FamilyandMinistryPhotos - Duane and Hannah Scott

Family and Ministry Photos

We had a really good attendance at both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services, including several visitors.

Some of the group who came to the Christmas program at the ladies prison.

The missionary kids sang a couple Christmas Carols and were a big hit.

Part of my Christmas gift was a week’s subscription to watch NFL games online. Here are the boys watching football.

The kids have been begging for a dog for years. So here is their Christmas gift – a 3 month old dachshund.

Benjamin Duane Scott and Mom about 2 hours after being born at 1 am November 1, 2011 in Surin, Thailand.

Meeting the siblings the next morning.

David and Autumn with their new baby brother.

Benjamin at about one week old.

On Thursday Nov. 11 Matt Jones and I went to check out our house and church. The way in and out is still closed to cars because of flooding. Took the bus across the bridge over the Chao Praya river into the Pinklao area.

You can see the water line on the front doors to the church. The water on the main street was about 4 feet high, but the church entrance was several feet above that. Thankfully only about 6 inches of water covered the first floor of the church. Probably no significant damage was done because we had moved everything valuable upstairs.

After surveying the church we headed to the other side of the main road to check out our house. The water at the front of the street was quite shallow. I was optimistic.

We went around the corner and it kept getting deeper. You can see the water line of where the water had been – chest high. Probably 4 ½ feet at least! I was no longer optimistic. Our house was reasonably prepared for 3 to 4 feet. Even if water got past our sandbags it would only enter our lower level, which was just a storage room, laundry room, and bathroom (a not very nice one at that.) But if the water was more than 4 feet there would be no way to keep it out of our living room and kitchen which are about 3 feet above our driveway entrance – 4 feet above street level.

This is the street in front of our house. Notice the dead bushes on the right and left that had been submerged in water. Those are about 4 feet high. Not good news!

The ground level with our laundry room and bathroom – still under a foot and a half of nasty water.

The bottom of the kitchen table and kitchen cabinets were under water. It didn’t seem like too much permanent damage had been done though.

Our neighbor offered us a boat ride out of the neighborhood. But the boat was too small for all three of us! So we walked out through the gross trash filled water one more time.

Nearly no one had built walls high enough or good enough. This is one of our neighbors after the flood.

We had the Lord's Supper as a church for the first time on Christmas Eve.

The ladies listening to the gospel message in the Christmas story.

Games at the Ladies Prison

Benjamin is now two months old and doing great – growing fast and putting on lots of weight.

A hoe is a great tool for killing snakes. We've killed five of these low grade poisonous snakes in our yard since the flood!

Benjamin just a few hours old. He has very light hair and skin just like the rest of us – surprise, surprise!

A view of Surin from the hospital.

The oldest and the youngest.

Autumn with her buddy, Tyler Jones. (Both sets of parents where chaperoning this date!)

This is the main street in front of both our house and the church. Normally it is super busy, now closed to all but buses and police vehicles. This section of road in front of the church is mostly dry. One week ago it was under 4 feet of water.

The church’s next door neighbor, sadly, was not so fortunate. After they too had evacuated there was an electrical fire that gutted the house. The wall separating the Beckman’s house from the neighbor's was cracked, but no fire entered the Beckman’s house.

But little by little the water started getting deeper. I knew from the reports of neighbors that the water in our neighborhood had been at least 3 feet. It looked like it had drained a lot though.

Remember how we had to move after our return, but were able to move to another house in our same neighborhood? This is our old house. Notice the water line on the sliding glass doors. There are four large glass doors into the living room and several other doors on ground level. It would have been impossible to keep water out. Clearly the whole ground floor - living room, kitchen, bedroom, storage room and nice bathroom were under almost 5 feet of water! We are so glad we had to move!

This was the 2 ½ foot sandbag barrier in front of our side door on the ground level. The water line shows that it was at least a foot too short.

6 to 12 inches of water had covered our living room and kitchen leaving it a muddy mess. We really didn’t think it would get 5 feet deep in the street!

This nice little 8 inch “Takob” (I don’t know if it has an English name) was dead (fortunately) on our front porch.

The owners of this home/business just finished totally remodeling the inside. As you can see by the water mark, the wall they built to keep the water out should have been just a little higher!

This is their house before the flood. All that preparation apparently did no good at all!

Getting off the bus at the bus pier.