We are here

I can't believe we are finally here. It's been such a journey and a faith walk to get us this far and we are still trusting the Lord for His provision in our journey.When you say move to Thailand it feels BIG. When you actually do it it's HUGE. The last week in VA was hard. Packing, cleaning, throwing more stuff away and getting rid of whatever wouldn't fit in our luggage. Tyson and I each got 2 bags 50lbs each. 50 lbs goes by SO fast when you are moving. My amazing husband managed to squeeze all of his stuff into 1 bag which left Sawyer and I 3 to share. We still had to leave a lot behind but I was happy to have more space. We also sold our car 2 days before we left. What a blessing to have that final blessing and boost in faith on our way out the door.

The Trip:

Thursday June 24th we woke up at 5am took showers finished packing and loaded up the car. My dear friend Christen offered to drive us to the DC airport so I wouldn't have to ask my family. Anyone in my family would have been happy to take us I just didn't want to do the "goodbye and the airport scene". Those last few moments at the house were WAY harder than I ever imagined. Saying goodbye to my family caused me actual physical pain. My nephew Percy was so sweet and happy looking around at everyone I just kept seeing all the things I was going to miss and it broke my heart. My dear friend Debbie told me a few weeks

ago that when she lived on the mission field in Poland it was sad to think about the birthdays, party's, family and friends events and fun she was missing. But the life experiences she gained from her time there made up for all she missed out on. I kept reminding myself of that while I was saying goodbye and remembering the clear words from the Lord that we were suppose to go. To know God is calling us makes all the difference. It doesn't mean the sad parts won't still be there it just means He will be there to sustain us through it.

We arrived at the airport on time and checked all our bags with NO PROBLEMS. It was amazing. None of our bags were over the weight limit. We didn't have any glitches. It was totally the Lord. Security check was the same way. They didn't weigh our cary on bags (they were packed to the brim and heavy).

The first flight was smooth. Tyson was

thrilled (he HATES flying). At the gate they moved our seats to the 1st row of economy right behind business class. It was nice to be at the front of the plane and we had no one in front of us just the wall. So Sawyer could play and we had more leg room. 15 HOURS on a plane is a long time. I would be lying if I said it was easy. Sawyer was amazing. God's grace was on him and he was very happy. He was tired but restless so I gave him Dramamine to help him sleep. At first I was freaking out because he became wired. He wanted to jump and dance and be wild and I thought the Dramamine didn't work. Well 30 minutes later he crashed and slept for over 8 hours straight. I think more then anything the drugs helped him stay asleep.

We had some rowdy kids behind us that would yell at each other and kicked our chairs nonstop. Tyson and I didn't sleep at all but at least Sawyer didn't wake up.

We had a 3 hr lay over in Korea and then got on our last flight to Chang Mai. Sawyer fell asleep for the first hour but it was a really bumpy flight and he woke up from the bumping around. Tyson was not pleased with the pilots flying hahaha I tried to remind him the pilot was not responsible for the weather but he still gave him an F. :-)

We arrived in Chang Mai a little before midnight Thailand time (which is around noon in VA). We went through customs without a problem. We were the last ones through and Sawyer was smiling at everyone. Thai people love babies so lots of people were waving and smiling at him. At one point he had 4 stewardesses around him talking in Thai or Korean or some other Asia language and he just thought it was great. Tyson and I were joking around that in his mind he was seeing a bunch of grown up Kilan's (his favorite show is Nihou Kilan). The customs officers even helped us with our bags. I think they just wanted to look at Sawyer some more. :-)

When we got to the house Sawyer was wired and running around. He enjoyed having a new place to explore. We didn't go to bed until 3:30 in the morning. Sawer then woke up at 5:40 in the morning ready to go. So we have only slept 2 hours in about 50 hours.

Today we are going to Hope House to meet the kids. They are all so excited that we are here so they are having a field day in celebration of our arrival. I think we are all to tired to play any sports but it will still be great to get to meet the children.

Well that's all for now. I'll post some pictures of the kids later. :-)

How am I doing??

Well hello there. I know what you are all thinking... "Tess keeps telling us she will be better at updating so where are the updates...." am I right? haha Well between selling all I own, making list and buying things we need for our 20 hours of flying, packing, throwing things away, writing thank you notes, tracking our fundraising, trying to raise more funds, making follow up cards and newsletters, birthdays, baby showers, making homemade gifts, scanning over 600 pictures of the Bush side of the family, working on scanning Phipps family photos, converting our home movies to dvd, chasing a very active one year old, and trying to see my family..... life is pretty full. But I AM SO BLESSED!! I serve the most incredible loving God. He gives me more grace then I deserve.

I have had a lot of people ask me "how are you doing". Well that's a BIG question. The short answer is GREAT but also sad.

What a journey this last year has been. These last few weeks I have really been thinking about all that God has done in me and for me. The sale of our car is the last major thing to go. (Let me know if you know of anyone who would be interested in a 4 Runner). For some reason selling the car is the hardest so far. I'm not sure if it's because it's the last of everything or if it's because I really love it! hmmm maybe both....When you talk about moving across the world and selling everything it's a little overwhelming in one chunk. I have been so blessed to have the time to take each day and each step one bite at a time. I'm a sentimental person so holding on to small unimportant things is not hard for me. Letting go and trusting that God has a purpose for my family has become more important than all the trinkets and things I have assigned value to. I am feeling rather free to be honest. It's rough in the middle but once the house is gone and everything else there really is less to worry about.

What an incredible husband I have! He has held my hand and patiently walked me through each and every step. Now here we are a week away from leaving and I'm holding his hand because he HATES to fly. HAHA All kidding aside what a tremendous gift to have a partner in life who can gently push you forward towards God's plans and purposes. I am so thankful for the opportunity to work along side of my dearest and closest friend for the purpose of expanding the Kingdom of God. It blows my mind honestly. What an incredible calling! I can't wait for this exciting amazing adventure to begin.

I would appreciate each and every prayer you send our way. There are still a few details to come together before we leave on THURSDAY! The sale of our car is a big one and we still need more funds to financially make it through this next year. God has met us each step of the way so far and I am trusting he will continue to do the same. It's starting to feel a bit sad too.... it's sinking in all the things that I'm leaving. Mainly my family but also dear friends. Looking ahead to the exciting future is great but the saying goodbye part is never easy so prayer for me through the emotions of the next week would be great.

Hebrews 11:6 "But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."

We are standing on this and believing in Him who is sending us out. Time to take that step and trust that God will make the way.

Thanks for reading and for your prayers.

Love and Blessings to you all!!

SURPRISE!!!

May 29th was Tyson's 30th birthday!!! For those of you who know Tyson... well he is not a fan of big parties with the spotlight on him. But I could not let his 30th go by without a celebration. Thus the surprise party (so he couldn't object heehee). It went perfectly. We has a gathering of a few friends (I still wanted him to enjoy it) at my parents for a pool party/bbq. It was a beautiful day and it was a fun time just hanging out with friends and celebrating my amazing husband. I came up with a list of 30 questions about Tyson. I hung them on the clothes line with the pictures around the back porch. Everyone had to try and answer the questions.

Tyson's favorite childhood (and current) cartoon was (and is) Scooby Doo. My wonderful friend Jenna and I (mostly Jenna) made a Scooby Doo cake. He really liked it! We also got him lots of itunes gift cards so he could buy some ebooks to replace the ones he sold for our upcoming move.

I am so thankful for Tyson. Sometimes I feel like God made him just to be a blessing to me. I know God has called him to do much more with his life and I am thrilled to see those callings come to life in him this next year. His love for God and His word inspire me and I know he will inspire many more in the years to come.

Here are some pictures from the party....

The Ruckel Family

Doug was sent to the kids table hahahah

SURPRISE!!! He really had no idea
Sawyer thought he was in balloon heaven

Scooby Doo cake!!!! Ty loved it!

LOVE him!

Grill Master Paul

Paul and Manda

Christen, Debbie and Ty
Brave ben
Sawyer making some calls
blowing out the candles with the help of Ben
Group shot
kids table
Sweet little Makenna
Kristi and her boys
The Bedogne Family
Sweet Percy
Happy Birthday daddy
Big boys playing
Gabe is partied out

Kristi and her big boy Gabers

Who's Excited

Well it's official we BOUGHT OUR TICKETS!!! We are leaving for Thailand on June 24th. We reserved our seats and we're thankful because we got the last two seats together. Things are starting to come together and it's all sinking in that we are leaving soon. We have a woman coming to look at our car today so if that sells it will be our last big item to take care of before we leave.

Leading up to our trip we appreciate all your prayers. We still have money to raise and we are confident that the Lord is going to provide for our every need. I would also appreciate your prayers for our trip. The first flight is from DC to Korea and it's 15 hours. We then have a 3 hour layover and the second flight is 5 more hours. I'm praying that Sawyer will sleep a lot! He's just at that age where he is into everything. He love to run and jump and climb on everything. Sitting on a plane for 20 hours is not his idea of a good time. :-) Any suggestions you moms that have flown with babies can pass my way I appreciate.

Thanks to all you faithful readers out there I know I've been bad about staying up to date. Now that I have my own computer I am hoping to stay with this more. I post on Facebook a lot but I would like to transition back to the blog more so I can write stories and keep up with our memories.

Blessings to you my friends and family!

SO EXCITING!!!

Hello my faithful blog readers. Sorry I have been so bad about updating our blog things have been a little nuts. I've been waiting to post until I could set everything to private viewing so I could share about our upcoming move to Thailand.

I decided to just post our newsletter. It's what's going on in a nut shell to get you all caught up. I'll post more later. :-)

Dear Family and Friends of Tyson and Tess Bush,

The Bush family has an exciting announcement to make, as of the beginning of June 2010 our new homeland will be the Kingdom of Thailand. We are going to work for Projects for Asia (Tyson’s parent’s charitable foundation/ministry) for at least the next year.

We are very encouraged about the first part of this move because it involved selling most of our possessions with relative ease. The house sold without even having to put it on the market, as well as the cars, furniture, and whatever else was accumulated over the past five years of marriage. We have never once asked ourselves, “why are we doing this” because once we heard about what we were going to be doing we knew we had to sell everything and go.

What are we going to be doing? Projects for Asia as a ministry does a lot of different things. The orphanage is a main part of the ministry with around 70 children (5 years to 16 years of age) and it grows monthly. The Kingdom of Thailand has just granted PFA permission to start a school for the 70 kids and eventually want the school to handle many more. We will teach English classes, ballet and sowing (Tess, not Tyson) P.E., Math, etc. We also will be apart of the schools administration, from hiring of Thai teachers to teach the kids during the first part of the day to scheduling sporting events with other Thai schools. During the nights the school is opened to the community for adults and other kids to come in and learn English giving us a chance to evangelize through that social interaction. On 2-3 weekends the school loads up a lot of the kids and takes them back up into the tribes where they are from to do outreaches and give out much needed food and clothing, some of which the kids make themselves. Seeing that someone is providing care for their children is sometimes all it takes for a relative or member of tribe to give their life over to Christ. Finally, participate as needed in the bible school PFA runs for local Thai’s looking to move up or go back into their villages to plant churches after all the outreaches, or just want more teaching in the word of God. And now to you, we have committed to go and give this our all for one year at which point we will reevaluate and decide if we want to stay longer. (Having a one year old son makes you think more than you did when it was just the two of you). We will be getting some money from PFA but need to raise an additionally 2,000 to 2,500 dollars a month. We would both ask that you prayerfully consider helping us reach this goal with your monthly pledge (that is tax deductible). If you do consider this project a worthy cause please fill out the enclosed contact card and send back to us your pledge and contact information. All Contributions are being collected for us by Greenbrier Church and checks should be made out to Greenbrier Church with Tyson and Tess Bush in the memo. Below we have listed all of our contact information, phone, blog, website, and email addresses as we will be keeping in contact with those of you who want us to update you on this year long journey. If you have any questions feel free to contact us as we would love to hear from you. Thank you for your prayers and support.

Tyson, Tess and Sawyer Bush

Our Blog address: www.Tysonandtess.blogspot.com

Email: Tessbush@gmail.com ; thetysonbush@gmail.com

Phone: (757) 287-9589

Personal Address: 1716 Crowsfoot Ct. Church Address: Greenbrier Church

Virginia Beach, VA 23464 1101 Volvo Pkwy

Chesapeake, VA 23320

PLEASE READ!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello friends and family I have so enjoyed having so many people keep up with our life through this blog. The Lord is moving my family into some really exciting things and I would love to continue to share those things with you all. However I have been getting a lot of spam messages and comments. I also would love to share more detail about what the Lord is doing in our lives on the mission field and I can't really share much detail on a public blog. All of this to say I have decided to make this blog private. If you are an old friend, new acquaintance, friends mom's aunt or whoever I would love you to continue to keep up with us. PLEASE send me your email so I can add you to our list of followers. Thank you so much for following us I look forward to being able to post more regularly on this blog with updates of our adventures.

tessbush@gmail.com

Just like his daddy

When I was pregnant I use to pray that Sawyer would be just like Tyson. I love my husband so much but I also respect him and admire him in many ways. He is the most self confident yet humble man I know. He loves the Lord and has a passion for reading His word. I would ask God to give our child those same traits.

As Sawyer grows he is becoming more and more like his daddy. His confidence amazes me. He has such a sensitive spirit and I continue to pray he will develop a strong love for the Lord. I am so blessed and thankful to Lord for His kindness in answering my prayers.

We had a good laugh the other day because Sawyer has learned what trash is. He absolutely LOVES throwing things away. I didn't pray that he would be like his dad in this but I'll take it. :-)

The picture was not staged. They really did accidentally match that day. I will admit I added Sawyer's orange hat but still it was too cute to pass up the photo op. My husband is such a good sport. :-)