Hiccup??

Well, we have a little story for you all. It all started back a few days ago when we made our trek back from the north of Thailand (Chiang Mai) to Bangkok. We chose to spend a little extra money in order to fly back in one hour, rather than take a 14 hr bus ride. We based the decision on needing to get to the South Korean Embassy in Bangkok as soon as possible because we had one final step for our work visa's, which would take a few days to finalize.

After walking through the city with our large backpacks and very tired feet, we finally found the Embassy only to find that we could only apply during particular hours of the day, which had we had already missed that day. Bummer! We shrugged it off and took the skytrain early the next morning back to the Embassy. We sat down and filled out the necessary application and drew our number to wait our turn. Thankfully we were there early to be the first ones. We handed through our applications, photos, passports, visa issuance numbers, and the required fee to the lady sitting behind the glass window. We felt so much excitement as we were finally able to receive the required stamp we needed on our passport in order to teach. This was the easy part! Or so we thought...

The lady returned to us with all of our documentation and in broken English told us that we have to go back to the States to do this step. We asked her to repeat herself because we were hit with instant shock. We had been told by our director in Korea that we would have no problem getting our final stamp at the Embassy in Thailand. He has even had even had teacher's do this step at this same Embassy. We tried to prove the Embassy wrong, which obviously didn't go over well. We were in a mode of panic, desperation, defeat, and confusion. I kept thinking "God, what is going on? Why have we come this far only for this last step to be rejected? Would it really be worth it to fly home and then back to Korea?" Our minds were clouded with all sorts of questions.

We returned to our hotel with the feeling of defeat. While I napped, Nathan stepped up and got ahold of our director in Korea. Our director felt terrible as he had told us that this part would be no problem and here we were stranded in Thailand with a plane ticket to Korea but unable to board it because then for some reason our entire application process would be canceled if we entered the country without our required visa. Our director was insistent that we not give up. He recommended that we go to either Guam or Hawaii in order to straighten everything out as these were the closest options. He deliberated with his authority and they offered to pay all the extra cost that is incurred for this rabbit trail. Wow!

I finally awoke from my nap only to be told that we have to go to Guam. My first response was "Where the heck is Guam?". I had heard of it, but never in my life would have imagined going there. So there we sat in shock as we let it sink in that we would have to be flown to Guam to straighten everything out. We booked our tickets two hours later and then flew out of Bangkok two days later. We still kept looking at each other that entire day and just saying "What the heck just happened... we're going to GUAM!"

Apparently, Nathan, being a man of connections, knew a pastor in Guam who used to work at the church in Seaside, Oregon when Nathan was in youth group. He contacted him and they were more than gracious to host us and feed us for the week we would have to spend here. We then spoke to three different individuals at the Korean Consulate in Guam to verify that our dilemma could be sorted out here.

We struggled with not knowing if this was God closing a door, or if He intended for us to go to Guam all along. It was definitely the more stressful and discouraging days that Nathan and I have faced, but yet it has been turned into such a huge blessing. We got to go to a tiny tropical island, stay with a pastor and his family, solidify our work visa's... for close to free!

So here we are... in Guam and enjoying the island life style until we fly to S. Korea on Feb. 24th. Both Nathan and I are VERY ready to get there and to finally settle into our little spot there. We've LOVED our last 5 weeks of travel in Thailand, but we can't wait to get started in our life there and the adventure that it will be.

We never would have chosen for this complication to take place, but God is ministering to us here through the family we are staying with. They have showed us so much generosity and have such a healthy sense of family, which has encouraged us. We are so gracious that we are still able to make our way to Korea even when hiccups do occur. We're constantly reminded that we so often have no idea where we are headed or what God is doing in our lives, but we feel such as strong sense of provision as we have chosen to step out in faith. We're about to celebrate our 6 months of marriage... woohoo, and I already marvel at the adventure God has taken us on in such a short time. I can't wait for a continued life with Nathan Pogue with God leading us into so many unexpected blessings.

"For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

With love,

Nathan and Chelsea

Jungle Adventures!

Hello again. Nathan and I have had quite an eventful past few days and would love to share a bit about it with you all. We've really enjoyed our time here in Chiang Mai and it has definitely proven to be our favorite location in Thailand. We've found a great little guest house that we've stayed at for over a week now. I never knew how grateful I would be for a warm shower, toilet paper, toilet flushers, and a soft mattress with a pillow that doesn't make you cringe in the morning. We even have a TV here, so we're feeling awfully spoiled, while only paying $9 per night!

After our cooking course that I've already shared a bit about, we took a day or two off to recover from our food comatose. We still visited the night market here, an elementary school that we got to tour and gain some historical insight of Thailand, went running around the city square a couple times, and explored the area a bit more. 

Once Wednesday the 9th rolled around, we were picked up and taken to an elephant training center about an hour and a half outside of the city. It was glorious! Our first adventure riding elephants. Not only that, we got to train, feed, and bathe them. I wish I could upload more photos of this experience (I have a few below), but the computer is being lame and not letting me upload any others. We spent the entire day there with just one other couple from Holland exploring the jungles while riding our elephants barebacked. Although, I must say the "comfort" of sitting on an extremely large beast's back is not entirely pleasing. Nonetheless, this was an experience that we will never forget. The day that we were mahouts (elephant trainers).

We then had one day in between our next plunge into a unique adventure. On Friday the 11th, we headed out with a group of other tourists back into the jungles of Thailand. We made a pit stop at an orchard/butterfly farm, a locals market, a longneck village market, then we continued on and hiked for 5 hours through the hot jungle. After a lot of sweat, dirt, insects, bamboo, beautiful views, the fear of TIGERS, we reached a village within the hills. This village consisted of an open dirt area with about 7 grass huts surrounding the central area. Dinner was prepared for us (rice, cooked veggies, and curry) and then a bonfire started that we gathered around and listened to a local man play the same 3 notes over and over again on his strange wind instrument contraption. It reminded me of "hot cross buns", but yet it seemed surreal that it was while gathered around a fire in the middle of the jungle with pigs, dogs, and little kids running around the whole village. We then slept in a grass hut (see picture below). I layed awake the entire night thinking of a bed NOT made of a bamboo mattress, blankets that kept me warm, and when hogs and roosters aren't the nightly calls. While it was a bit painful, it really was quite the experience and we wouldn't trade it for a thing.

Once the night hours finally passed and we didn't have to wait for it to get light, we woke up to a bonfire and a breakfast consisting of toast, hardboiled eggs, and coffee/tea. It was a lovely start after a dreadfully long night. We all mosied on through the jungle for another 30 minutes until we reached our "taxi", a large truck bed we all piled into. Then we set off for riding more elephants, bamboo rafting down the Mahout River, waterfall swimming/lounging, and white-water rafting. So much excitement in 2 days!

We're now back at our lovely guest house for 3 more nights. We're heading to a church service here tomorrow morning and spending our last full day in the city. We have a trip planned for Monday to take a bus 3 hours north to Chiang Rai to visit the temples and markets, then crossing the border into Burma to renew our travel visa's for our last week here. We're then heading back to Bangkok on the 15th to pay a visit to the S. Korean Embassy to finalize our work visa's. We were blessed to finally receive our visa issuance numbers just a few days ago! We'll spend our last week around Bangkok as we prep for the year spent in Korea. We're still not sure what we'll fill our time with during that week, but I'm sure we'll keep busy with new adventures!

I'll go ahead and wrap this up now. I'm going to attempt to upload some more photos onto a facebook album tonight, so be on the lookout!

We greatly appreciate your prayers and support. Feel free to email us... we'd love to hear how things back home are going!

Nathan as the natural Mahout.

Baby Elephant is hungry.

Bath time!

Elephant kisses.

Mahout for Life.

A pretty butterfly.

Bought a table runner from a longneck village market.

Just a small view of the village we stayed overnight in... hogs/dogs were taking over.

Our "sleeping" quarters... the "sleeping" part hardly happened.

Waiting for his serving of bananas.

The 2nd elephant farm we visited.

Thai Cuisine and More!

Cooking brings me joy. While baking stirs up my hearts passion, cooking still excites me with all the possibilities. Many of you know that Nathan and I are two people who LOVE dozens of options and possibilities. Therefore, it seems a bit like heaven when we stroll through the many markets here with hundreds of food carts, some serving the same as the next, but our options are endless! Look to the left we have rice sausages and kebabs  with assortments of veggies and meat (not sure what the meat IS... but that's beside the point). Look to our right and we have curry upon  curry... spin the color wheel and you'll be sure to find a curry in that shade. You can fry pretty much anything here... fried bananas, fried rice & noodles, fried fish entrails, fried maggots and grasshoppers... really... ANYTHING. There are no limits. If you walk a little further we find minced chicken salads, Tom Yum (a spicy noodle soup), Thai pancakes (banana and nutella toppings is a personal fave). On the more rare occasion we see a woman preparing coconut pudding... these are never passed up. I haven't even mentioned the fruit and vegetable stands and the endless amounts of beverages. Nathan can now say that he has ordered and eaten frog, although his heart ached for the little guy the whole way through.

It's amazing that spending only $2 here will fill you up for half a day. It makes sense there are so many vendors... It's much cheaper to buy an entire meal for 75 cents, rather than buy groceries. However, I do miss preparing my own food at times.

We've enjoyed the cooking so much here that we decided to join a cooking class for an entire day to learn the basics of thai cooking. We worked with about 10 other visitors in preparing 6 different dishes that we got to choose. We woke up that morning not eating breakfast because we knew we would be eating endless amounts, which certainly rang true. We first made a stop at a local market and learned about different veggies and spices that I've never even seen back home. We then went to the home/school of the lovely thai couple who run the program. We had a wonderful day preparing spicy soups, stir fries, curry paste, curry dishes, salads, and desserts. A few photos are below with some of our creations and our official certification of completion. We also received a recipe book for everything we made, which will come in handy. Needless to say, we had what we eat in about 4 days in the span of about 6 hours.

Enough about food!

Nathan and I have now safely made it up north to Chiang Mai. We've been here 4 nights after a long and dreadful trip from the south of Thailand. We've discovered that overnight trains are the way to go... that way at least there's a chance of being able to sleep for part of the 12-14 hours of the trip.

Chiang Mai is a fairly large city here. There are approximately 150,000 residents, but the streets are no where as crazy as Bangkok. We're planning to stay here for about another week until we have to renew our tourist visas for our last week, which we will either be heading to Laos for an elephant festival, or we'll just be paying a visit to the immigrations office here.

Our trip has no surprise been a day to day adventure. We've changed our plans on the fly and walked onto every island and off of every train and boat without really knowing where we're going or where we'll stay... but we love the adventure. The itinerary we had created before coming has not had one ounce of truth in it... minus the fact that we went south first and then north.

Here's our small list of cultural differences that we've discovered since being here.
1. Trash cans are rarely ever accessible... why use a trash can when you can toss your trash out the window onto the street and dump it into the river!? It's rather sad really.
2. The southern region does not have flushers on their toilets so we have a bucket of water with a pale to wash it down
3. In reference to the above, no toilet paper is allowed in the toilet... thankfully there ARE trash cans in the bathrooms. Although most bathrooms do not have toilet paper and if they do offer it you have to pay at the door for it.
4. The locals run most of their business' straight from their homes.
5. Pedestrians certainly do not have the right of way and crossing the street sometimes means risking your life!
6. We believe there must be no drinking and driving laws because we see the Tuk-Tuk drivers downing bottles of whiskey with their buddies and then wanting to drive us to Tiger Kingdom. Don't worry Dad, we walk at all cost.
7.The Thai music videos ALWAYS have a girl crying.
8. You often take your shoes off before entering a home or even a family run mini mart.
9. Spicy for us means 5-8 chili's in each dish, while spicy for the average Thai means 30 chili's!

There are of course many other differences, but these are a few that we've found entertaining, disturbing, and just worth noting.

Got some pictures for you below...

 Proof that we have been to "The Beach"

 Raggae Man's Bungalow on Koh Lanta

 Thailand does have rainy days!

 Bananagrams for the Rainy Days on Koh Jum... an island with no electricity except for 3 hrs of the evening.

 These guys like Bananagrams too.

 Chelsea Pondering Life

 Nathan feeling his mustache.

 Everybody smokes! Talk about enlightenment...

Chinese New Year in China Town of Bangkok

 Some food we didn't eat.

 Some more good food we didn't eat.

 Everybody is Chinese for Chinese new year.

 Cooking Class. Note: not so many chili's next time

 Pink is Slimming on me.

 Spicy Soup & Chicken w/ sweet basil

Homemade Curry paste and added veggies.

We send our love to our friends and family back home! We dearly miss everyone, but we are very thankful for skype, email, and blogs to be able to keep current!

Nathan & Chels