White Christmas?

Well, I have some wonderful news! We have a place to lay our head thanks to an awesome ministry in Whitesboro, Texas of a wonderful church First Baptist Church Whitesboro. The missions house that we stayed in when we were in America to have Joss had a cancellation and the house is now available for us to use until we move to Denver, Colorado in February! Wow!

I have such a fond feeling for this house and it will be such a pleasure to be able to stay there again...I would never have expected this but God knows all and is once again taking care of our needs. I am excited about being Whitesboro again....even though it is a small town it really has some great qualities. It's very homey and best of all it is home to one of my best friends and another awesome church called Pathway.

Our plans as of now is that we will be packed up and on a train by next week. We will be taking two over night trains...One from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and another one from Bangkok to HatYai. We will leave at about 4:30pm and be on the train until about 6am...then be in Bangkok until 3:10pm...when we will then get on another train until 7 or so the next morning. I'm going into it with three kids and 9 pieces of luggage thinking...THIS WILL BE AN ADVENTURE! I'm kicking all negative thoughts about this trip out of my head or I might run away screaming! hehehe...

Once in Hat Yai we will hopefully stay in the church there and begin going through and selling everything. This is going to be rough because it will be close to the same as when we left America the first time. Not the same though. Getting rid of everything you've worked on and had for most of your life is a lot different from getting rid of everything that you've had for the past 4 years. Except for what will fit into 9 suitcases that is...

But I look forward to it and it looks like we'll be HOME FOR CHRISTMAS! :)

Yesterday my Thai teacher came over to teach me 3 more Thai dishes and we had so much fun together. My teacher, Pii Khamm and I sat at the table and as we were eating our magnificantly made food I just about cried. I am going to miss them so much...I'm going to miss the way Thai people love to sit down...on the floor or at a table and share their food together.

I love how fun loving they are and I love how my teacher and Pii Khaam love Jesus. I'll miss the way it feels to "open up my house" in the morning and hear all the Thai men in the neighborhood clearing their throat in the morning...or the sound of someone using their pestle and morter to make their breakfast...and OH the smells of Thai breakfast...

LOL...I will miss all the insane looking bugs we find and going to the market...I love the market. Although...I won't miss the butcher handing me my money with nasty meaty hands. How nice it will be to not to have to worry about cross contamination and if my meat might be spoiled because it's been sitting out with flies all over it for a few hours....

You wanna know something kind of crazy? Yesterday we discovered that a lanturn is lodged in our electricity pole...gosh what is that called in English? You know where all the wires come together. Anyway, it's crazy dangerous...going to call someone about it today. The Thai guy who first noticed it said "just grab a really dry stick and get it down...". John and I just looked at each other and snickered at the thought. There is NO WAY we are getting anything and sticking it up in these horribly unstable electricity posts (oh someone help me out here...what are they called?). Usually when it rains we have a power outage because of the shear instability of the electrical design here.

Now how would a lantern get way up there...well the Thais just recently celebrated Loy Krathong. While it fills the sky with beautiful lanterns and creates a moving starry sky like many will never see in their lifetime...it is horrible at it's roots. They also send off floating lanterns in the river.

Apart from venerating the Buddha with light (the candle on the raft), the act of floating away the candle lantern is symbolic of letting go of all one's grudges, anger and defilements, so that one can start life afresh on a better foot. People will also cut their fingernails and hair and add them to the raft as a symbol of letting go of the bad parts of oneself. Many Thai believe that floating a krathong will create good luck, and they do it to honor and thank the Goddess of Water, Phra Mae Khongkha. (taken from Wikipedia)


Here's the one stuck in our post:

So...you tell me...would you grab a stick and try to fish that thing off of there?

My first Thom Yum...and boy was it YUM!

Yes...it looks like ramen noodles because it is! It's Thai ramen noodles mixed with all sorts of yummy stuff. This is such a delicious dish...some of the stuff in it is ground pork, tomatoes, carrots, onions, phak chi, spring onions a bit of a veggie called phak chi farang (no clue what it is). This dish is called Yaam Maamaa

This is Yaam Woonsein...it's made with glass noodles, carrots, tomatoes, onions and lots of different veggies, lime juice a tad bit of fish sauce...it's made very similar to the previous dish. The best part about these two dishes is that the only thing that is cooked is the noodles and the pork. The rest of it is completely raw and loaded with all the good stuff.