HOME AGAIN

Everyone is probably done reading about our adventures. The trip home had some more surprises. We got to Bangkok and walked to our gate. Sitting at our gate was the whole Goshen team. I'm sure the airport personnel wondered what was happening because both teams started screaming and hugging. They were coming back on the same flight to LA. They had to wait 8 hours for the flight. We would be there a little over 2 hours. We enjoyed that time sitting around talking about their experiences. Then we were introduced to some other young people they had met who are from Florida. They had been to China smuggling Bibles into the country. This became very important later when Cathy began talking to a Chinese girl on the airplane. The young lady has a Christian friend who has been praying for her. She was on her way to visit this friend. She and Cathy talked for a long time on the trip. The girl said she wished she had a Chinese Bible to read so she could understand better. Cathy started thinking that there must be somewhere that she could locate a Chinese Bible to send to this young lady. Then she remembered this team of kids who had been smuggling Chinese Bibles. They started asking around and everyone had one Chinese Bible but they were all in the checked luggage. One young man had his in his backpack. So the little Chinese girl got her wish and several prayers with the Florida people and Cathy. She left with her own Chinese Bible to visit her Christian friend. Our stay in LA was a couple of hours. We headed to the nearest Burger King for burger, fries and diet coke! We traveled to Dallas where we had another 2-3 hour wait. Time zones kept changing. By the time we got to Dallas it was 5:30 AM on Sunday. Before we left Dallas most of us had talked to someone at home. No one was sleeping now, everyone was anxious to get off that plane and be with family. We weren't disappointed. There was a large band of family and friends waiting for us. This has been a wonderful trip. I hope the school will continue offering this opportunity in years to come. It is life-changing. It is watching God actively working in our lives, and in the lives of all of those touched by Asia's Hope.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, USA

Thursday was a different day for all of us.  We slept in a little and prepared for a trip up a mountain.  We drove up that spiral road for a long time.  At the top was a small town and food vendors up and down the street, as well as the usual "madame, you buy?" walking vendors.  It was somewhat disappointing because this was a site-seeing venture and it was raining.  We've had some rain many days, but it is usually between 4 and 7 in the evening.  It may only sprinkle or it may rain for an hour or so.  Today it began raining right after we started driving and it rained for a couple of hours.  When we got out of our "Safari truck" that is open on the sides and the back, covered on the top and has bench seats on each side.  We bought tickets for the tram that took us up the side of the mountain.  It was 306 steps or take the tram.  We had some that did each.  Cathy has some knee problems.   So do I.  I can go up, but have difficulty coming down.  So we settled on  the tram.  We were going to the high place, always the place of worship.  At the top was an entire complex with a Buddha temple, many smaller temple structures, lovely flowers and trees, vendors selling flowers and incense for the temple, construction workers drilling and hammering on one side of the temple, and rows and rows of gaudy gold statues.  There were buddha statues, lady statues sitting up and laying down.  It made me think that is was no wonder that Solomon had difficulty keeping his focus on God if his wives had displays of their idols like this all around him.  It was interesting and once again, sad to see so many people worshipping these pieces of sculptured stone.  Our orphan kids have not only been taken from poverty, but from idolatry.  The Hill Tribe people worship the spirits of their ancestors.  Then if they get to the city, Buddha is waiting for them.  We have such a great opportunity to offer them education, regular food, clothing, and the foundation of the whole abundant life, JESUS!  

Da and Porn took us back to Chiangmai to the oldest temple in Thailand.  It is 600 years old.  There is a newer temple in front of the ruins, but the old one was very interesting.  You can only see it from the outside.  It has been somewhat restored by the Thai government since 1990.  Again, this is an entire complex.  Many young monks were walking around here.  They have shaved heads and wear a bright orange wrapped clothing.  There was a coffee area where you could "talk to a monk" for free.  Ask anything, find out about their lives.  We didn't have much time but a couple of the girls went and talked with one of the young men.  Every man is expected to do a time as a monk - around three months minimum.  Most of them appear to be teenagers.  Then some stay as monks.  Others return to their regular life after they required time.

We went back to the house, ate lunch and prepared our lessons for teaching English at the school.  Today was Scout day so all of the kids were dressed in their scout uniforms.  We've about exhausted our bag of English tricks.  The kids can parrot back some English and play games using some English words, and they love singing, but there really needs to be a strong phonics foundation to make the English teaching valuable.  They would think that our 26 letters and sounds were a breeze.  They have 72 consonants, vowels, and letter combinations.  Maybe we have that many with the sound patterns we use too.

And then we did RED, WHITE, AND NO BOOM!  What fun.  The American Consulate invites all Americans to an Independence Day Party at the Consulate.  So we all grabbed our passports and went to the party.  Everything was decorate in red, white, and blue.  There were food vendors with mostly American foods, beverages, ice cream, etc.  There was a table of red, white, and blue gifts to buy.  There was a pie-eating contest, watermelon seed spitting, and a crazy egg contest.  There was music - nice band.  There was a group of young people that brought in stringed instruments, but we didn't stay to hear them.  There was going to be fireworks later in the evening but we had to get back to the house.  Our missionary family was driving us and they had to go home to get shots.  It was fun to see so many Americans in one place.  While we were waiting to go in, a group of Mennonite people came around the corner and one of the guys was wearing a Buckeye shirt - You know that we didn't miss that opportunity O-H-...they didn't understand us, so we didn't get an I-O.  We talked to them later.  They are from Sugarcreek, Ohio.

We went to the missionary house and watched a good, but very disturbing movie called Vertical Limit, not recommended for the faint of heart!

It is Friday morning.  Cathy and I will take a walk around the neighborhood in a few minutes.  We are baking cupcakes for the big orphanage to celebrate USA's birthday tonight.  Debbie has one 12 cup pan and we have 100 cupcakes to make from scratch.  It will take a while to do this project.  We will teach at the school for the last time today.  The fingerprints should be done this evening at the small orphan home and then devotions, treats, and our goodbyes to the kids as Doi Saket I.  We're tired and we're blessed.  We've also been warned that this is much like a camp experience.  Return home full of what the Lord is doing here, excited about our part, hoping to involve everyone we know, and knowing that you have to experience the culture and the children and the needs here before you can really catch the vision.  The warning is that most of you will be glad to see us and will be excited to see our pictures and hear our stories - for a very short time.  We will try to be patient and spread out our stories and pictures, but we've seen God at work and people here allowing Him to work with and through them.  We've hugged the children, sung with them, played with them and prayed with them.  They are fruits of the labors here. We are blessed and changed and motivated for having been here.  So another prayer of our hearts, be patient with us as we share, catch the vision with us, and ask God not to let the vision fade from our hearts and minds.  And some of us will be praying that God gives you the burden and opportunity to come and see and experience what He is doing here.

We board our plane to come home in the early afternoon tomorrow.

Love to you all.

Painting, Sweating and Shopping July 1-2

The farm is home to the widow and the young lady who does not speak, as well as Tutu's parents and another young couple who are expecting a baby in a few weeks.  The man knows how to farm and do anything that needs to be done on the land and in the house.   We had not been able to finish any of the rooms we had started painting the last time.  We felt like it was going to very difficult to keep the girls motivated for a day to try to finish the work.  The Goshen team was supposed to leave on Monday for Cambodia and there were no tickets available.  We felt that was God's provision for finishing the job at the farm.  The whole Goshen team plus all of the girls went to the farm for the day.  Every major room, all with high ceilings and windows to trim paint, are now a lovely soft yellow with white trim.  It took five hours to complete and it is a transformation of this space.  Once again, we experienced a "home-cooked" lunch done in the tiny kitchen as well as over the fire outside.  You just enjoy the tastes and you don't look at where it was cooked!!  Another highlight of the day for some of us was watching Tutu's mother work on the loom.  Pictures will be better than descriptions, but this simple, yet complicated tool, provides beautiful fabric.  Many of the team have bought carrying bags of this fabric inexpensively.  Now we really appreciate what goes into this work. She was making placemats on the loom today.  The hour ride home was the quietest this group has been in three weeks.  Everyone slept on the way back to the guesthouse.  

We took one hour to clean off the paint - of course, the kids had it more places on purpose than the paint was designed for.  We loaded the vans again and went to the orphanage for devotions.  I have a little trio of girls that have become "mine".  This is true with each of our team.  There are always the more aggressive children who latch onto the guests for the time that they are here.  There are few that give hugs and greetings and then back off and choose to watch it all happen.  One of "my" little girls had a dangling tooth for the last two days.  On Tuesday night I asked her to open her mouth and she giggled and smiled widely.  The tooth was GONE!  I had help locating the little girl that Steve and Dee McCollum support so I could give her a hug and get her picture.

When we left the orphanage we went to the market for dinner and to give the Goshen team their one shopping opportunity.  We had 90 minutes to cover two larger open building areas, plus vendors lining both sides of the streets.  A few of the group rushed for McD's and the rest of us ate in the Asian food court. 

 Cathy and I have been sharing a king sized bed divided by a long rolled pillow down the center of the bed.  Tutu insisted on giving us her bed while the guesthouse was full.   On Wednesday morning we packed up our things to move back into the guesthouse because the Goshen teams leaves for Cambodia today.  They only have 3 days there, hardly enough!  Our team made pancakes for the Goshen team.  When they left for their last visit with their orphan home, we completed our quiz questions.  It was awesome seeing this whole group of girls spread around the living area with their Bibles writing questions from the book of John.  We gathered at Tutu's where she and her sister prepared lunch for us.  We said our goodbyes to the Goshen team.  What a blessing they were to all of us!  We prepared for our English teaching at the Christian School.  It is at the end of the day today.  Tonight we will visit the Student Center where the college girls live.  We will eat dinner with them and have Bible study time with them.  Tomorrow Tutu is taking us somewhere on top of a mountain so we can look down over Chiangmai.  We will also go to the new, smaller orphanage in the early evening to paint the kids' hands and get hand prints for a project the Goshen church wants to do but didn't have time to start while they were here.  We sense that everyone is winding down.  Everyone loves the time with the kids.  I sense that the teaching time at the school is less exciting for most of the girls.  Everyone is ready to come home...but doesn't want the experience to end...but wants to see their family...but doesn't want to leave the kids.  Pray for us to finish strong!  As each of the two groups has left, there has been a drop in energy and focus.  Again, the feeling like a body losing some fingers or toes.  Our purpose is strong, but our bodies are tired and our minds and spirits are on overload.  Please pray that everything goes smoothly on the return flight.  Jen is an effective, quiet leader.  She is a teacher, so she knows how to lead, but she is tired too, and she is serving as our leader for these last three days.  Please pray for her strength and wisdom too.  Please forgive the grammar inconsistencies, the spelling mistakes and the parts that plain don't make sense.  I'm used to having time to proofread and use spellcheck - no time here for that.

Love to all that are reading and praying.  We love you and we're anxious to be with all of you to share every part of this trip.  So hang onto your hats and get ready for some picture-watching and some story-telling.