This month has been great. I have had Sophie for 5 weeks now and we have gone from being sort of unsure of each other to her telling dentists and doctors that I am her mom. This month we had a scare that she nearly had to have a root canal! Thank goodness for second opinions. She just needed a cavity in the end, but it required her to miss a whole day of school waiting to be seen, so I had to write my first “Please excuse my kid’s absence” note, which was fun. Then she got the flu for a few days, so I had her stay home one day with a 103 degree temperature. This poor kid gets sick every time it rains. I think it’s a combination of a stressed immune system and the stress of losing both parents in a year. All in all though, she is nothing but a joy to have around. I thank God every day that he bestowed this great kid on me. My friend Ruth compares us to Rory and Lorelai on Gilmore Girls because we both talk super fast and we share so much stuff. I have become one of those people who talks about their child incessantly too, I have noticed, so sorry in advance. :)
Maiko, Sophie and I have started a routine of going grocery shopping at the big Target-esque stores one Monday a month and then having prayer meetings and just chatting about our weeks on the other Mondays. It has been nice to have some hangout time and check in with what everyone is doing.
August highlights/events:
We have a new director/COO named Larry who is really cool and interested to hear everyone's opinions and input for new ideas. He sat each of us down individually for a long talk about how we got to Thailand, what we do with Taw Saeng and our ideas for the future of Taw Saeng. He also has a Master's degree in Camping and even wrote a book on the subject, so our camp next month should be fun!
We visited the Anaban school behind Taw Saeng's current location and it is awesome! It would be perfect for us. We had a good talk with the owners, and they really like our program and want us to have it, it's just a matter of coming up with $1.6 million US. Yikes.
I had Ryan make me an Admin on our Facebook page so I've been trying to update that more often. Like us! We rock! There are also pictures of the Anaban school up.
I met with some other Covenant missionaries here, and had a nice dinner with their family. They have lived here for nearly 16 years! It's nice to have some contacts with other people from my denomination nearby.
We visited the location of our camp for next month and it should be perfect! There is a big soccer field, a dorm room for 26 people to sleep in, and space for meetings and they would feed us too. It really feels like a scaled down version of my childhood church camps. so I am super excited!
Ning, Ahna and I went to Pai for our August holiday and spent 4 days in the mountains. It was beautiful and fun, but not as relaxing as I had planned, haha. We rented motorbikes and drove around the countryside, seeing waterfalls and constantly thinking we were lost. We got massages, went to the hot springs and ate a lot of food. We went to Mae Hong Son for one day, which was another 3 hours from Pai and it was gorgeous! We got mud facials, saw a fish cave (so full of fish, you can't see the water for the fish) and went to the top of a hill that overlooks the city where a beautiful temple is built. It is a spectacular view! Our hotel was right on a lake and it was such a nice day. We were so lucky to not get rained on at all the whole time we were there! Of course, it poured the night we were in Mae Hong Son, so we missed out on the walking street there, but I got plenty of souvenirs in Pai, so no worries. Ahna and Ning went back to Pai for a fifth day, but I went home early to take Sophie to the dentist. Fun times. :)
Other exciting news: Winnie's dance team won first place at the nationals competition! I am so so proud of her and her team. They are really amazing dancers. I am devastated that I didn't get to go see her perform in person, but the contest was 12 hours away by car and there is no airport that I could have flown into. Supposedly, there will be a dvd though that i can watch, but it's so not the same
We did have some sad events too: Rob and Judy went back to Canada for 4 months and are ending their time as directors of Taw Saeng. We will still see them when they come back and they will still be involved to some extent with us and the kids, but on a smaller scale.
We also said goodbye and good luck to our Aussie teachers, Em and Marie-Clare, who are going back to Australia to have a baby boy! They were great, so we will miss them a lot. Ahna is now teaching the little Dolphins class and we have a new 18 year old volunteer, Franciszka, who is helping her and is also going to teach hip hop dance classes!
In just a few days we will be losing Field, one of our staff members, to another organization in Mae Taeng. This is so sad because she is the English Curriculum director at Taw Saeng and does so much other stuff, I don't know how we will cope without her! Life will not be the same, that is for sure. But, hopefully we can find someone to try to fill her shoes and carry on with the curriculum. Of course, I wish her all the luck in the world in her new job, even though it will be hard to lose her.
Well, at this point, that is all the news I can remember in brief. I'm sure I'll remember something later that was super important, but I'll just post later.
Oh, in case you read this but are not on Facebook: In honor of my 32nd birthday in October, I'm asking all my friends to donate $32 to our camp fund. Camp will cost about $500 for everyone to go and stay for 2 days and one night, so I think we can swing it if we have enough donations! You can donate right here: just press the donate button to the right of this post!
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