First, a quick medical update: Ok, so even though Sophie doesn’t have
an active infection anymore, the doctors think she is still resistant to the drugs because it
took so long to kill the active infection. Dr. Peninnah wants to keep her on the
IV drugs for another 2 weeks to try to get her lungs better because IV drugs
work faster than pills. Also, she wanted to add back in one of the two drugs
that can cause Hepatitis and wants to keep a close eye on her and her liver
function to see how she reacts to it. If she can go two weeks without having
bad side effects and her liver is not affected, they can keep that as part of
the regimen when she goes home. If that is not part of the regimen, then she
will have to take all the other medicines for a year. If that is part of the
regimen, then she will hopefully only need to take meds for 6 months.
We are hoping that she will get released this Friday (Nov 18), as Akha Thanksgiving is Saturday in Ning's village in Chiang Rai and we would like to go! On to October happenings:
First, it was my birthday in October and
I was so happy that we got to be at home that week. I was like “All I want for
my birthday is to sleep in my own bed,” and I got my wish. Sophie was so
excited, she was like “We should do moogataw for your birthday and invite
Winnie and her family and my friend Mook and people from Taw Saeng…..” on and
on. I was like “ok, whatever.” I thought it would be fun, but more for Sophie
than myself. A couple days before, Sophie said she thought Winnie’s family
wouldn’t come because Winnie’s uncle was coming to visit, so I made sure to
invite all the people from Taw Saeng because we had already spent about $40 on
food!
That day, I took Winnie with me from Taw
Saeng because she said she could come after all, and as we drove up, we saw
candles and balloons on our front patio and both of us were like “wow!” It was
so cute and decorated, with the moogataw (Korean BBQ grills) set up and lots of
food and mats to sit on, with drinks ready and music playing. The music cracked
me up because it was Justin Bieber, so I was like “yeah, it’s totally my 14th
birthday party.” But it was all
such a nice surprise because I was so tired from work and three weeks of
staying at the hospital, it was nice to have something special for my birthday.
Sophie had decorated everything herself but was really modest about it.
So, we started to get some plates and
cook some food when all of a sudden Winnie’s family showed up: her mom,
brother, cousin Nok and even Cody from Taw Saeng because Winnie’s mom was
babysitting him! It was so surprised and happy that they got to come after all.
Then, the crew from Taw Saeng showed up: Ning, Ahna and Inna. Plus we had
Maiko, Sophie, me and Sophie’s friend Mook, so 12 people in all. It was such a
great time. They even had gotten an ice cream cake for me! The cleanup took
forever, even with people helping, but it was worth it because it was such a
great birthday!
The next morning, Taw Saeng was headed
to camp with the Penguins and Tigers class, so I was up early for that! We had
a team coming in from Denver, CO to help with the camp, and we had hired a
special speaker to give a message to the kids. It was so nice to basically act
as counselors and not have to really do a lot of planning because I think all
of us (me, Inna, Ahna, Ning) were just exhausted from running everything for 2
weeks with just the four of us. It was nice to not have to think for a couple
days.
Of course, that’s not to say we didn’t plan
ANYthing. We had been working on plans for a couple of weeks, so we had an
outline of what would happen when and were really excited to put on the camp
for the kids. We had some games planned, but the team also had a LOT of games
so we did a mixture of their games and ours and the kids had a blast. We did
Capture the Flag, Water Balloon Toss, lots of balloon games from the team, an
egg relay race, a Thai game called ShareBall, Red Rover and many more. The only
problem was, it was SOOOO hot that day that we did all the games and were
exhausted and drenched in sweat by 3:30, and we had planned to do games til 5!
We decided to just give the kids free time to run around and play or sleep or
just hang out with their friends til dinner at 5. That way we all got to take
showers before dinner and relax a bit.
The other nice thing was that meals were
catered there and we didn’t have to do dishes or anything. So, we had dinner
after free time, and then headed to our meeting room where we did a couple
rounds of Chubby Bunny (shoving as many marshmallows in your mouth as you can
and still say “Chubby Bunny.”) It was so funny to see the kids doing it!
Everyone wanted to try, but I only had two bags of marshmallows, so instead,
everyone just got to eat a marshmallow.
Then we had a Thai band from a Thai
church come do worship. It was awesome to hear songs I have sung a million
times at camps throughout my life being sung in Thai! I got some of it on video
and it was cool to see all the kids worshipping along. Then, Cynthia spoke
about freedom in Christ while I snuck upstairs to put together gift bags for
the end of camp the next day. The team from Denver had brought SO much stuff to
give us; it was amazing and wonderful! We got to put more stuff in the goody
bags than we thought we’d be able to. I had gone to the Christian bookstore to
get some little gifts the day before, but they were gender specific, so I had
to label all the bags so we would know who to give them to. The boys got
magnets, yoyos or keychains with words like “peace” and “love” on them, while I
got the girls little perfume bottles with Bible verses attached to them. For
the kids on the winning team from games, I also got little notebooks with Bible
verses on the front. Then, we put in stuff from the Denver team: candy,
stretchy bracelets, pencils, and glow sticks.
After Cynthia finished speaking, the
kids headed up to get ready for bed, but I was suffering from some sunstroke
since, as usual, I had not drunk enough water that day during the heat. It was
not fun trying to wrangle 13 teenage girls to get them into pj’s, brush their
teeth and get into bed with the lights out. When we had finally gotten them all
settled, Ning asked who wanted to tell a bedtime story and Peyton from my class
wanted to. I couldn’t really understand it all, but later Ahna told me what she
had said. Apparently, she started telling about a prince and princess and this
kingdom they ruled. Then all of a sudden, an alien came and kidnapped the
princess and the prince had to enlist the help of a magic bunny to get her
back. It was the funniest thing listening to the story, because all the girls
were silent while she was telling it, to the point that I thought most had
fallen asleep, but when Peyton told the part about the alien and the magic
bunny, everyone just cracked up! Finally, the story was over and they went to
sleep.
We had rented one of the dorm rooms with
26 beds, so earlier that day, it had taken forever for the girls to pick where
they wanted to sleep. Eventually, I ended up in between Faith and Amelie. Faith
had night terrors all night, so I kept waking up to her crying and rubbed her
back to get her to calm down. I don’t know if it is just being away from home,
or if she has them at home too, but boy did it make sleep difficult. I couldn’t
believe nobody else woke up! When everyone got up in the morning, I was barely
able to open my eyes, I was so tired, but Faith just popped up like she slept
like a baby all night! I could not believe she wasn’t tired at all.
After breakfast, we had an egg relay
race and then a 3-legged race and then the Denver team took over and taught the
kids some new songs that Ahna and I grew up with. Songs like “Halalalalalalelujah”
and “God is Good all the time.” It was so fun to do them with the kids and
reminded me of all the songs that are still buried in my subconscious that we
could teach the kids. I’m not out of ideas for worship day after all! Then they
did some skits about the Bible and taught about the whole history of the world up
through Jesus death and resurrection. All in just 2 hours!
When the Bible teaching was done, we
played some games, and then headed to pack up and go to lunch. After lunch, I
handed out the gift bags and the kids were all excited about them. We headed
back in our Song Thaews and half the kids fell asleep. I nearly did too after
all the excitement and exhaustion. All in all, a very successful camp
experience for the kids. I think the next time, we will send them to a full
weekend church camp with kids from all over Thailand, like Lake Retreat (the
camp I went to when I was a kid).
After our return, I took Lucy to the bus
station to buy us tickets to Mae Sai. I hadn’t gotten to hang out with her in
months because she was so busy with school, so since we had a week off, I asked
her if she wanted to go up and go shopping with me. She was SO excited to go!
We had a really fun time, but the bus was almost 40 minutes late, so we had
limited time to shop. Even so, it was a pretty successful trip. I got a bunch
of stuff I needed and some stuff for Christmas and birthday presents too. It
was nice to spend time with Lucy since we hadn’t had a chance to catch up in so
long.
At the end of that week, I took Lucy and
her little 4-year-old cousin Annie to the zoo. I had wanted to go for such a
long time, and Nahng Annie had been begging to go, so I said I’d take them. It
was so much fun! Here you get right up next to the animals and can feed a lot
of them for just 75 cents! We fed hippos, elephants, giraffes, and you can even
feed jaguars with meat on a skewer. We didn’t do that. The only thing
separating you from them is a chain link fence, and their claws are probably
sharp enough to cut through that, so if they got it in their head that you were
being stingy with the meat, they might just eat the people for dessert. All of
us were so excited to see the pandas too! They have three here, the mom, dad
and baby girl panda, Lin Ping. They were all asleep when we went, but they are
still cute!
We saw basically all the animals you
normally see in zoos, only they are a lot less contained than in American zoos.
The monkeys could easily just swing out of their cage and into the next ones,
but for some reason they don’t. Also at zoo that we didn’t see: the aquarium,
complete with those huge plastic balls that you can go inside and run around on
top of the water. They also have a SnowDome where you can rent winter jackets
and go sledding for a real winter experience or if you are having snow
withdrawal as a foreigner. I was excited that I got to hang out so much with Lucy
this week to make up for the fact that I don’t get to see her often. And Nahng
Annie is such a cutie, I love hanging out with her too.
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