Our next step- hip hip hooray!

*oops- I only just realized that this post never posted- even though I wrote it before the last one- sorry :-)

John has accepted a job as Asia regional manager for a British NGO (Children on the Edge). We'll be based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and he'll be overseeing projects in Aceh Indonesia, E. Timor, and the Burmese refugee camps on its borders with Thailand and India. We are really excited about this for the next season.

Here are some of the details (and answers to prayer):
-we move there 20th of June, seven weeks before the due date of this baby
-Chiang Mai is a regional hub for expats giving birth. We've known lots of people who've given birth there- the hospitals are excellent. Even more exciting for me, I found an Australian doula we can work with who assures me that natural birth (no meds, no unnecessary interventions) is doable there (something that's not always true in excellent hospitals around the world)
-John will have the chance to do both operations and programs which are two areas he'd like to gain experience in
-it looks like CAMA is interested in having me continue on a volunteer basis (20-30 hours a month), which is something I've wanted to do since I'll have two little kids and don't want to commit to fixed hours but still want an outlet for my professional interests.
-we'll be pretty close to John's parents and his sister and her family. They all live in Penang Malaysia which is just two short (and cheap) flights away from Chiang Mai. John's mom has even offered to come up and help out around when the baby is born.
-one of our good friends works for COTE too and so we'll see more of he and his wife (Ben and Kelly and their expected-any-day-now-baby) when we go to England and when he comes for work :-) plus we'll likely see lots of other friends who live in Asia because so many orgs use Chiang Mai for conferences.

Chiang Mai is Thailand's second biggest city- and it will be a big transition from Brazzaville- good thing we'll have time in Morocco, the UK, and the US first. I'm looking forward to living somewhere with so many entertainment and food options during this time as an essentially stay-at-home mom. I think I'll enjoy that so much more if I can take the kids on outings and such and Chiang Mai has loads:
-zoo and aquarium
-lots of museums
-elephant parks (they play soccer and paint :-)
-waterfalls and gorgeous hiking spots
-6 English speaking international churches
-an English lending library
-bowling and English new-release movie theaters
-indoor playgrounds

The weather is nice because of the high altitude, and Thai food is, of course, some of the best food in the world. That's just a bit of it- come for a visit and we'll take you camping, jungle treking on elephants, rafting, zipline courses through the jungle, etc.!

Seriously though, John is not as excited about all these amenities as I am. We've both been quite content in our lives here in Brazzaville aside from our lack of full-time work, and since John grew up in Asia he has a bit of a grudge on Chiang Mai. I understand why; you get credit for roughing it overseas from your friends in America, but it's actually plush and easy living (electricity, water, paved roads, lots of amenities and in many ways like the US only cheaper) and while I think it will be fun for a time (and probably John does too somewhere deep down) both of us expect that we'll be somewhere more like Congo again in the future.