Chicago and Beyond

On our only full day off from METE festivities, I went with Jen and Doreen to the Immanuel Covenant Church which has 17 (I think) languages represented in their congregation, and we got to hear Scripture read in Chinese! It was cool. The pastor’s name is Linnea, and she is giving the closing speech at the Annual Meeting this year, which is also cool, but I will not be in attendance, as I will be fighting for my daughter’s rights in Washington DC. I will be there via internet though, as it will be broadcast online. Anyway, back to the story.

So, we went to this great church, followed by a potluck of Filipino food (this week). Daniel and Cassidy came to pick me up, with a passed out Cohen (he’s 2) in tow, and we went to a White Sox game! Why not the Cubs, you ask? Well, they were out of town, and we wanted to go to a game, so the Sox were our only other option. We bought scalped tickets for only $25 each and had seats 8 rows back in center field. Talk about the best place to watch a baseball game! It was so fun to hang out with them and Cohen and see his joy at being at a game. He is used to going to Anaheim Angels games though, so he would periodically call out ‘Go Angels!” and we would have to correct him. It was still very cute though. The Sox were losing badly, but in the 8^th inning, they came back with 2 runs and then got another great play in the 9^th inning: bases loaded, and the guy hits a home run straight into our section! Fireworks erupted and so did the crowd! Of course, they still lost by 2, but what a great way to go out! While we were waiting for the final out, I noticed that there was a sign for kid’s day where kids get to run the bases on the field. We got Cohen right in line, and man, that kid really ran the bases. I figured he would get tuckered out around second base, but he just kept on trucking and was so proud of himself when he finished. It was a great Sunday!

After METE was finished, I took the train down to Naperville where my friend Ilse from high school is spending the summer with her family while her husband does research on dark matter. Hardcore, huh? Well, Ilse’s sister Ellen, also my friend from high school, came up with her little boy Eli from where she lives another hour south of there, so we had a great afternoon, playing with Ilse’s girls Anisa and Rovena and Eli in the pool. Of course, then I came down with either sunstroke or the flu, still unclear, and ended up passing out around 6pm and sleeping til 8am the next day.

I rallied though, and we took the girls to Lincoln Park Zoo for the afternoon. Hey, even on my death bed, I was not about to miss out on visiting the site of my favorite romantic comedy of all time, Return to Me. David Duchovny walked those paths, people. Priorities. I did nearly pass out and had to sleep on a park bench for about a half hour so I didn’t keel over and freak all the little kids out, but I ended up feeling much better later and was able to appreciate the ape exhibit, featured in my all time favorite romantic comedy, Return to Me, among other things like lions, tigers and bears. Seriously, we saw them all, no pun intended! We attempted to pick up some Albanian food on the way home, since Ilse’s husband, Abaz, is from Albania, but alas! The store did not open for another hour from when we arrived there! We had to settle for pita bread and veggies from the Middle Eastern/Mediterranean grocery store in the same strip mall.

I slept from about 8pm to 10:30am the next day while everyone else went to church, but was feeling a lot better by the time they came home, so we enjoyed a nice afternoon trip to the grocery store, went for a walk in the woods by a lake near their house after dinner, and watched Moneyball that night after the kids were asleep. Today we went swimming for hours and the girls made some new friends in the complex, which will be nice for them as they are here for the whole summer.

Now I am on a train, wending my way east from Chicago to Washington, DC, passing through quintessential middle America, and watching the sun set as I spent the past five hours updating my life online. This is all for you, dear readers! You thought I forgot you, and though I may neglect you, sometimes for months, rest assured that I will always update, just not with as much detail as you may desire. Sorry, some things are better left unsaid. Stay tuned for more updates from the road! 

Home Stay April-May

Well, I’ve already posted a bit about this trip, but let me continue the story. I left off with my arrival in Washington State. It was a great time, a time to connect with family and reconnect with old friends. I was so busy, every day was full with reading for the missionary conference I was attending in June in Chicago, speaking engagements at churches, Bible studies or schools, and hours spent on the internet trying to find some information about how to get Sophie US citizenship, since she has been denied Thai citizenship.

I spent time with my entire family on my moms’ side, other than my cousin Meghaann in Mozambique, saw a lot of past high school teachers, saw kids I used to babysit, reconnected with lots of people who helped raise me my first eight years of life in Ephrata, and visited with some dear friends in Seattle who I hadn’t seen in several years.

I went back to LA after the whirlwind tour of the Northwest, ready to jump into a big fundraising event that had been in the works for months: Traffick Jam, an evening of music, dance and art paired with a silent auction. It was so amazing to get to hear some of my friends from Bible study play their original stuff, when I had only ever heard them play in church before. I got to catch up with so many people I hadn’t seen in a long time, and connect with new people to share what I’ve been doing in Thailand. It was an amazing night, and couldn’t have been such a success without the tireless efforts of Angelina Lee, my LA pastor’s wife, behind the scenes putting it all together, and adding an original dance of her own to the performances of the night. It was powerful!

I sold most of my stuff from storage the following morning and made a few bucks to pay for food and travel as I continued across the country.

Here’s a tangent storyline: When I first got to LA, I got my fingerprints done so that by the time I got back to LA, I would have my background check done and could get it certified by the Secretary of State’s office. Well, someone, somewhere screwed up, so when I got back, they had sent me the wrong paper! Hours on the phone being redirected to multiple answering machines, and I finally decided to go downtown to the Secretary of State’s office and just try to get them to call the DOJ in Sacramento to fix their screwup.

I got right in to the SOS office, but there was nothing they could do for me, so they directed me to the Dept of Justice on the first floor of the same building. I explained the whole saga of a situation to them and the lady disappeared for about 10 minutes in the back. She came out with a direct email, direct phone number and name and said she had left my number with the Sacramento office to call back before noon that day. Thank you Lord! I went off to await the call and call them if they did not call me by noon. But, about 10am, they did call. I was able to get special dispensation from the office to expedite the report to be sent out that day with all the correct signatures. Thank the Lord, again!

Meanwhile, I was driving my stuff from my storage unit up to Helen’s house to sell on Saturday, when I got another call from the office in Sacramento saying that I also needed to get a CACI background check for overseas adoptions, so she processed that for me overnight as well, and just took it on faith that I would send the check for the amount it cost. Now, armed with all the paperwork I thought I needed, I went to the Secretary of State’s office for the signatures. Here begins Saga Part II.

I get to the office, I’m the only one there, so they do the authentication for the first set of overnighted papers, but say the CACI ones are faxed, not originals, so I have to go to get them notarized, then come back. I try to find a notary, and discover the only one in the area opens in an hour. I decided to kill some time with my book at McDonalds. After an hour, I get into the notary’s office, he stamps my stuff, and off I go, only to discover that now there are 20 people in the waiting room. I patiently wait my turn and get up to the counter to be told “Nope. It’s notarized wrong. Take him this paper and come back with it done right.” You have GOT to be kidding me. I try to contain my frustration and the waste of time this has all been from the beginning, and go BACK to the notary, two blocks away to get the correct thing done, which is just me signing the back of the paper. Real hard to remember, right? Isn’t that this guy’s JOB? What the heck? I go back for the third time to the SOS office, only to discover the place is PACKED with people. At this point, I’ve been there for 3 hours. THREE HOURS for what should have been a simple authentication, in and out in 5 minutes tops. So, I throw American rules of courtesy out the window, and access the Middle Eastern side of my, jumping the queue and saying, as politely as possible, “I’m so sorry, I really don’t want to jump the line, but I’ve been here for 3 hours and I just want to get this signed.” Thankfully, the lady is super nice, takes it and stamps it and hands it back to me in under 90 seconds, asking just for the check to pay for the authentication. Such a sweet lady, she should get a commendation from the mayor!

At this point, I am supposed to take the papers to the Thai Consulate for some additional stamp. I am excited to speak Thai again! Which I do, immediately, and then discover that the security guard is Middle Eastern, not Thai. Whoops. Upstairs, I fare better and talk to two Thai people, doing my best wai and “ka” to ingratiate myself into their good graces. Not that it does much good, they say I have to now mail the papers to the authentication place in DC, which makes NO SENSE because it’s a State background check, not Federal, and then take them to the Thai Embassy in DC. So, the saga continues. Stay tuned for next week’s installment.

The week after the fundraiser included Disneyland with Tricia and Amber, a flight to Tucson, a zoo and bowling with a two year old, tantrums (from the two-year-old, not from me), barbecues, shooting guns for the first time ever with my brother-in-law, and getting to share my story with about 30 ladies at my sister’s Mary Kay meeting. FYI, largest gathering to date where I knew no one and was able to speak for more than 60 seconds. And I didn’t talk too fast, I promise! I also sold almost all the rest of the handicrafts I had brought from Thailand. People love that stuff! I’m so excited to share with the families in Thailand about how well things sold. 

May 30, caught a jet plane (well, not really a jet, I guess, just a Southwest plane) to Chicago, my first trip to the Windy City. I was ready for two solid weeks of having my head crammed full of useful info about what it means to be a “Covenant missionary.” Also to have my myriad questions answered. I was not disappointed. We were in class 10 hours a day, sometimes ending with several more hours of dinner with various important people in our denomination, like the president. (Churches have presidents, who knew? Maybe you did. I did not.)

It was a great experience, and I met a bunch of new cool people, with whom I quickly bonded for life and then realized, too late, that I would in all likelihood never see again. Well, I guess I’ll see some of them again. Stephen and Soo are in Japan, Caryn is in Taiwan and Chris and Diane are going back to China at some point in the future, so it’s more likely I’ll see them. I probably will never see Jen, Doreen, Amanda, Daniel and Cassidy or John and Letha again though, cause they are in Europe and Latin America. Well, it was a great, intense, bonding, learning experience nonetheless, and I loved nearly every minute of it. The only downside was that because of our intense schedule, I had no time to take care of the jillion things I needed to do to continue fundraising so I can go home in July, which meant I would be up til midnight every night and then up at 6 am to get ready to go back to class. By the final day, I was falling asleep during lecture with exhaustion, despite drinking lots of chocolate and Coke to stay awake, and really interesting speakers. 

It was so terrible, I was literally falling asleep as the president of the Ecuadorian Covenant Church was speaking. He was speaking Spanish, and we had a translator, but my brain would not stop translating anyway. I was like “Brain! Stop translating! You are using up the last reserves of energy we have. I am fall…ing….as…leep…zzz” and then when my head dropped, and I startled awake, I had to get up and go to the bathroom to splash some water on my face and smack myself around a bit. Oy, barely made it through that hour.  

The other great part about Chicago was staying with the DeNeui family, who had lived for 18 years in Thailand. I was SO excited to talk to them about their experiences and share mine with them and get their advice on things. It was so healing and helpful and I was overjoyed to learn more about Thailand and have Thai spoken to me.

Highlights of our METE missionary training conference:

SOUL FOOD, not the movie, just the food. We went to an awesome African-American church on our first Sunday and then two of the ladies took us to this spectacularly awesome soul food place and I could barely contain myself, I was so excited. You can ask anyone. I was literally jumping up and down outside the restaurant as we waited for some people to finish eating so we could all sit. Oh, so much food. Oh, so much goodness and oh, so much great conversation. LOVE IT. Love those people and that whole experience!

Enneagram. You may not have heard it referred to that way, but it’s basically a personality typing format that tells you what resourceful and non-resourceful qualities you are using, what personality type you revert to under stress and when you feel safe and what your partner type is. Shockingly, I know, I’m an enigma and am almost equally split between “Goodness,” “Love,” and “Loyalty.” I was actually really surprised to discover that I was not scoring very high on the Wisdom chart, since the descriptors of that are “always seeking knowledge, questioning, wanting to know the hows and whys of things, introspective, a voracious reader.” What in that list does not describe me? Yet, it was a distant fourth in the personality list. Oh, well. Good news is that in every personality type, I used vastly more resourceful qualities than non-resourceful qualities, so at least I’m well balanced. Ha! Clearly, I cheated. (Just kidding, I don’t think it’s possible to cheat).

Thai dinner and string tying ceremony. I so super duper miss sticky rice and chicken, so it was awesome to have that for dinner, and then Paul did this Thai blessing ceremony that is pre-Buddhist, but usually attributed to Buddhism, where you say a blessing over the person’s life as you tie a string of cotton thread around their wrist to bind them to God. He says bless in the name of Jesus, rather than Buddha and reclaim this practice. He did one for me first as an example and did it all in Thai, which nearly made me burst into tears, despite the fact that I only understood 75% of it. Then we were all supposed to pair up and bless each other. I tell you, God was present in that room that night. It was powerful, and was really hard to keep from crying, especially when Chris and Jen did theirs for me. In fact, I’m crying typing this right now as I remember it. God was definitely using them to speak truth, power and strength to me, that I desperately needed as I’m so far from Sophie and home. Paul challenged us to pass on the blessing to those who weren’t able to stay that night as they had little kids to tend to, so I made a concerted effort to do that before we left, even though I ended up doing most of them our last night at dinner before we all left one another for our respective homes.

Hanging out with people one-on-one. I love big group talks, but you only really get to know people when it’s just the two of you, so I liked that I had time to spend with just me and every other person for at least a few minutes during the course of the two weeks.

Missiology. Who knew that the study of God’s mission in the world would be so fascinating and deep? Well, I knew it would be deep, but fascinating? That was a surprise. Paul teaches it so well that it’s simply captivating and I want to know more and more. I hope I get to go to his Missiology conference in January. It’s in my town, so I should be able to go for a few days at least!

The Missionary Prayer Calendar. Did not know that a) such a thing as an MPC existed,  b) I would be the very first entry in the new book. Awkward. And Awesome. (to borrow my friend Rosa’s phrase. Sorry, dude, it seemed appropriate.) So, my official prayer days, according to this calendar, are the first of July, September, November, January, March and May. Let the miracles commence! I prefer miracles of cash. J Just kidding, people! Calm down! Of course I prefer much more amazing miracles of lives changed. Although, if someone wanted to give us cash to buy our much needed new Taw Saeng building, I would put that in both the cash AND life transforming categories.

"Don't Take Any Guff"

And now, for something completely different:

I’m on a cross-coountry trek up the west coast of the US to do fundraising and visit my family. The first stop is San Jose to see my cousins. I tried ride-share for the first time and it worked out great! Ended up getting a ride from a nice guy named Edward who has a similar story to mine. Worked in film for about 10 years and just decided he was never gonna be a big famous whatever, so he got a job working for the news in San Francisco and now works as an editor and cameraman for them while getting to see his family often.

I stayed with my cousins Judy and Bob and Maggie the dog overnight and had a great dinner with them, filling them in on the past year. I got to visit my cousin Gail’s classroom and talk to her kids about Thailand and our program. They all wanted to buy the stuff I had brought to sell at churches, so it was pretty funny; they cleaned me out before I even got to my destination! I figured, who cares who buys it, as long as I can sell it for the families. Plus, this way, it gives more people the chance to hear about our program.

I bought a train ticket on Amtrak to go up to Eugene to visit my friend Erika, partly cause it was cheaper, partly because I had never been on a train in the US before and wanted the experience. At the station was an old man, a volunteer conductor, according to his badge, who explained to each individual person what the process was to get on the train, and called us all together when it arrived. He said, “Now listen, if anyone gets off the train and starts smoking by you, tell them to smoke down here. Don’t take any guff offa them!  It’s against the law to smoke this close.” It was awesome.

He went on to tell us that the Union Pacific freight lines own the rails, and Amtrak just rents them for passenger trains, so they always have to get out of the way of the freight trains. I never thought of anyone “owning” the rails, I guess I always figured they belonged to the US as a whole. He was also chatting with a Filipino mom and her two teenage girls about their trip. Apparently, he’s been taking classes at the senior center and learning all about Southeast Asia. Great volunteer conductor, that one!

On the train, even though I was just in coach, the seats recline almost all the way back, and it wasn’t the best night of sleep ever, but I got a good 6 hours at least. I woke up just at sunrise as we were passing the base of a beautiful snow-covered mountain. Wow, what a great sight to wake up to. Definitely reminded me that I was in Oregon, not in Thailand anymore. At our next stop, in Klamath Falls, I got off the train to stretch my legs, and was hit with a blast of cold mountain air, about 40 degrees. Very refreshing, but FREEZING. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting it, because I knew it would be cold in spring, but I still could only handle it for a few minutes before getting back on the train for warmth.

The conductor invited all the people who were interested in learning more about Oregon history to come sit in the Sightseer car where they would be talking about the train lines and the towns we were passing through. The sightseer car was nice because it has huge windows that run the length of both sides of the car, so much better than the seats in coach. Of course, even with the best of intentions to learn something, most of the people, including myself, succumbed to sleep with the rocking of the train. I did wake up to see some nice waterfalls and an old train from 100 years ago that had been knocked off the tracks and into the ravine below by an avalanche.

I finally arrived in Eugene, where Erika met me at the station and we had a nice lunch: GRILLED CHEESE! I did not realize how much I missed grilled cheese sandwiches, until I got back. Also, I love Erika’s cats. They are awesome, all five of them. I even won over the skittish Siamese. While Erika and her husband Doug went to dinner with her former boss, I wallowed in the luxury of Netflix and watched copious amounts of Parks and Recreation! Ahh, American (scripted) tv, how wonderful you are.

Erika played hooky and we went up to Portland to hang out for the day, dodging rain showers the whole time while shopping and finally ended up at the greatest bookstore known to man: Powells. If you have never been to Portland, go there just to see this bookstore. If you have been to Portland and not to Powells, well WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU? :) We met up with my cousin, Kate, and had drinks and hors d’oevres (don’t check my spelling, I studied Spanish) at this cool restaurant. That night, after Erika headed home, Kate and I went to see The Iron Lady at one of the coolest movie theaters I have ever been in. It reminded me of the theater in Roslyn, the one in the old funeral parlor. They have little tables built into the back of each row so you can put your food there and they make their own fresh lemonade and pizza. Great movie experience!

The next day, we had breakfast with Kate’s boyfriend Chris (great guy) and I was introduced to delicious gluten-free oatmeal blueberry pancakes (shocking right?), and reintroduced to the incredible American portion size. I wandered around downtown for a bit of shopping. After Kate’s roommate got off work, we piled into the car and drove up to Olympia. Love that drive up the coast, it’s so beautiful. I am sad I did not get to stop into Vancouver and visit my friends there, but we just did not have time. I did get to see my college roomie, Neli, for a brief visit on our way up, but that was about it.

Finally, we got to my grandma’s house and I got to see my mom for the first time since Christmas and my grandma for the first time in a year and a half, almost! OK, now back to our regularly scheduled programming. More about the WA visiting in a moment.

April 2012: SongKran and Scrapes

Wow, hard to believe it has been a whole year since I got to Thailand. So much has happened yet it seems to have flown by, a month at a time. SongKran is the time Thai people really let loose and have fun. It’s their new year, and it’s also the hottest time of the year, so what better way to celebrate than by having the biggest squirt gun fight of all time? Weeks in advance, vendors are set up all over the city to sell squirt guns and water buckets, and the moat fills up with water. They put up signs that say “danger, deep water zone” and I always thought “don’t they know that just makes me want to jump in even more?” The traditional way to celebrate is by giving honor to one’s elders. This is done by giving them flowers, apologizing for any wrongs committed in the past year, and asking for a blessing. The elders (parents, grandparents, teachers, etc) then dip their hands in water and put it on the top of the younger person’s head, blessing them with water to start the new year fresh and clean.

For Taw Saeng SongKran, we had a special day planned. We all dressed up in our best Northern Thai clothes (long wraparound skirt and loose top for women, baggy linen pants and shirt for men) and did a program. Amelie, my sweet piano student, played Fur Elise (well, the first two pages anyway, which is all anyone every recognizes) with such confidence, you would never guess she just learned it a month ago! The little girls did a dance that Orawun taught them, Sophie choreographed a traditional Lam Thai dance for another group of girls, including herself (I was so proud of her!), Matt (one of our part-time English teachers) played a popular Thai love song with backup from our teen boys on guitar and vocals, and the women all sang a Northern Thai ballad that is as well known as America the Beautiful would be in US schools. It was funny though because it is Northern Thai, so some words I don’t know at all, and some are words that I know but mean something entirely different. For example: Miow means cat in Thai, but is the name of a hill tribe in Northern Thai. Don’t want to mix those up! Everyone did such a great job performing and the whole day was capped off with the kids lining up in rows for blessings from 4 people: P’Bua our chef, P’Anhkhana one of our Thai staff, the wife of our CEO, and myself. Not sure how I ended up in the group, I think it was partly because I was the next oldest, partly because I was leaving and partly because the other people we invited to partake in the ceremony didn’t show up. I don’t really care, it was fun either way. The last person in my line was Sophie, so that was kind of cool to get to take part in this traditional ceremony with her. The rest of our day was spent getting soaked with water by our neighbors on either side and joining them in soaking passersby.

The next day was time we had planned for a while to go visit Sophie’s parents’ graves up in Mae Taeng. It’s hard to get up there or to get directions from anyone as to how exactly to get there without someone who had been there a million times, but we finally, after about 5 attempts over the year, made it. Ahna had Jasmine’s car and we had a couple people set up from TS to come with us too so we could do some songs and pray and plant some flowers. Well, at the last minute, Angkhana and Napapon had to back out, so Sophie invited some of her friends from her old village to go. We caravanned to Ahna’s place, went to pick up some flowers to plant and a spade to do it with, and were on the way. We had to call the Akha pastor a couple times to get more specific directions, but we finally got there! I took pictures of all the turns this time, so we can find our way again next time. 

I was really happy that we got to do this before I left for the States, I think it was a good healing time for Sophie. She hadn’t been there since her mom’s funeral, and she was in shock, so I don’t think she even remembers much about that day. We bought several pots of flowers and transplanted them into the dirt around the graves, so it looked really nice. Ahna brought her harp, and I had my guitar, so we sang some songs, and said some prayers, took some pictures and headed home, stopping for lunch on the way. We left Ahna’s house, dropped off Sophie’s friends and planned to meet up at Taw Saeng to go throw some water at strangers, when disaster struck. I saw it happen and I still don’t really understand how it happened. We were driving through a green light, Sophie in front of me, when all of a sudden, she was skidding along the street on her elbow! Apparently, the car in front of her had slammed his brakes on, even though the light was green and there was no reason to stop. They had been doing construction there recently, and I think there was still some sand on the ground, so when she slammed on the brakes, they locked and she tipped. It was SO scary. I drove up on the curb, tossed my bike down and ran into the street to get her off the ground. Luckily, it was a busy time of day, so there were many people to help. She was scraped up, but not bleeding too badly, so she was able to drive home, but we didn’t leave the house again that day. I just went out to get us dinner and ice cream and I patched her up as best I could. Worst timing EVER, because the following day was her birthday! She just kept saying, “I don’t understand! I’ve been driving for 2 years and I never fell before. Why did I fall now?” I kept explaining that is how accidents happen. Even if you are super careful, there are always unexpected things that occur to cause accidents. 

Poor thing, the next day, she was so sore, but wanted to go at least watch people playing in the water by the moat and hang out with her friends. We went to the pharmacy in the morning to get some new bandaids and some advice on how to make sure she didn’t get infected. We left with iodine, saline solution, bandaids and cotton balls. It was a painful process to keep infection from setting in, but worth it. Poor Sophie, I have been in her place before, and I know how excruciating that pain is with saline and iodine. We did make it to the moat, but I forbid her to drive the rest of the week with anyone other than me because it was such a dangerous time to be driving at all, you never know when someone is just going to dump a truckload of water on you from the side and try to tip the motorbike over!

Well, I met up with my friends that day at the wall and kept checking in with Sophie on her end of the moat. We met up in the afternoon because she wanted to go eat moogataw at the restaurant with her friends, so I drove her home to change and she picked up her birthday cake that Ahna and I made FROM SCRATCH! (I know, never would have guessed it, huh?) and went out with her friends. I guess the whole restaurant ended up singing happy birthday to her. I was so bummed that I missed it, but I guess that is what happens with teenagers, they don’t want you around when they are with their friends. Sad. :( Funny thing is, her friends all wanted me to come, but I let them have their night. 

Saturday was the next day, and we changed her bandages, went back to the moat and spent another day flinging water at people. I must have walked 3 miles at least that day! I met up with Lucy (remember her? My Thai teacher from last year?) and we walked around with her boyfriend and saw so many Taw Saeng kids swimming in different places. I even saw Molly out! I was shocked, because she is NOT the kind of kid who wants to be around groups of people at ALL, let alone getting water dumped on her unexpectedly. When I asked her about it, she was like “yeah, my friends called and wanted to know what I was doing. I was like ‘I’m staying home. I’m not gonna throw water today’ but then they came to my house and forced me to come throw water, so here I am.” I was like, “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Hahaha

Monday, April 16, we ate moogataw with Winnie’s family at their house, and it was a great time! We all went shopping together in Jasmine’s car at the huge market and got all sorts of food. Kilos and kilos of food! I kept trying to get other people in the neighborhood to come share with us, but they were all going to sell stuff at the markets. All the other parents of the Taw Saeng kids were saying goodbye and how much they were going to miss me and saying “you are coming back, right? Taw Saeng won’t be the same without you!” It was good to get a chance to say goodbye to everyone, but so hard too because I will miss them all so much! It was almost better that there was no big farewell moment at Taw Saeng when I left because I know I would have cried. At the end of dinner, when I was saying goodbye to Winnie’s family, we were all crying. Well, not Sophie, but she doesn’t cry at anything, so she doesn’t count.

I finished packing and moving all our stuff to Ahna’s house (Sophie’s stuff) and Grace’s house (my stuff) and then we had one final farang family dinner with Ruth and Sacha and Rachael and Sophie before we all went to the airport. The weirdest thing happened. Even though I had been choking on my tears all week and would nearly break down at the slightest provocation, when we got to the airport, I was totally fine. I said goodbye to my dear friends and my daughter and got on the plane. Then, at liftoff, I cried.  

Birthday Beach: Ko Samui 2012

After months of asking to go to the beach for her birthday, Sophie finally got her wish. I had told her in January we would go on vacation for her birthday, but I refused to tell her where. She kept pestering me day after day, until I finally caved and told her we were going to the beach, but not where. She just kept guessing and guessing and then thinking she knew based on my facial expressions. It was so funny, but so hard to keep secret! We flew first to Bangkok where we had a 5 hour layover, so we got to go into the city and to the huge Siam Paragon mall. She had never been to Bangkok before, so that was exciting for her too. First plane ride, first trip to Bangkok, first time at the ocean. This was a big trip for her. I think the mall overwhelmed her, because after only an hour, she was ready to go back to the airport. Shopping at Siam is like shopping at Rodeo Drive: fun to look, but you couldn’t even buy a keychain with your inheritance. Except at the Gap.

Well, to cut a long story short, the trip from Bangkok to Ko Samui was not exactly the smooth transitions I had anticipated. First, our flight was about 45 minutes late leaving, which meant that it would be hard to make the last boat of the day. Then, we had to pay twice as much as I had budgeted for our bus/ferry trip. Add to that a serious case of teenage sized “are we there yets” and it was a less than joyous trip. But all that didn’t matter when Sophie first saw the ocean and the sun setting into it. It was a beautiful sight and she was SO excited. We got some food on the boat and settled in for the hour ride to the island. Which actually took two. Luckily, the rest of the boat was in the same, well, boat, as we were. Apparently, we had all read the same travel website that gave us misinformation about times and prices. We ended up sharing a cab with a British couple on holiday who had not booked a hotel. They came to our hotel with us and got a room there. Let me just say that internet photos are very deceiving when it came to our itty bitty “bungalow” and I use the term loosely. Good thing we had no plans to stay there much because it only a bed, a toilet with no lid or flushing capabilities (yay for buckets of water) and, bonus! Cockroaches. Suffice it to say that on the next trip, we will stay closer to home and pay the extra for a room with a real toilet and a tv set. Despite all that, the grounds were beautiful, and, come on! It was a beach resort. We were walking distance from two beaches and at most a 20 minute drive from dozens of others. The first day, we woke up early because Sophie wanted to have her first beach experience. We rented a motorbike from the hotel and drove to the “family friendly” beach about a mile away. It was a perfect first beach: super soft sand, shallow water and lots of families with little kids, no drunk college people anywhere in sight. 

Sophie LOVED it. She was in that water, playing in the sand, asking me to take a million pictures in a million poses and generally having the time of her life. After a couple hours there, we drove into the city to check out some other beaches and get some lunch. This proved harder than we thought it would. We were hoping to find an area like the markets at home, but the market appeared to be closed. We did find a place for lunch finally, that was about the prices at home, and it was pretty tasty! We had fun driving around, enjoying the scenery anyway. We finally found a popular tourist beach where they rented jet skis. Sophie really wanted to do it, and I did too, until I found out that it was $20 for 10 minutes!  No thank you. We decided to spend our money on a day tour the next day instead. So, we hung out on the beach, parked our stuff next to a Dutch family who looked unlikely to pilfer it, and enjoyed the beautiful day.

That evening, we met up with the British couple again at the gorgeous pool and took a walk down to the beach around sunset, where we took a lot more pictures with the hills in the background and walked down to look at tide pools and crabs. We had dinner at the hotel, delicious by the way, and not overpriced either, and took the motorbike into town for a birthday movie. It was a movie with dogs. Talking dogs. Talking dogs in Thai with no subtitles. Not animated. Can you imagine my joy? (That is sarcasm, in case you didn’t catch it.)  

The next day we were up even earlier to go on our snorkeling/kayak adventure around the islands. I think we picked a good trip, but the weather didn’t cooperate. It was pouring when we left the dock, but by the time we got to the first island, it was clearing and nice enough to go for a good kayak around the islands with the tour guide. Then we did a small hike to the center of the island to see the beautiful saltwater lagoon that the book and movie The Beach is based on. (They filmed it on Ko Phi Phi cause they couldn’t get the rights to film on protected nature preserves). We got back on the boat for lunch and to go to our second island. At this point the skies opened up again, so by the time we got to our anchor point, it was raining so hard we almost couldn’t see. We braved it anyway, and took a kayak to the shore, where we picked up some snorkel gear. We could have skipped snorkeling and just gone hiking, but I really wanted Sophie to have that snorkel experience with real fish, so snorkel we did. The sky finally cleared, but the damage was done, the fish were all scared away and the rain had pounded so hard that the sand was all swirly so you could hardly see your hand in front of your face. We gave up on snorkeling, got some snacks on shore and kayaked back to the boat. 

By the time we got back, it was broiling hot and we were ready for a good swim. We were only the second group back, so we took turns diving off the boat and swimming around in the aqua water. Well, not so much diving, as being pushed off by a teenager, for me. We headed back to shore, and took a nap on the top deck for an hour, which was so luxurious and just what I needed. When we reached shore, they had made little commemorative plates with our pictures on then, and even though I’m not usually a sucker for that stuff, it was so inexpensive and such a cute picture of both of us (a real rarity!) that I bought it. On the way home, Sophie said “This was so much fun. Thank you so much mom!” That made all the stress and work and expense worth it, because I just wanted her to have a really good experience to balance out the terrible year she has had.

Back at the hotel, we got a pedicure on the beach and then went into town to find some seafood for a special birthday dinner. On the way home, we FINALLY found a souvenir place so she could get presents for some of her friends. The next morning, we got up early to take some more pictures on the beach before getting a cab to the docks. We ate breakfast on the pier and then walked around the souvenir shops there before catching the ferry back to the mainland. The trip back was much more pleasant and faster than the trip out had been, and we stayed in the Bangkok airport this time for dinner and browsing the bookstores instead of taking the train into the city.

We got home late that night and Ahna and Sacha were waiting to pick us up and hear all about our trip. All in all, a successful first family vacation!  

Highlights from March 2012

Ahna’s family came to visit! Her mom, two of her brothers and her baby sister (she’s 9) came for a whole month. It was SO wonderful to have an American “mom” around for so long and pray for us and give us insight and love and support. They also brought some books for me so I could take a class called Perspectives for my missionary training. It was a great class, but I had to do it super fast so I could finish before leaving to the US in April. I kept up with my self-imposed schedule right up until I had to write a paper at the end It’s not that I didn’t WANT to write the paper, it’s just that every time I would write a few pages, I would come back the next day and think it was terrible and start over again. Finally, I decided to employ the tactic that had served me well countless times in college: procrastination! Yes, I waited until three days before I was due to leave for the US and stayed up late writing page after page about the Akha people, their history, and how best to start a contextualized church among Akha villages. It was fascinating reading about their traditional religion and heartbreaking to hear how former missionaries had abused their trust. Well, it was supposed to be 5-8 pages long, but I cranked out 21 in those two days. Overkill works though, I got 100% on it. ;)

March was the beginning of summer schedule, so some kids went to visit their families in the mountains, some came back from school for the holidays and we got a few new little ones for the summer. We also changed the schedule to make our days longer (11am-7pm, which we discovered too late left us NO rime for prep) and add different activities. We had Bible stories on Tuesday, broken up by age group; Art class on Wednesday, also by age group; Outreach on Thursdays, when we exposed the kids to the idea that they can do things for other people and give back to their community, regardless of their social status. We visited a nursing home, who LOVED it, an orphanage and walked down our own street giving out Jesus Loves You cards for Easter. Finally, Friday was character building time, when the older kids learned about things like Respect, Honesty, Loyalty and Trustworthiness. We kicked it all off with a parents meeting where the parents got to come hear what we would be teaching and get a tour of our facilities, which apparently had never been done before, to my surprise!  They were excited about the things their kids were going to be able to do that summer, and approved of our schedule, so it was a great success!

We also went to the Royal Flora several times over the winter months, which is a huge celebration of all things environmental. There are all sorts of exhibits about how water works, conservation, Thai culture, different trees and flowers from around the world, how the king has helped advance agriculture production, etc. It was a fun time every time we went! 

February update: Rollercoaster of life month

So exciting to see Cody’s house go from a falling apart shack to a livable structure with a solid roof and a sleeping loft. It was fun to get to participate in the building of it as well. My participation consisted of me holding logs in place while Billy’s dad hammered them into place for the loft. It was cool to get to spend some time with the grownups for a change too.

I was so honored to be invited by Cody’s mom personally to come to the housewarming party and dedication by their church priest after the house was completed. They invited everyone, but Ahna and I were the only farangs who showed up, because Rob and Judy were sick. When Ahna and I got there, we were the first to arrive, so Billy’s mom, Winnie’s mom and Cody’s mom were saying “Oh, don’t be greng tjai! (That is like feeling undeserving of the special treatment you are receiving). You are like family now. You are Akha now.” And they were saying I was doing such a good job as Sophie’s mom. They were telling her, “You need to listen to your mom now. We loved your first mom, but now she’s gone and if not for this mom, you would be dead! You were so sick walking around here coughing all the time. Where would you be if not for Heather? You’d be dead!” Even other parents who I don’t really know, but they live there too and have littler kids not in the program, will come and say “it’s so good that Sophie is living with you. If you hadn’t come here, what would have happened to her? We don’t know where she would have gone or who she could have lived with.” It’s just such validation and love from this community who loved her parents so much. I’m so happy that they feel that way and I totally love them too.

February is also Valentine's Day, obviously, and boy do these kids get into it. I literally spent more buying V-Day junk for Sophie's friends than I did buying Christmas presents for people. I kept going "IT'S NOT A REAL HOLIDAY!" But that didn't really work, I still had to buy chocolate.

Also, we FINALLY got to go on Flight of the Gibbon, the treetop zipline experience that is awesome! Sophie brought a friend from school, and my friend Aimee came with me. We had a great day in the trees and it wasn’t too hot. I loved it, and would do it again every month if I could! I cannot stress enough: SO MUCH FUN!

February was also the month that Ning left, which was excruciating having to deal with both her departure and the weight of the entire program falling on the shoulders of myself, Ahna and Orawun, with a few amazing part-time volunteers to help pick up the slack.  Finally, I was so exhausted that I was about to snap, and said straight up that we needed to close for a week so we could get some rest. I, for one, had not spent any time in prayer or reading my Bible since Christmas, and I was drained in every way possible. So, we closed for a week, and Ahna and I were so blessed to be given a free night at a private resort just outside town to rest and recenter. It was an amazing place, and the woman who runs it is so sweet and wonderful, and made us amazing meals. It’s such a great retreat, and we definitely left feeling refreshed.

The flower festival was this month as well, a whole weekend devoted to flowers, with a Rose Parade and everything! They closed down a whole section of the city for booths, flowers, snacks, rides and lots of clothing sales. It was a blast to walk around with Sophie and see the floats and eat lots of goodies.