Way to Fast (or Too Slow)

Especially here in Thailand, everything is about food! Greeting people, you don't usually ask them how they are doing, but you ask them, "kin kaow" (have you eaten rice)? Recently, my days have included many food activities. I help cook breakfast, lunch, and supper, help eat breakfast, lunch and supper, and help clean-up breakfast, lunch, and supper. I have also been helping at a bakeryThat takes a lot of time out of my day, but I enjoy it.


These last 2 days seem to have dragged by! I don't know if any of you have done a 5-day fast before, but it is amazing what a difference it makes on how your day goes! The first day (the 17th) was only water, which was the hardest. It went by sooooo slowly! I don't know why it's called a fast. :D I felt a bit tired and week, but it actually wasn't too bad. I did feel pretty hungry at different times during the day, but I drank LOTS of water!

Not only is this a fast, it is a "cleansing fast"! So, today, we started out our day at about 5:45 am with a "salt-water flush"! That was sure an experience. We were supposed to drink one liter of that water, so I tried my best. It was worse than drinking sea-water, it was sooooo salty! I tried putting lime in it before I started, but I couldn't even taste the lime! We didn't realize that the boy who made the salt-water for us put WAY too much salt in it, at least twice as much as was necessary. That was found out when I was about 1/2 finished. Then, I was told I didn't have to finish it. Some people vomited, some had lots of diarrhea, some had horrible headaches! I didn't vomit or have a terrible headache, but I did have the diarrhea! It was very crazy, but it sure has helped to "cleanse" me! Then, today we have been able to drink coconut water as well as normal water! Praise the Lord for coconuts! That has helped to give us more energy so that we can work and walk and think. I have fallen in love with coconuts since I have gotten here! They are soooo awesome. The only problem is that we can't eat the coconut meat, but oh well. :D At least we have something besides water.


Tomorrow, we have only coconut water, Sabbath we have citrus fruit and the coconut meat, Sunday we will have rice-porridge, and Monday is back to normal Thai food!

This has been an interesting experience, and these last two days have gone pretty slowly, but it is helping my body to be healthier. I have not been extremely hungry yet, but my stomach has been wondering what's happening. It seems to make my mind clearer, and hopefully will continue to. I will have to update you all sometime. It is a great experience!

On Tuesday, the last three people came to join our group! Emily Yoder, Brian Castellanos, and Alison Deacon all flew in. I'm so glad that the group is all together now, except there might be a couple more coming in December of January! Lol, Emily and Brian brought me some stuff from my family. I was so excited to get the nuts from Emily from my parents but I had to put them away because the next day was the fast! Then, just today, Brian got his luggage and gave me some stuff from Shama, and it was soooo tempting to eat it! Lol, thanks so much, I did feel very special, though!

Well, it's getting late and I need to sleep! Those of you at SAU, enjoy SEYC! We are praying for you all. Oh yes, there are some friends here that have blogs, and I have them linked to mine with Thailand after them. So check them out, too! God bless you all as you start your day.

What's New?? (part 3)

Wow, these blogs are soooo long! Lol, this one is finally telling you about what I am doing right now, in Lampang. I have finally caught up to myself! I am not sure how much longer I will be here, it could be a few hours or a couple weeks, only the Lord knows! I have seen and learned many things here in Lampang as well. I have been here for about 2 1/2 weeks. I have been able to see a Thai (Christian) wedding. It was not much different than a western wedding. (the little Bible boy was a case! He was yawning, stretching, looking around, making faces, the whole wedding. It was quite entertaining to say the least!)

I have been baby-sitting an adorable little Thai girl. She is about 7 months old! She is actually very good, and she seems to like the "farang" (Thai=foreigner).

We have been doing a few visitations to church-members or people who listen to the radio. We have been able to help them with health, to just talk with them and invite them to church (and some have come), and one of them invited us to come and teach at her school.

We went to teach at the school. It was very fun. We were supposed to go again, but unfortunately they had a meeting, and we weren't able to go.

Right now, every day, I am working at a radio station as a DJ! That is quite the experience. I never imagined myself being a DJ! I speak from 6-7 every morning (with translations) about the Bible and health. It is actually pretty fun! Yeah, it is live. God sure does have a sense of humor! I never would have imagined myself doing this, ever! :D I'm learning many things.

We have also been baking bread, cookies, and crackers! Learning how to make Thai-style bakery goods has been very fun! The crackers in this picture are very special ones. They take SOOO long to make, but are very good. We have to put all of the ingredients on by hand, so, yeah, they are very precious! They are so expensive that I probably would not buy them, but since we make them, then we get to eat some.

We have also done a weight-loss session with one lady. It was more of a detoxification, but also helping her loose weight. She had to leave part-way through for some unexpected business, but hopefully she will come back and we can finish later. We are praying for her.

We went to a Cancer Center here when they were having a big meeting. I thought we were just going to visit the patients (which we will do tomorrow for my birthday:). The man in charge of all the health information in the government was there speaking as an honored guest. We were not "supposed" to speak or share, but as I sit there listening to Thai words floating around, I hear this one word I recognize, farang, (foreigner) and EVERYONE (50+ people) turn and look at me! The health govenor asks me in English, "will you speak, please?" So, I had to speak! It was quite an exciting experience. Later I got to shake his hand and talk to him. WoW, never thought I would meet a government official in Thailand!

While I have been here in Lampang, I have also learned how to drive a motorcycle! I have driven one probably 8-10 years ago, but never enjoyed it! Lol, so I never really learned. Motorcycles are the biggest mode of transportation, so I decided I should learn! It has been very fun, but a little scarry at times. I am glad that I am learning, though! (sorry, no picture yet).

Here in Thailand, I have been getting lots of experience doing many things! It is not exactly what I expected, but I have been enjoying myself. Where flexibility is a necessity, life is never boring. The rest of the group from Southern (Kelly, Emily Yoder, Ricky, and Brian [graduated a few years ago]) are all coming this month! I am excited to see them!

I hope that you all have enjoyed my very long blogs, haven't gotten too bored, and that I will hear from you soon! Just remember, as it talks about all through Psalms, to praise the Lord no matter what is happening in your lives! Thank you all for your prayers. Bye for now.

What's New?? (part 2)

Since the last blog is so long and I have so much more to share, I decided that I would split the blog into two (or three). :D This is still on the same trip that was supposed to be a long weekend! We next went to a city, called Mae Sariang, and taught some other children. It was very exciting, because I got to play my first piano since I had been in Thailand (about 1 month)! It was a synthesizer, with no pedal, but it was still fun. Then they asked me to play for church and Sabbath School! Now, let me tell you, that is quite an experience!!! Let me tell you about it. Well, it was a Karen church and the numbers don't even look the same as ours, so.... one of my friends had to sit there and listen and proceed to open the hymnal for me. Then, some of the songs have English sub-topics, and some of them I knew, but the people sing them VERY differently sometimes. I usually play the piano rather fast, but the Thai and Karen people sing hymns (some of them) EXTREMELY slow! There are also some that they sing with different timing and notes. So, yes, that was a very exciting experience.

I also gave vespers, and after vespers was finished (at about 9:00 pm), I was asked to preach for church. That was quite an experience, but praise the Lord, He helped me to come up with information. My translator was almost 100 years old, and I trust that he did an amazing job! (lol, he only had to stop and ask me about one thing).

We were able to do a little site-seeing and went up this beautiful mountain to see some soy-bean fields!

Some of my friends and I up on the mountain!

We went visiting some people and they fed us some food. I only ate the rice and chili, and it's a good thing I learned to eat with my hands earlier, because that's what we did here.

We were able to visit and to share with them ways to help their sicknesses, aches and pains, etc. It was very neat!

We traveled back to Chiang Mai (our head-quarters) and there was something very exciting that we saw! As Jorge (one of my fellow student missionaries) was taking a bath, he saw a "rope" hanging from the wall in the bathroom. As he finished, he realized that it was actually a snake, eating a "tukay" (a huge lizard)! So, we all went and watched it eat this lizard that was fatter than the snake. It was quite an experience.

Here you can see the size of the snake and lizard next to a Thai 100 Baht (close to a $20.00 bill size)!

Fat snake, byebye Tuckay.

I was able to go to my first water-fall that we could walk on and not slip and fall to our death! I have gone twice. It is such a beautiful place! It was so nice and relaxing, getting the water-fall massage!

I praise the Lord for the trip that we were able to take out to the jungle. I believe that we will be taking more like that in the future.

What's New?? (part 1)

Wow, so much has happened since I wrote a blog telling what has happened. :) Lol, hope that makes sense. My life has been very crazy these last two months. (I can't believe that I've been here over 2 months already!) I have done and learned many things. Here is a little overview of my life.

Right after the training in Chiang Mai, we took off on a real adventure! We started out taking a very exciting trip with many people and much stuff packed into the back of a truck. We were planning on staying in the jungles for a long weekend. (There were many more people and much more stuff at the beginning of the trip.)

We spent the night in one little town, and the next morning, on the way to the market to purchase some food, we found out that we would be staying in the jungle for over a week! Exciting news, to say the least!

Our next stop was at a Karen refugee camp called Beccla. While there, I saw some of the most extreme poverty that I have ever seen before. The pictures that we took do not even come close to showing what it was really like.

The scenery was beautiful, but the poverty and filth was sickening. These people are displaced out of their Burmese land into Thailand and many of them had to walk all the way to get here. It is a very sad story of their lives. Most of them have seen family members killed, gotten chased out of their own valleys, homes, etc.

In this refugee camp, I received a new nickname. This is the first time in my life that I have had many children scream something and run away when they see me! They would yell "Galawa, Galawa" and run away. I found out later that "Galawa" means "White foreigner" in Karen. Lol, that has become one of my nicknames.

I saw one little story unfold that melted my heart. My Thai friends baught a small snack that was not "aroy" (delicious). They gave it to one small boy. He proceeded to go straight over to his two little friends, split the snack in threes, and each of them got a tiny portion! That made me very happy to see. The Karen are dear, sweet, humble people.

We departed from the refugee camp and continued on our trip. We went to a small village school way out in the jungle! It was located in a beautiful little valley surrounded by majestic mountains.

I learned many things here. We slept on bamboo mats on a bamboo floor (not the most comfortable at first, but got better as I got used to it). This picture was taken at about 4:30 am. They would ring the first "bell" (which consisted of hitting a metal something with another metal something;) at 4:30, then they would all start getting up and doing chores.

I learned how to eat food with my fingers, which was actually very fun. (When I was little, I always wanted to eat with my fingers. Lol, just kidding) We do it sometimes now, even when we don't have to. (sorry, the picture is pretty dark)

One of the most exciting/embarrasing/intriguing things that I learned how to do was: to take a shower in the creek, with a mixed audience. Wow, that sure was an experience! There is not much privacy at the school, seeing as the the little bamboo hut we slept in was also the female staff's house, the worship house, the play house, the hang-out house, etc, etc. So, we had to change with children in the same room quite often. The way it was possible was with something called a "Ni". It is a wide piece of cloth, sewed together (so it is a round piece of cloth). That is wrapped around and tucked in, and changing and showering are all possible! (The Ni is also used as a skirt.) It was a very exciting thing to learn. :D My Thai friends had fun trying to teach me. (sorry, the picture is only of the creek, not of any showers going on;).

I was also able to visit a clinic while we were there. It had the softest beds that I have ever seen in a clinic. . . .

It had a great stash of medications on hand. . . . (many of the bottles were empty)

There were also great quality IV poles available. . . .

It was very sad, actually, the care that was not able to be properly given to some of the people. We wanted to go back and teach them some other ways of treating things like malaria, etc. (becaues malaria was very high in this area), but we ran out of time and never made it there to teach. Maybe next time we go we will be able to.

I was able to teach many things to the children about health. That was actually pretty fun. :D (a "cholesteralized" [word?] artery, and a clean artery)

I fell in love with all of the children. They were so sweet, and I did not want to leave them!

This is the house that we stayed in!

Oh yes, lol, I don't have this one on picture, (or video, too bad) but when we were on our way out of the village one morning, it was raining, and the ground was very slippery. We were walking away, but still in the village, and everyone was waving and telling us bye, and my feet went right out from under me! That was so embarrasing, but funny! Now I look back and just laugh! Well, that's not the end of the story. Once we were out of sight, I fell again. (lol, I'll blame my flip-flops that have no traction;). Then, we were about to get into a boat, and I almost slipped right into the river, computer and everything! Praise the Lord I didn't! That was my exciting exit from the beautiful school in the valley. :D (Read part 2 for the next section of our trip)

School-sick!

Friday afternoon, as I was preparing and cleaning for the Sabbath, I started thinking about Southern. Many things came to my mind. I thought of my sister (of course;) my roomate, meeting all of my other friends as well, I thought of you all preparing for your first Sabbath back at school. I thought of vespers, hymn sing, church (maybe North River), potluck, hiking, Patton Towers, and sundown worships. I thought of great fellowship in the cafeteria. :D So many great memories! I can't believe that I am actually school-sick. I miss all of you guys! Thanks so much for the prayers and thoughts. You are all in a great mission field in the United States (and anywhere else around the world you may be) and I am praying for you. Remember that God has great plans for all of you this year! Keep in touch, and don't forget your friend way over in Thailand!

Just a note!

Dear friends,

Just a small note to let you know that, even if you do not have a blog, you can now comment on my blog. I opened it up to all people. Please put your name if you comment, so that I will know who you are! Thanks so much. God bless! I can't wait to hear from you!

Lessons from 3 small children!

One Little Girl

Playing with the children one night, I noticed one small girl in particular. As we sang songs, she would shyly smile at me, and then look away. Her dark hair and bangs framed a gorgeous little face. Her slightly slanted jet-black eyes would dance every time I smiled at her. I noticed how she did not interact much with the other children. I made it a point to pay extra attention to her, noticing her apparent insecurities. I would reach over and pinch her arm to get her attention and then smile at her, and her smile would melt my heart! Another day, at one of the meetings, she made another little girl move over so that she could sit next to me. Ever after that one memorable night, she would always follow me around and want to be right next to me. What a little love can do to an insecure heart!

Little Boy Number 1

Another day I was helping lead out with the younger children. As we were singing songs, the girls and some of the boys were enjoying it immensely. There were some trouble-maker boys who were getting bored and punching and pushing each other around. I stared him down and shook my head but then I smiled at him. His round face was very hardened, his eyes empty. As I looked at him, thoughts were running through my mind. I wondered what his home life was life, or what had happened to him in these last few years. I wanted to just go and give him a hug and tell him that Jesus loves him. I could tell that he wanted to be loved and accepted. I kept looking at him and smiling, and finally he started smiling back. A couple days later, I heard a very sad story. When this boy was little, he had been put into a cage and his parents had had beaten him and starved him. Something happened to his parents and an army sergeant took him to the school (where we were teaching) and enrolled him there. The first day he attended the school, he was very anti-social. Then he started throwing sand at all the children and would not leave the sand-box. They tried to get him to stop, but he would not quit. One of the teachers went to prepare for disciplining him, and he ran from the sand-box and hid. A couple other teachers found him, and talked to him, had prayer with him, and finally convinced him to apologize to the students. Little by little, Momo, one of the teachers, has been showing him special love. Each day he attends school, she goes out of her way to spend time with him. He is a village student, so it is more difficult, but she does what she can. He has gotten friendlier, but he still will pull away as she gives him a hug in the morning. He does not say “thank you” for things that she gives him, either. We will just give him time. He is slowly responding to love.

Little Boy Number 2

One little child was sitting there playing with some toys, but not saying a word. His friends were all around him, talking and laughing, but he just watched them and played. When I smile at him, he flashes me a big toothy grin, but does not say much to anyone. Not long ago, his mother died and not he has a step-mother. We do not know what the situation is at home, but this little boy is very withdrawn.

What About Me?

There are so many stories like these in the lives of children. Which child are you like? Do you pull away from the Lord when He shows you His love? Do you just close up in your own little shell? Do you avoid anything that would remind you of Him and His love? Jesus knows what you have been through! He understands that you have had much pain and suffering, and even if you have stepped away from Him, He is still there telling you to follow Him. Think of what He has been through for you! Won’t you quickly respond when Jesus calls you and shows you His love?