Sometimes our words truly are inadequate, but we have so much to thank so many of you for.  We made it!  We are in Chiang Mai, Thailand trying to get settled into our new home and finding our place within Faithful Heart Foundation.  It has been a memorable journey, at times humorous and stressful, but such is any adventure.  We have so much we want to share, and so little time to do it!  Here are so highlights so far:
Hard goodbyes to family we love!  Joe, Mandi, Ambrose, Rohan, and Emmett gave us a great bowling send off.  Thank you for letting us live with you and be part of your family this past year.  We love you!
Our new home!  We are the second door from the left side.


Some free "local" labor!  Thank you Dad and Mom Pound for coming to visit for a week and for all your help getting our new place ready!  We love you!
At Faithful Heart's new boy's dorm, rice fields and fish ponds.  It is a beautiful location.  Please pray for wisdom in helping with the current agricultural projects and helping start new ones.
Audrey jumping right in, learning how to process and prepare the delicious Moringa Tea Faithful Heart sells to help support their work.  We hope to be able to offer it in the US soon!  It is incredibly healthy and very tasty.


We hiked a waterfall with Dave and Sher; you will notice that both Matt and Dave climbed up the sticky falls (I am a good influence on the old guy :-)  And we had the House of Promise girls go for a special day of swimming (sorry for those of you trapped in snow). 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We could not be here and serving with Faithful heart without you!  Please continue to pray for us that we would be good learners and servers.  We still go through a lot of shifting emotions, but we keep feeling overwhelmed by God's kindness to us (and yours). 

"A man who follows Jesus never leaves because he loves less, on the contrary he is agonized for the very reason that he is learning to love more, both what he leaves and what he pursues."

To you who we have left, we love you and are so grateful to have you as our friends and coworkers in the good news of God's hope for the world.  To our new friends in Thailand, we are excited to know you more! 

In hope,
Matt & Audrey Pound




 

The cathedral of Notre Dame was breathtaking. The stone work, the spires, the windows—each delicately lain with intricate scenes in stain glass—you see the intricate details all throughout the cathedral. Inside and out, teaming with beauty, the artistry and enormity of scale of Notre Dame was stunning. (see our full Paris post here)

I think it’s safe to say that Paris in the winter is a much different experience than Paris in the spring or summer. We didn’t have to fend off crowds of fellow tourists or bear the long lines we’ve heard about—we used the glorious metro without the brutal heat or the crowds. All in all, it was a fantastic time to be in Paris. It was, however, overcast and raining off & on all three days. It did sometimes feels like we were just seeing the bones of the city, leaf-less trees & very little color throughout the city—missing it’s flowers & the life that Spring will bring. C’est la vie. I guess we’ll take what we can get!

We wanted to be sure to go to all the must-see sites. So, we walked & walked & walked. Pretty sure we hit all the spots we’ve always wanted to see (Notre Dame, the Seine, Eiffel Tower, le Louvre, Musee d’Orsay & d’Orangerie). Our very own little eyes had the chance to behold the works of Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Renoir, & Picasso (plus SO many others)! An art lovers paradise. Now all I want to do is paint; you know what Matt always says: art inspires art. 

We found great food stops & devoured loads of croissants & pastries. The nice thing about walking miles on end each day—you stumble across random, wonderful things, AND you burn off a bunch of those pastry calories. Enough talk—come see! Here’s a glimpse of our walking tour of Paris… (Notre Dame is not pictured here…there’s a post coming dedicated to it alone--see it here)