Rice Grains

Yesterday I went in to the Well for the first time since before my hospital experience. It was great to see old friends again, as well as get introduced to new people. Of course, I had to look at their card selection and ended up buying quite a few new designs. I really like the cards the girls make there.:)

Then last night, I met Anita, Tawan, and Poom Poowang (Tawan's younger sister) at The Little Big Restaurant for supper. We had a very nice time, as usual. The LIttle Big has become our regular hangout; it has great food and is a convenient place to meet.

Here we are!:)

Today I needed to go in to Bangkok again. While I was on the BTS sky train, I had to smile at the shirt pictured below. Obama has fans in Thailand too!:)

And, as I went to Lotus, I had to smile yet again at all the people in the magazine section lined up reading various magazines right there in the store. For some reason this is a normal occurence there.

Tomorrow I will teach English to the two classes I was originally supposed to teach before I fell ill. Beth is away in northern Thailand right now; she is my substitute. Now I am subbing for the substitute!:) And tomorrow night I am looking forward to spending an evening at the Mast house watching "Fiddler on the Roof" with Candice and Anita. Tom is with the REACH team in northern Thailand, so we will have a girls night.:)

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One day when the team came to visit me in the hospital, Joelle and her sister Trudi, who happened to be visiting at the time, sang a few songs together. They are amazing! So here is the first song they sang.

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Finally, after lunch, we went to the pavilion where the children packed in waiting for us. If you can imagine the following photos side by side, it will give you a better idea of how many there were.

Rin's husband, Khun Thani, was the moderator for the proceedings. A few people spoke, a song or two was sung, and then they played a few games. Regarding the speakers, I discovered on the way there that I was expected to share something, so I had the privilege of being one of the speakers.:)

Sorry, I'm really bad about eliminating pictures to post, but I couldn't resist putting the following picture on just for the facial expressions.:)

This little doll was fascinated by my camera. Her proud dad said he took a full album of pictures of her already.

Continue reading "Sa Kaeo Province, Pt. 2" »

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Yesterday I went with my friend Rin and a group from her church (Immanuel Baptist Church) to her husband's home province, where we visited a couple small village churches and then handed out shoebox gifts from Samaritan's Purse to over 120 children. It was a really good time, though tiring (we left at 6:30 am and returned about 10:30 pm).

Sa Kaeo is about a 2-3 hour drive outside of Bangkok. It was refreshing to breathe in unpolluted air (some of it was even what we call "fresh country air":). Rin pointed out a road sign in Thai somewhere along the journey that I don't expect we will ever find in the US. Loosely translated, it was an "elephant crossing" sign.:)

Here Rin and I are at the first little country church we visited. I believe each of the places we visited were church plants from Rin's home church in Bangkok.

I loved the view out the window of the little church building.

The pastor's family

The next church we visited. I was told this church had grown too big for the building, so it divided 3 ways, thus also acting as church plants.

Here is most of the group with whom I travelled.

The pastor from the above church took us to the next destination, where we were to hand out the shoeboxes we brought along. First we were served a meal; most of it was much too spicy for my taste buds, but in small, almost microscopic portions, I managed to fill my stomach. :)

These two men are both leaders in the church back in Bangkok. They were a riot, trying to get me to eat spicy food but also telling me what wasn't quite as spicy.

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This afternoon a celebratory service was held at Promis Baptist Church for 40 years of existence. I have sadly few pictures of the time, as I was sitting in the back, too far to take any really good pictures.

They had beautiful flowers all over the sanctuary. A high school band played some really good music as pre-service and post-service music. A choir sang a song, and quite a few different speakers addressed the packed sanctuary. Unfortunately I didn't understand any of it except for an isolated word here and there.

But it was fun to see some acquaintances at the meal after the service. Below is my friend and student, Elle, and a friend of hers.

Here I am with my friend Rin, a friend of the church.

Last--and definitely least--is an extremely poor quality video of the band playing after service music. It really sounded great; I think the video doesn't do the sound justice. And the videographer didn't do the video justice. Watch at risk of becoming light-headed or acquiring a headache!

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Saturday night fifteen of us decided to "celebrate" Cinqo de Mayo, since we now have 6 Latinos on our team. So we headed into Bangkok to Charlie Brown's Mexican restaurant. We were given a section in the loft area of the restaurant. Seating was tight, but we had a blast. It was a lot of fun just being together for a night out together.

No, don't start rumors.:) This is honestly about how squeezed our seating was.

Raul and Raena (it's difficult to get a pic of Raul smiling, though in real life he is quite a clown!:)

You know, I wasn't going to post this last picture; it's actually pretty much a repeat of the above pic. But I LOVE Joelle's big eyes back in the corner. Soooo.....sorry Beth, I don't suppose you'll like this pic very much.:)

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On my way home from my check-ups, I stopped at a small park in Bangkok. Yes, I do like nature and flowers.:) And yes, I do have pictures of the park posted below. Hope you enjoy!

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