is not the first time. sometimes our provider changes something without telling. But now i realized that also our domain name questasia doesn't seem to work. The webpage is down. Even though the domain name is still valid to next year.
This is probably why I have about five e-mail addresses. :-)

It has been a while

It has been a little more then three weeks since we came back from Switzerland. We are definitely back in Asia. I have been on my first trip to the mountains last week and will be on the road tomorrow for two days. I had a hard time coming back. Switzerland was so nice!

My laptops hard drive broke while we were in Switzerland and it took a while to get my computer fixed and all my data installed on it. I'm glad I didn't have to buy a new one. I want to wait for the new generation of Macbook coming out sometime in the future.

Next week I will go back to Thai studies and I will be traveling up to Fang alot more the coming months. We have several projects we want to see. I will try to update our questasia webpage more frequently on what we are working on.

Thailand seems to be in a state of tumult right now. Here in Chiang Mai we don't feel much of it yet. But if you follow the news you will know that demonstrators seized government buildings, including the Prime ministers office in Bangkok. Occupied several Airports (Phuket, Krabi and Hat Yai) for a day, and most of the railway is down. For tomorrow there is a threat that telephone, electricity and water would be cut for certain state agencies like police. I never heard of that a nation of over 67 million people can be controlled by about 10,000 demonstrators. The thing is taking on momentum.

Thailand has become more expensive. With petrol prices going up, transportation went up and so go consumer goods and everything else. With the political problems the economy will suffer as well and tourism, one of the main incomes in many places, will definitely suffer.

Busy Tuesday

I was sitting in the car this morning and thought what I really should be doing is writing the Newsletter and let people know that we are coming to Switzerland. But here I was coming from the Immigration office trying to get everything in order to transfer the Visa into the new Passport of two of my kids. Then prepare for the English lesson at four thirty, get ready for my Thai lesson at one o'clock, copy all the documents for Immigration, take my two oldest to the Immigration office to show them they are real at three o'clock. After teaching English at six go meet with the fellow musicians for a practice.
What a crazy day today.

Running errands

This morning I ran errands I should have done a while ago. Something I don't really like doing. Tuesday is the day where I stay home to look after my kids At least from lunch time on. In the morning I usually go to the office, then pick up some Thai food and at one my youngest in school. The afternoon I do work at home or do things around the house.
This morning I went to Macro to shop for the Christmas outreach we have in the mountains next week. After that I went to a internet provider to check prices. We want to change our current provider because it is expensive and slow and there are other ones now that are better. The other thing I looked at is prices for a new car. Our family car is getting to old and mainly to small to carry a family of five with growing children. Lillian also often has to pick other children from school. When we have visitors transportation is always a problem. Specially when I'm gone and we can't throw everybody on the back of my truck. So finally I went to the garage to see how we could finance a bigger car.
12.00 picking up food; 13.00 picking up Two of my children; rest of the afternoon unleash Philipp the gardener into our garden. There is a lot of work to be done.
Tomorrow I will be off to Fang to meet my staff and to do some more outreach preparations.

Monkey business

Today I went up to Prao. This is a town about an hour and a half North of Chiang Mai. Actually it is a whole Ampoe, or district hidden behind mountains. Driving from Chiang Mai I pass Mae Jo and then later drive over some hills that leads to Prao. It is mainly a farming district and has also some ethnic minority groups in the Northern mountain ranges. I go up there to see how the boarding home is doing and to bring them their monthly support. This time I also brought them some money for the Christmas dinner. Unfortunately I won't be able to go to their big event. I will be up in the mountains around Fang at that time
This morning when I passed the hills I went into a long curve and in the distant I saw some animals crossing the street. My first thought was cats. But they all had the same color and there were so many. As I got closer I saw that about 30 monkeys wanted to cross the street. As fast as they came out of the jungle, they vanished on the other side.
On the road in Thailand I came across herds of water buffaloes, elephants and of course cats and dogs, but I have never seen a group of monkeys cross the road. So still after all this years driving the roads I get surprises.

What should I write

There would be a thousand stories, adventures and episodes. I just can't think of any right now. I'm sitting in bed 11.30 pm. Tomorrow is Saturday and I will drive up North to Prao to meet Mongkun. We will go to a thanksgiving service in a Lahu village. This will be the first time I go to a Lahu village in this area. Even though we support the boarding school that helps a lot of those children from those villages.
This week has been somehow busy with writing an update and trying to send it. E-mail server problems. Preparing a week long teaching for the Karen DTS and recording Midas new song. The next two weeks will be quite full, but I want to keep this Blog and my readers updated.
Actually I wanted to go climbing this morning, but we were somehow to busy. Perhaps on the weekend. We'll see. At least I was able to make it to the gym twice this week.
What else? Oh yes my Lowden guitar showed her age while we were recording. The 22 year old preamp is finally giving up on me. Am I that old? I bought the guitar when I was 17. Okay enough rambling. It's time for dreaming.... Good night.

The dilemma of the news

Maybe I read to much, maybe I just get to much information. I just feel overwhelmed by what is happening out here in the world. Through the internet, newspaper and CNN/BBC I have access to the worlds disasters, war, genocide and latest starlet gossip. I mostly get the suffering and the stupidity of the human race. Sometimes I get lucky and there is a story that inspires hope, but mostly I get information about the world going down.
There are big floods in Mexico and in Vietnam. Volcanoes are stirring in Indonesia, a power grasp in Pakistan and the tragedy of 103 children in Chad who apparently were being abducted by an organization called Zoe's ark, while the news of last week is old news and we forget all that was then because we move on and focus somewhere else.
All the issues that are kept in front of our mind seem to be the Afghanistan and Iraq war, Global warming. Swiss news I neglected all together. Living in Thailand I focus more on the local and regional happenings. I do realize I have a momentous overkill. I know I can decide and select. But I'm just to curious a person to not to get informed. I am also aware that I cannot change anything.
The good thing is that I leave for the mountains for a view days again. Time to calm down and to reflect.