CHRISTMAS TIME!!!

I LOVED CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR!!! But, I am partied out. A 5 day Christmas trip to Bangkok and 7 Christmas parties in Chiang Mai later.... I am tired! It was well worth all the fun though! Below are a few highlights of the events:

Christmas party at North Chiang Mai University. So many FUN things happened this year around this fun little city. First of all, a group of friends went out to a University outside of town to give a Christmas party. We had over 100 students (i think) at our party and taught them a little about Christmas in America. We sang songs, did a gift exchange and then did an improv skit of the Christmas story. I was Mary. It was funny. My friend Vince was Joseph and the two of us thought that we were just being introduced to the crowd.... but instead the play had apparently already started. Then I heard the narrator say, "Mary was pregnant" I looked down and I was holding the doll who I don't think looked anything like a little boy. But, we wrapped it up good in a swaddling something. Vince looks over at me and says, "you're supposed to be pregnant, not holding the baby!" So I stuffed the little baby up my shirt and was suddenly "with child." The funnier part is when the narrator announced that baby Jesus was born. So then I did the quickest birthing of a baby you've ever seen in front of a ton of people. I couldn't stop laughing.... then Vince kept cooing at the baby. So more laughing continued. We had some Thai students volunteer (or dragged from the audience) to be the animals in our manger. It was so funny to see them jumping around the stage. It was a fun night had by all!

Trip to Bangkok.
This is why we went to Bangok:

I went with some friends and their 2 kids to Bangkok to see the Cinderella musical. We had soooo much fun. I think the 3 adults enjoyed this production the most! I felt like I was in New York. It was incredible! We spent a few more days in BKK shopping and eating good food! One of my favorite parts was the over-night train ride there and back. The 12 hour trip wasn't so bad. We had fun booth type seats that turned into beds. It was quite the adventure!

Christmas party at the community center.
Our friend K likes the gift she opened at our gift exchange.

Fun times.... cookie decorating, lots of food to eat, presents to open, stories to share....
Christmas Eve.

This was a fun night to just hang out with friends, eat food, sing carols, be silly.... you know... the normal stuff.

Yes... Hannah Montana came to our party too. I know.... we're big time.

The ladies in the kitchen.... making apple cider. yuuuuummy.

Singing and story time! We made Christmas candle things... a tradition from Germany.... it was cool.

Then the singing got a little crazy. I think I got a little tired. This video was taken way too close to midnight. ha.

America

o'er the land of the freeeeeeee and the hooooome of theeeeeeeeeeeeee braaaaaaaaaaaave...

This song is stuck in my head. I'm a pretty big fan of the US of A. I was super excited to make my way over here for a little visit. Thanks to the generosity of Mr. Keith, I was able to fly here to attend his daughter's lovely wedding, celebrate Thanksgiving with the fam, eat Blue Bell ice cream and chocolate multiple times a day, and see lots of friends!

One of our very own chicks, Jessica, took some great photos at the wedding; so I just left my camera at home. :) You can go to her blog at the link below to see a snippet (is that a word???) of the fun in Lafayette, Louisiana... good ol' cajun country.

Wedding Pics

My original plans were to put me on a flight back to Thailand in about 7 hours... however, for now I am still in Austin waiting for a new flight plan. I'll be chillin' here until the Bangkok airport opens back up. I hope it is soon! I'm packed and ready to head back to see my friends in Chiang Mai. The most I'll have to wait is a week and a half. We'll see...

Check out this photo album of pics from my visit so far. I hope you all had a superb Thanksgiving with friends and family. As life seems pretty unpredictable these days, I'm thankful to know the One who is in charge of it all.

no biggie

Normal life issues. Unlike what most people think, my life here ends up being filled with pretty normal tasks everyday. Most of these things being stuff I'd rather leave in America. But, life follows me wherever I go. So I'm rollin' with the punches. First of all, I'm not exactly sure who engineered our kitchen sink set-up... and mind you, I'm no sink engineer... but I think there was some mistake. It's just weird. It's not healthy. With no garbage disposal or dishwasher, we get to wash dishes and get to make sure not a drop of food falls down into the abyss. However, I'm not a food crumb/chunkie nazi. So, in return, our drain started spitting things up. For a few weeks my roommate and I were in denial. As if somehow it the drain fairy would fly to Wal-mart, buy Drain-O and pour it down herself. Since Plan A didn't work, I decided to look at our Thai version of Wal-Mart for something to unclog that sucker. Unfortunately, I never finished my Thai reading lessons so I'm literate in about half of the Thai letters.... most packaging here has some English. But these mysterious powdery packets with a drain pictured on the front have nothing of the sort. I stared at the different packet options for about 15 minutes hoping I would have some deep revelation and be able to read in Thai. Instead, I ended up picking out the prettiest one. Bright blue.... makes me think nice, clear, clean water. Upon arriving home I stared at the directions longer... the only think I could understand was something about 10 minutes. So I decided..... OK, pour the magic powder down the drain and check back in 10. To my surprise I had a science project growing in my kitchen sink AND my bathroom sink. Something freaked out in the pipes and stuff started coming out both ends. It was sick. Because I'm not a food crumb/chunkie nazi, food nastiness started oozing up out of the bathroom drain too. Sick out. Conveniently, my roommate had plans to leave town that day. So I had to contact our apartment handymans and confess that I'm an idiot when it comes to keeping our drains clean and then even more so in trying to fix it. Their response in Thai was the equivilent to "you're such a girl." For hours.... all morning long they vacuumed out water and "stuff" and tore apart pipes. I finally took a lunch break from all the commotion. After filling my stomach, I made the trip back up to the 8th floor. I go to turn the corner back down my hallway and I see about 10 workers mopping a flooded hallway in rubber work boots. I apologized about 50 times that they had to clean up our mess and they just talked as if was the most normal thing in the world. I'm happy to announce that the human dishwasher is back in service.... thanks to our nice friends who helped me in my ignorance. Moral of the story: chunkies are evil and must be destroyed!

Hard core

Another fun event we were apart of last month was in a little town not too far from our city. We met up with a group of college students from Bangkok to do a community service project. We helped to plant teak trees (I planted a whopping 2 of the 350 planted over that week) and built 2 small dams along a river. The dams were made of concrete that we passed along bucket by bucket from the mixing spot to the dam. It was the best workout I've had in a loooong time. I had a blast hanging out with our new friends, singing songs, cracking jokes, splashing water, heaing them talk about how weak my muscles were, staying in the village homes.... it was all good fun. Enjoy the pics! From the village we had to take a short truck ride, a boat ride, and then hike for about 45 minutes to get to the dams we helped build. Here we are going across the water. I think it felt a big like forging the river on the Oregon Trail.... remember that old school computer game??? This little flat boat was set up on a rope/cable thing and you just pulled yourself across. Our beautiful creations...Post-work day shot. Me in my way cool rubber work boots. I fit in with the locals. ;)
One afternoon it rained hard. Some of the students were hanging out at the village leader's house. They started this rain dancing/chanting/college cheering madness. It was sooo fun to watch. Made me miss my Aggie days. :)

Visiting a friend's Village

Kelly, Tommy, Beverly and I visited our friend's village at the beginning of September. These pics are slow in coming.... but nevertheless, here they are. It was such a fun weekend adventure. After driving several hours outside of Chiang Mai, we caught a boat the rest of the way to the village. This river is the Thai-Burmese border. And here was one of our boat guys leading the way!!! Our friend's house. She and one of her sisters have moved out of the village and into city life. Their father was the chief of the village before he passed away in '06 and had major influence among the people in Thailand... both in this village and others in government.

Here are two of our friend's sisters and her aunt singing out of the Karen language hymnal. I cried. This entire village is filled with believers. It was so neat to hear another language of praises sung to God.

Me and Kel right before we went fishing and pretending like we were working in the rice fields in our worker hats.

The women sitting around the living room. You'll see them in traditional Karen tribe clothing and our friend in her jeans. :)

Thai weaving (how they make their clothes, purses, table cloths, bed covers, etc.)

Our friend, her mom, her sister.

Along the walk in the village.

Right before getting on our boat we met a group of Burmese refugees on their way to Canada! It was so cool to be able to see part of this process... the large majority of them knew no English and had never even seen an airplane. I really wish I could've been on the Canadian side on their arrival too. The UN helped this group of friends and family (next 3 pics) get passports and travel to their new home.

The pics below are of a small village school in Northwest Thailand that we visited in the same trip. The school is set on the top of a small mountain and has a gorgeous view on all sides. These kids are sponsored by a group in the States who visited them for an English camp this past year. So we stopped by for a little visit and brought them new soccer goals. The kicker was figuring out how to put the goals together.

Our view all the way home.... driving back to Chiang Mai. Trees and rice fields. Pretty, huh?

A month and a half in pictures...

Pictures of fun stuff at our new Community Center. This center has been opened for about a month and a half now. Right now we have a Club every Wednesday where we welcome college students and young professionals time to come and hang out, practice English, get help with their English homework, or just chill. Each Friday we have English activities like watching/discussing movies, cooking American food, game night, etc. A couple weeks ago we started formal English classes--- for now they're going slow. It seems like one-on-one tutoring is a better draw for our new friends. So everyday my schedule is pretty random... always changing. Three girls that I know have become sisters over the past couple months. So, I have the opportunity to meet with them individually and teach them the B---- which means I'm also back to studying Thai as much as possible in order to communicate well with these sweet girls. I told some friends last week that it feels like I'm on vacation. I love the work we're doing here. Our Dad is faithful to work in the hearts of our friends here. He is teaching them and encouraging their hearts in ways WAY beyond my Thai-speaking ability. Last week two girls came to the center on their own and out of the blue started asking me and our two interns about JC. We were able to answer their questions and share the word for about 2 hours. It was precious to see them listening with eyes wide in anticipation. So, He is good. He is working. Even when I don't see it. I love it when He does let me see a glimpse, though. That's refreshing. :) Continue to lift up our time with students and young professionals at our center and around the city.

A new sister!