so...

funny story:so, p'ganniga's daughter, ping, accidentally stole my running shoes...that's about the whole story. i got them back.

funnier story:we were leaving this big 3rd of july bash at the fotjasek's on monday, and i saw a pair of brown, old navy flip flops, circa 2004. that's funny, i thought. who would have the same flip flops as the ones i happened to bring to thailand? thinking nothing of it, i slipped into my flip flops of the revolution, and headed home. there, i noted (to my undying amusement) that my brown, old navy flip flops (circa 2004) were missing. i also noted that both jun and p'ganniga went home barefoot, and that i could not get a straight tale out of either of them. all i can derive from this is that one of them wore my flip flops to the party, and was too ashamed to admit it and to wear them home. my flip flops (circa 2004) are still at the fotjaseks.

funniest story of all:to start our adults' english class last night (tuesday), dave had us go around the circle and say our names and our favorite type of cookie. says the one fellow, i enjoy all kinds of penis cookies. i needn't tell you i'm the only one who laughed, and i did it quietly (up my sleeve, you might say). i feel vindicated by the fact that at least half of you will laugh at this blog, and the other half won't get the fact that he meant 'peanut.'

who's doing what now?

you may or may not have noticed by now, but here in thailand, things can change in the blink of an eye. the sun is shining brightly, but if you go outside, you could very well be soaked in thirty seconds. the fickle weather is an apt reflection of thai life. just before i came, the orphanage was supposed to get a baby girl...that didn't happen. a week or so ago, the plan was to get a different baby girl near the end of july (no one was getting their hopes up this time). now it seems as though we may actually GET our baby girl, PLUS a baby boy, unless they are both baby boys, but they might both be girls...anyway, we think we're getting two babies on the 21st of the month. we're not sure what gender they are (reports keep changing), but they are both HIV positive, one is four months old, and one is currently seventeen days (or twenty-one). the plan (as of now) is that the fallses will foster one of the babies, and the orphanage (me, ganniga, and the boys) will get the other one. WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!! pray for both of these babies, and for our reception...none of us have done this before, so no one can tell how things will look once we add an infant to our twelve-year-olds. if we do.

on a quick, much more tragic note, the brother of one of the team members has been missing for a few weeks, and they've found a body they think may be his. andy and carmen were headed home on furlough anyway, but they've had to pull things together very quickly and they fly out this afternoon. pray for them, and their two young children.

unpredictable indeed.

desperate times

so...i was on a direct route to malaria-ville, no brakes because, although i own a big old can of deep woods off, extra deet, owning a can and bathing in chemicals daily are two different things. i don't use the spray, and it gets me this...

this isn't the best picture, because you can't see the nine on the other side, but until they develop a 3D camera, this is what you get. the scab on top of my foot is evidence that i have no resistance against the itch. that's right, i scratched that hole in my foot. anyway, desperate times call for desperate measures, and thai mosquitoes call for thai repellant...


i haven't had a new bite in three days. i pretend that the lotion is moisturizer, and i use it after i shower. i'm malaria-proof now, but i'll probably end up infertile from all the chemicals (sorry joel, i guess we're adopting. can we have those twins i saw at the pool the other day?)

also, did i mention that we have two beautiful french girls (as in, french canadian) staying with us (at the church, not the orphanage) for an indeterminate amount of time? i was setting up their room, and was thinking how nice it would be to stay in the church (which was the original plan)...i'd have wireless internet, my own room, peace and quiet. but my main role here is to love these boys, and how much of that would i do if i lived at the church? i LOVE my privacy, and given the option between hanging out in my room (on the sweet sweet wireless internet) and walking over to the orphanage to loiter around and always be an awkward guest, i'd most certainly be in my room most of the time. i'd be a friend instead of family, and these boys have plenty of friends (although, for that matter, they've plenty of family now too...at the game on saturday these five boys had more soccer moms than the kids with real parents). so it all worked out for the best...but i'm getting my own room when i move back home, right mom??? right???? *phew*

i'm a youth pastor now???

ok, i know that this is an exhorbitant number of posts while you all are asleep, and that i really have no call to be blabbing quite so much, but the past few hours have been an adventure.

i get a phone call from sheri early this afternoon (church starts at four). 'hey babe, has louise talked to you about doing the youth group?' yes, she had. what she had said was 'could you plan a few games and drag together some snacks, because our handful of teenagers are sick of 'helping out' with the sunday school, and we'd really love for them to have their own little group.' 'ok,' says sheri, 'so karen says to just do it at ALH (the orphanage), and i think you're on your own. it should only be the five boys and four farang.'

sweet.

then dave phones. 'yeah, you'll have one of the thai interns to help you.'

double sweet.

so i drag some games together, rush off to get some snacks, sketch out a rough outline of what i'm going to talk to our four farang about, and book it to the church. 'i think ricky's involved in this too, somehow.' 'hey ricky, you a part of this whole crapshoot?' 'yeah, i think i'm doing the teaching.'

this is shaping up to be awesome.

twenty-nine kids, two rowdy games, three big bags of chips and a box of cookies later, we have ourselves a youth group. we played games in ALH's tiny downstairs (it has an even tinier upstairs, and no yard, so it was the best of options), ricky took the farang upstairs for a Bible study in english, and the thai intern (i still don't know his name...i'm sorry, thai intern) held the twenty-three 10-12 year old thai in rapt attention. i wish i knew what he was saying, because they all sat and listened, and laughed in the right parts and answered his questions in unison, for a good half hour...ON THE FLOOR!!!! north american kids don't sit that long in comfortable chairs!

i don't know how many of these thai kids are Christians, but you can bet that even the ones that are live in buddhist homes. they need something fun, something age appropriate, something that will speak to them. please, oh please, thai intern, i know that youth pastoring is absolutely beneath you, NO one in thailand wants to be a youth pastor, not even as a stepping stone towards pastorship, but these kids need someone to speak into their lives.

there are three mosquitos circling the office right now. they can smell farang blood a mile away, but they can't come near me because of my superfantastic thai mosquito repellant, the details of which are to be discussed in a later blog. stay tuned...

pre-script

let me add (in advance, since many of you will read this first) that the boys had a fabulous time playing soccer, win, lose, or draw, and they're already making plans for a game of thai vs. farang.

not quite the mighty ducks

happy canada day, eh? we're having a canada day/fourth of july party on monday, with tiffany's english class. should be a riot.

i think my computer is electrocuting me.

you know those movies where one scrawny and hopelessly underweighted soccer team (with the obligatory fat kid) will take on one soccer team full of man-children (that kid's got an earring! and a moustache!!!) and will manifest exemplary teamwork and march on to jubilant victory? that was our boys' soccer match yesterday (sans fat kid, teamwork, and jubilant victory). please note max, and the fact that his sleeves come nearly to his wrists...


please note that the rest of our team was similarly sized...

please note the david-and-goliath effect...

we were tromped, 4-0, despite the fact that we threw our tall, blond, farang soccer star into the game about a quarter of the way in, and then didn’t let him sub off. ever.

how do you tell a flock of thai twelve-year-olds that it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game? you don’t. you just take them home to watch cartoons and let them eat the rest of your pizza.

warning: black blog

need a camera in my glasses. i want visible record of everything i see, from the hilarious (middle-aged man wearing a 'parental advisory explicit lyrics' t-shirt) to the dangerous (four children under the age of twelve all on one scooter) to the downright sombre (tin shacks, blind beggars, dead dogs). there are some things i seriously wouldn't have believed before i came here. i want to tell you about how funny it is that cars will park perpendicular to a row in a parking lot, but leave the car in neutral so that if someone needs to get out, the parking lot attendant will just push the car out of the way, like those puzzles where you slide around the pieces to make the picture. i want to tell you that the boys and i ate choco coco crazy puffs this morning for breakfast (bless you, california team, wherever you are). i want to tell you that i beat a 12-year-old at chess twice, and at chinese checkers four times, and didn't feel a whit bad. i want to tell you about how the boys sell popcorn at the night market, and how scholarly max looks when he tries to teach me thai, and all these pleasant things, because it's been a rough day.

i don't want to think about horrible things, about the toughest twelve-year-old i've ever met whimpering because his disease causes boils that have to be lanced and drained, about house help being roughed up by thai mafia loan sharks, about the tsunami scrapbook that i found this morning - article clippings, newspaper photos of parents and their dead children, pictures of the team of high schoolers that went down to help sort bodies - that could have been full of faces i know.

so many things are fabulous here, but so many things are hard. i just accidentally cried on the shoulder of one of my thai friends; it's tough to keep emotions in check here. thanks for everyone who's praying.