Starting Again

2014 was a year of many, many changes. We had a beautiful daughter, moved twice, had our ministry location taken away and then blessed with a better one, hosted a team from Purdue University, helped host an international weightlifting tournament, had some great events with our ministry including: Valentines, Halloween, Loi Krathong, Thanksgiving, and Christmas; and we've started a coffee shop that is slowly getting more customers each week. We've been blessed with new friends, getting to see old friends we had lost touch with and have had out current friendships grow stronger. It was a great year, even as rough as it got.

Now we are looking forward to this next year and all that it holds and we are asking you for lots of prayer. I'm just going to list everything that could potentially happen in the next 12 months.

January:

Hosting a faculty dinner at the coffee shop (this week)
Mini-vacation, two nights in the mountains (please pray for safety)
2nd term starts
Setting up an activity with a group from a Texas high school and my students (next week)

February:
Valentines Day party @ Classic Coffee
7th annual NCU English Camp

March:
Midterms
Sending out requests for interns (to help w/ coffee shop and ministry)

April:
Easter Celebration @ Classic Coffee

May:
End of Year Celebration @ Classic Coffee
Finals

June-July:
Travel to the USA
Visit family and friends, Speak at some churches, Do a lot of fundraising

August:
Return to Thailand/Prepare for the 15/16 school year
(Prayerfully hoping) Welcome an Intern (or 3) for the next 6 months

September:
School starts
Back to School Celebration @ Classic Coffee

October:
Mid terms
Halloween @ Classic Coffee

November:
2ndAnnual Loi Kratha @ Classic Coffee (Loi Krathong/Yii Peng)
2nd Annual Thanksgiving Buffet @ Classic Coffee

December:
Christmas @ Classic Coffee
Finals

Of course this will really fill in. I am involved in two research projects with the University, I need to re-write my textbook for my Public Speaking class, have several other projects in the works with the Uni.

Goals this year for our ministry: Be able to start at least one discipleship group with our students, have better relationships with the 1st and 2nd year students, and want to start a time of worship at the shop as well.
The church Anne and I attend is growing and starting to meet out nearer to where we are so we will be more involved there as well as they will be more involved with the ministry here.

Goals for Classic Coffee: Build a new counter/bar, Add food to the menu, have one month in the black before we head back to the USA. After we come back, be able to remodel the kitchen and get more food on the menu, be able to start remodeling the inside.

Goals as a family: Continue spending time together, Move out of my mother-in-law's place and into a place of our own, get insurance for Anne and I (finally got insurance for Deanna in December)

So this is a much longer post than normal, but this is where we want to be headed this year. We really need your prayers. We are also going to need help raising funds to get to the USA and get around while we are there. The round-trip tickets alone will be at least $3,000 for Anne and I. Fortunately Deanna doesn't count as a full ticket just yet. But to end off this post, here are photos to highlight the past year.

Chris and Joy's Wedding

Thailand TESOL Conference

Traveled with the students to learn about meditation

U and Mim's Wedding

Valentine's @ Huen Whertvine

6th Annual NCU English Camp

English Club Trip to Mae Wang for elephant rides and bamboo rafting

Graduation Day!

Old high school friend and his wife visited

The second house we lived in this year

Faculty trip to the sea, Anne's and my first trip to the sea together

Two pictures of the team from Purdue

Learning how to do cloth diapers and squish my daughter's face into funny faces

Playing games to welcome the first year students

Visiting my students at their internship and getting feed back from the staff there

Visiting group from Myanmar (Burma)

Two most beautiful girls I know

Family and Friends visiting us at home

Deanna's first time at church

Classic Coffee grand opening!

My friend James back from Australia before he left for the USA

Classic Coffee Halloween

A' and Aom's Wedding

Loi Krathong/Yii Peng @ Classic Coffee
First Annual Loi Kratha

Anne's friend May visiting from Bangkok

CUTE!!!

4th year students doing their final project presentations

Thanksgiving @ Classic Coffee

Welcoming Athletes from 28 countries for the World University Weightlifting Championship

With some of the team from India

Serving as tour guides for some of the VIPs

Decorating for Christmas

Christmas @ Classic Coffee

Merry Christmas!

Opportunity out of Frustration

I last posted in May. I haven't had much I was ready to share since then. Sometimes it's hard to see the good things coming in the midst of hard times, but I'm gonna practice what I preach, and choose to focus on those positives. And they are wonderful.

The biggest and best thing to happen in all of 2014 is this little one right here. Ramida Deanna Whertvine. She's two and a half months old and amazes me everyday.

We are living at my mother -in-law's house right now, but the good in that is how willing she is to help us with taking care of Deanna. This has helped us have the time and energy for me to get my work stuff done and for Anne to have some time to come and help out with the coffee shop and on Friday nights.

The coffee shop is up and currently is covering its product costs. We are working our way up to be able to cover the cost of the rent, electricity, and employee. But we have been getting great feedback on our current products, so we need to focus on our marketing, getting some more edibles in there, and getting a few more pieces of equipment, namely another air conditioner, a cake display case, and a new counter so that more than one person can get work done back there at the same time.

Our Friday nights are still going. This past week we had a Halloween party, this week and the following weeks we will have a Loi Krathong/Yii Peng party, Game Night Tourney, and a modified Thanksgiving. Our goal this month is to grow the attendance from the university, and get more people from our church participating to really be able to start some sort of Bible study.

Mummy Competition @ Classic Coffee

Speaking of our church, they will be having cell group at Classic Coffee tomorrow night, and we are going to pray together and talk about how best we can work together to stat some bigger works out here. I'll give more details on that when we have finalized some things.

I'm seeing more and more, if we hadn't been evicted out of our comfort zone and forced to adapt, we never would have attempted the coffee shop this early, because it truly is too much for both of us right now. BUT... The opportunities that are practically hitting us in the mouth right now, the doors God is opening and the potential bridges that can be built, this was the perfect timing for all of it. Thank you for all of your prayers. Thank you for your words and messages of support, encouraging us to keep going. Thank you for your belief in the work we are doing. Everyone of you who reads these words, keeps up with us, prays for us, and send words of encouragement, you truly are our partners and help us to get up and get moving each day, and we would for sure not be here doing this with out you all by our sides.

Stay on the look out for pictures and videos from our Friday nights this month, and keep them in your prayers, We're gonna show you all all of the things that are happening, and next month I'll have more info about the big picture Anne and I are looking at.

Please pray for our health. Right now we are pushing ourselves hard getting all of this going and haven't been resting enough. I was down with small cold the last two days, but getting up and at it in the morning. Thank you all again.

Irons and Fires

For me, I have been subconsciously equating the new school year with the start of a new year. Over the last few weeks my contract as been renewed and I've re-upped my visa and work permits. So it feels like the year is getting started. And boy do I have a lot of Iron in the Fire this year. So let's look at those irons:

1. Ministry - This summer we haven't been able to connect much with our students, so really looking forward to this upcoming year. As of right now we are still looking for place to meet up. We may not have one until the year starts and we can get with our students figure out what works best for all of us.

2. Family - Anne is getting larger and as of right now we have 80 days until the due date. Big, big change happening right there. And we are looking to make our lives more stable for our baby girl and our sanity's sake. To that end:

3. Building a house - We have land as soon as the gov. gets the new deeds made and we nearly have house plans finished. We are taking the advice of family all around that if we are going to build, make sure it is a house that we can stay in long term and absolutely love and we are nearly there. Of course the next step means:

4. Taking our a Mortgage - If we are going to build, we don't really have the cash on hand to just outright do it, so that means going into a bit of debt. I'll go more into that at the bottom:

5. Classes - taking my classes from last year and kicking them up a notch. To do it will be a fun challenge. That's my main project at work the next two months.

6. Purdue - The university is partnering with Purdue to do a study about how to improve international trade from handicraft villages.... or something like that. So I'm going to go along and help as a translator but also to hopefully learn some. Anne and I have been looking into alternate streams of revenue and online sales has crossed our minds more than once.

7. The English Experience - As part of my contract, I need to do a project this year, so I am putting this together. It's something the students sorely need in terms of contact with native speakers, but it comes at a price. Have to see if my students and the university are willing to pay it.

8. Curriculum Research - I am co-researching with a fellow teacher the needs for a curriculum for the Tourist Police. If it goes well, then we could end up putting together something that would be published and used nation wide. That would be cool.

9. Other random things - The university always has this or that starting and needing 'volunteers', so we'll see what surprises they throw at me this year.

10. Moving (again) - We are going to take Anne's mom up on her offer and go live in her house (which she is not using at the moment). This way we can save money for the future as well as, when we get closer to Baby time, rent an apartment for a month or two near the hospital where our child will be born.

So like I said, quite a bit going on as we head into this new school year.

More on the house.

This house will be our base of operations for the foreseeable future. But we need your help. In the next few weeks we will be starting a fundraising drive for the down payment for this house. We need to get a few key details from owners of the constructions company we will most likely use, but when we have that, we will need to get going quick. Rough guesstimate is that we will need to raise around $6,000 to get thing rolling with the actual construction. This will be the biggest fund raiser we will have attempted yet, so right now wee need prayers from everyone as we move forward that God will provide exactly what we need when we need it.

Also be praying as we move out into the village about our ministry. This is a great opportunity to live near and witness to Anne's immediate family. It will also be a time where I am going to have to redefine the student ministry I have been pursuing since I graduated DTS. There is amazing opportunity if Anne and I have the wisdom to see it. So your prayers are deeply appreciated.

Love you all, and talk again after we finalize the house plans.

Love and lots of English

Secondary students at morning assembly.

The end of the semester at my university is like going 90 m.p.h to 0 with the click of a stapler. The entire month of February has been a mad dash to finish all the projects, complete all the classes, attend all the the events and grade all the papers. All of it leading down to yesterday at just after six when I printed off my last class grade report to be sent to the outsource committee, stapled and put it in the folder on my boss's desk.

Now to shift gears to get ready for summer, baby and a new term.

But first: Highlights:

- February first, went to a couple from our church's wedding. It was outdoors and beautiful.
- The next week got to speak to a local high school to convince them to come to our English camps. They laughed at my jokes. The jokes were in Thai. I'm happy with that.

Two teachers from the School,
Aj. Ying, and myself

- The 8th, Anne and I got to go to a random concert. We had fun. It was the international battle of the bands, so had music from all over the world, and even though it was sponsored by MTV, they didn't all sound the same.
- The 14th, our first Valentines Day as a married couple and this year a national holiday (thank you lunar calendars of Buddhist holidays) So what did we do? Since it was on a Friday, I baked cookies, and we borrowed a friends x-box and kinetic to set up a dance competition. How did go? Check out the video below:

 

Special thanks to P'Aek for making this video for us

Our campers and staff

- The 15th, holiday weekend, sooo what better day to wake up at 6 am to go put on an all day English camp. It went really well, had our largest group attending and despite a couple of hiccups (probably only glaring to the people who planned the thing), went off really well. I'll have pics up this weekend.

After the camp I had convinced the frisbee players to come out to try and get my students involved in Ultimate. No students showed up but we still had a lot of fun for pick up. Then went home to a house full of students wanting to play more Just dance... gonna have to get my own some day.

Annie, Yo & Dao

-The 18th, graduation celebration for the two graduates receiving degrees this year. (Though one was in absentia). They let me pick the restaurant and the school payed for it. It was a great night. As they rolled me out of the place, one of our other students who had graduated the year before pulled up on his bicycle. Was good to see him.

Waiting on Elephants

-The 19th - My English club field trip was rescheduled. So I picked the best day to take a school trip for which I had to go along... My birthday. We went elephant riding and bamboo rafting, and ate good food by the side of the river. Then Anne and I went out to eat and to watch Robocop. The only downside that day was when I bought the ticket they forgot to mention to me that the version I was going to be watching was Thai dubbed. Fortunately action movies don't rely heavily on verbal plot developments and my Thai has much improved over the past 5 years.

- The 22nd & 23rd were graduation. One full day (9 am - nearly 9 pm) for practice, and then all day for ceremony and stuff on Sunday. But Anne got her degree, and we had enough to hire a photographer for the day since I was busy working the event. It was a great day.

-Finally, got all my school work done, ended the year buying some pizza for our students, and now, today, we go for our next ultrasound.

Prayer Requests: 
- As many of you know, we are going to be evicted from our house. We don't yet know when, but in the next month or two at the earliest. Right now we are looking around for the best option, meaning do we rent again, and potentially face this same thing again in the future, or do we use our rent money and make it mortgage money? That's right. We may be looking at buying a house.

My goal is to try to find a house that we can still do our ministry out of, but be comfortable enough to grow as a family as well. Hopefully near the university. So please pray that God would be guiding our search for that.

- A vehicle. We can't keep going on the bike with the baby on the way. A pregnant lady and fat white boy will probably break that little thing in too. But at the same time, with having to move, I'm not sure where we are at financially. Anne has found a little job to do for the next couple of months, and that will help us save up for down payments, but one the kiddo arrives, she won't be working for at least a few months. So with taking on a new house payment (weather purchasing or renting), and looking to take on a car payment, She and I are going to need some help. So be praying for us as well as we start trying to expand our support base.

- In a couple of months, two friends of mine are coming to help with ministry. They are coming to do some photo profiles of local ministries. Please pray for me as I start solidifying plans, that we will get in touch with the right places. Where my friend's photography skills can be the biggest blessing, and that I will be able to get the planning done while looking for a house/car and getting ready for next semester.

Love you all! We might know the Gender of the baby today, so if we find out, we'll be letting you all know as well. Lot's of love!

Zac & Anne