Day 4 from Thailand

I just wanted to quickly share with you some pretty amazing things that have happened so with the children…

On Tuesday, we were asking for prayer before snack and one of our little boys raised his hand to pray. He asked for permission to pray in Thai and then proceeded to pray over our snack in Thai. It nearly brought me to tears to hear this 4 year old boy praying in a language that I can’t begin to understand, but knowing that God understood every word.

We have a child whose parents are stationed in Cambodia and one in Vietnam. Best I can tell from our conversations with them, the boy from Cambodia has recently moved there. Seems to be about a year I guess. The girl from Vietnam doesn’t seem to remember anything other than Vietnam, so perhaps she was born there. The interesting thing about her is that she is blond hair/blue eyed, so I’m sure she sticks out in a country of mostly olive skinned/dark haired inhabitants! One of our other girls parents are about to go “stateside” which means on stateside assignment. For those of you who don’t know, stateside assignment is what was used to be called furlough. They are moving back to Alabama (I neglected to ask for how long) and they will have to continue to minister there by speaking at churches, going to conferences etc. A boy that we feel like we know personally through his grandma is living in Chiang Rai, Thailand. His grandparents are here on the trip with BBC and are truly enjoying their time with son and daughter-in-law. He can also speak a little Thai after only being here a short time. It’s amazing what little minds can learn.

On a different note, let me tell you a few things that are different over here…first of all, they call air conditioner, “air con” and they never use it. The rooms do not have air on (or lights for that matter) until you put your key chain up on the little magnetic strip. Now, you might be thinking, well, just remove the key fob from the key and leave it on, but the key hook is soldered so you can’t do that. They only provide you one key, so when you leave the room, you must take the key with you which means the air and the lights go off until you return. The hotel lobby, elevators and other common places are not air conditioned, so it stays quite warm.

There are children here from all ages…BBC is responsible for bed babies up through 6th grade. The rooms that we are keeping the children in are hotel rooms. The beds are cleared out, but the only room we have to play, do crafts, do music, tell stories etc. is the size of a standard hotel room without the double beds. Now, imagine we are in here with whatever age we have, for a full 8 hours a day. It can get quite cramped and the kids can get restless. So far, the Lord has provided and we’ve had everything we needed. You have no idea what kind of planning this type of trip takes. The sheer numbers of supplies that have to be carried is just amazing, yet somehow, the group of planners from the church has made this happen. Wow.

Something else in Thailand, they drive on the opposite side of the road from us. And there are TONS of little motorbikes. They make our stupid cyclists look like amateurs. They weave in and out of traffic and never hit the breaks. If any of these people came to the US, they for certain would get run over. The other night, coming home from the night bazaar, Rachel and I rode a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. What an experience! I’ll have to post a picture here as soon as I can.

There’s so much more to tell, but I can’t get it all onto a blog. I’ve read all the comments, gotten all the prayer-grams and felt all the prayers. Continue to pray as I am starting to really worry about and dread the flights home. I’m looking forward to getting home to Steve and Jenna though. All week, I have refused to think about them because I just can’t hold it together because I miss them so much. Although I’ve talked to them a couple times this week and they seem to be doing well, so either Steve’s a good liar or they really are surviving which makes me relieved, happy and proud. Jenna is counting the days until I’m home and that makes me happy. I know I’ll cry when I see them. In fact, just writing this is making me tear up so I need to get on with something else.

I’m writing this as my kids nap. They are leaving at 3:30 today instead of 5pm because we are doing a parents night out tonight, so their moms and dads can go on a date. I’m leaving at 3:30 with them, going to grab a bite to eat and then walk around the mall that is attached to the hotel and have to be back to sit with the toddlers tonight during the Marketplace which is what they are doing for the older children for parents night out.

Last night, we went to the gem factory which was really a glorified jewelry store. Most everything I picked up was about $500, but in the US it would be double or triple that. Steve will be happy to know that I only spent about $60. Tonight we work here, tomorrow we are going to ride elephants and probably back to the night market. I have more Baht to spend and I don’t intend to have to take it back home and exchange it to US dollars!

Well, more later if time allows.