Joshua's drawing skills are greatly improving.  While he stills does a fair amount of indecipherable scribbling, once in a while he produce a picture that actually looks like something.  When we asked him about the picture below, Joshua told us the following story (which Mommy wrote on the top of the picture): "A porcupine shot its quill at the soldier but missed.  Then, the soldier shot it with a gun, and the porcupine died."  I think that if I ever encountered a porcupine that big, I might shoot it too.

 

 

 

Click on the picture to view the full size version.

 

In the following video, four year old Joshua leads worship at his "pretend church" at home, playing and singing "This is the Day" on drums and xylophone

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If you have trouble viewing the video above, click here to view it directly on YouTube

In the following video, Joshua puts on a musical performance on the xylophone, singing his self-composed tune, "Mommy Daddy Song"

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Inspired by the lemurs in the movie Madagascar, our son Joshua puts on his own dance party to the tune of "Move It, Move It".  Here's the video:

 

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If you can't see the video above, click here to view it directly on YouTube.

This past Saturday, we celebrated our son Joshua's fourth birthday, together with another missionary family.  After a lunch of hot dogs and french fries (per Joshua's request), we brought out the cake.  According to Joshua, a birthday is not a really a birthday unless you have a cake.  Here is a short one minute video that Sun took of the cake part of the event.

 

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If you can't see the video above, click here to view it directly on YouTube.

 

One day, our dear boy Joshua plucked the grapes out of our basket of fake fruit on the kitchen table and said, "I want to send these to Uncle James (Karl's brother).  Let's go talk to him on the computer".  Because of the time difference between Thailand and the United States, that just wasn't going to happen (at least not if we wanted Uncle James to be happy about it).  So, I offered Joshua the opportunity to send a video message to instead.  Uncle James, these grapes are for you:

 

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If you have trouble viewing the video above, click here to watch it on YouTube

 

Our son Joshua emphatically refuses to go to a real barber shop with Daddy to get his haircut.  He insists that Mommy cut his hair in the "home barber shop", which is his room (minus his crib). During his most recent haircut, Daddy got videotaped an interview with the haircut-ee.  See below for the results:

 

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Living in Phrabaht, Karl and Joshua have a morning tradition of riding the bicycle to the market to buy grilled pork and sticky rice for breakfast.  Off they go!

 

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Press the left or right arrow to move forward or backward.

 

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We've been working on getting Joshua to memorize some Bible verses and catechism questions.  He is doing a decent job so far, even if he doesn't get it right all the time.  Actually, it takes quite a bit of work to get him to memorize them.  Not that he has a bad memory, but he is not always willing.  However, one day he picked up the little New Testament that was given him the last time we were in the States and did a Scripture "reading".  Multiple times over.  Amazingly, he was still doing it by the time I got the video camera out.  

 

Two small comments before you watch the video: 1) that is baby Caitlin crying in the background and yes, she is okay (Mommy is with her), and 2) Joshua's emphasis upon certain parts of John 3:16 is entirely of his own doing.  He was not coached to do that.  Might we have an aspiring preacher on our hands?

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If you have trouble viewing the video above, click here to view it on YouTube.

 

 

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Our our recent vacation, Karl & Joshua went to a nearby science park where they had a fun dinosaur garden for the kids.  I don't know if they were supposed to be ridden but we did.  Here's some pictures.

 

 

 

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From time to time, Joshua strips all the pillows off of the couch and chairs in our living room and compels them to do his biding.  Somtimes they are monster truck wheels, and other times they are just scattered everywhere.  Sometimes, such as in the picture below, he makes a big mountain of pillows on the bed in our guest bedroom/office and climbs on up.

 

Quite pleased with himself, Joshua sits high atop Pillow Mountain.

 

I can't recommend working out of your house if you have small children at home.  Here are a couple shots taken from the built-in camera on our laptop as I was trying to get some work done.

 

 

 

 

In less than two months now, my wife Sun is due to have our second child.   One of our supporting churches recently told us that they wanted to have a baby shower for her in absentia.  We thought that it would be good to send something along to be read at the baby shower since she would not be able to be there.  As Sun and I got talking, we came up with the following list of challenges and blessings of being a young mom on the mission field.  Every woman, and every family, is different and various parts of the world are very different as well, but here are some thoughts on Sun’s experience here in Thailand.

This morning while Joshua was dawdling at the breakfast table, not eating his toast and jam, he broke out in song.  It was not a complete song but as I leaned in, I heard, "loves children... of the world!"  This sounded familiar so I inquired, "Joshua, does Jesus love all the little children of the world?"  He looks straight at me and says, "He loves toast too!"  So, there you have it folks:  Not only does Jesus love the little children of the world, but he loves toast too.

 

 

Joshua is a boy always on the move but we managed to get him to slow down for moment this afternoon to answer some questions.  After dinner, we've been telling him Bible stories and helping him to memorize some questions from the Catechism for Small Children (a simplified version of the the Westminister Shorter Catechism) and some Bible verses.  We also try to sing some songs with him but Joshua usually protests (probably due to our musical incompetence). We try to make it interactive and interesting for him so that not only will great truths about God get into his head but that he will enjoy our times together learning about the big wonderful God who made all things and loves us. 

 

Karl sat Joshua down to test his memory of the things he's been learning. So far, he's memorized catechism questions 1-4, Genesis 1:1, Matthew 22:37, and a simple definition of sin.  Have a listen to the audio file below and see how Joshua did.  Please ignore the fact that Daddy didn't do as well, mistakenly asking Joshua to repeat Matthew 22:38 instead of Matthew 22:37.

 

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(If you don't see an audio player above, click here to download the file)

 

I am convinced that I no matter how long I live in Thailand, I will continue to run into strange new creatures that I have never seen before.  The other day when I was bringing groceries into the kitchen, I saw on the floor what looked like a scorpion.  However, on closer inspection, it didn't have the telling scorpion-tale but rather a long needle tail.  I got down on the floor to take some pictures, hoping it was not too dangerous.  Eventually I scooped it up in a dustpan and threw it out the front door, not wanting to upset nature lovers who were saddened by my blog about killing the snake that got into our house.  Today, I learned from a fellow missionary that my scorpion wanna-be is actually a vinegar bug.  It has a better sounding name in Spanish, but my friend could not recall what the name was.  Apparently, the long needle on the rear of the bug shoots out a smelly vinegar type spray when the bug is upset or scared.  Fortunately, getting scooped into the dustbin was not disturbing enough to get shot with vinegar.

 

At the ripe old age of three, Joshua is currently researching various career options for his future employment.  Here are the photos of his investigations thus far.

 

 

One of Joshua's favorite activities is to get into our car (known as "Daddy car") and pretend to drive. I roll down the windows and let him play to his heart's content as the car sits parked in our carport. Sometimes he is going to the supermarket, sometimes to church, or sometimes he is just wearing Daddy's driving sunglasses and making "vroom" sounds. I think the following picture captures a bit of Joshua's joy in playing in Daddy car.