Dinner Special

We went to the Sunday Night Market in Chiang Mai and all these stands were very busy selling food!

Pad Thai on an open grill (you don't have to pay extra for the flies)



Grilled squid and other parts and pieces of meat

Anyone hungry?????

The hills of Myanmar

We had the privelege of having dinner with a couple from Myanmar (Burma). This couple is in Chiang Mai studying linguistics and planning on returning to the hills of Myanmar to help translate the Bible into the language of the hill people. The husband spent a month there last year and showed us the pictures. They were amazing, but a little disturbing. You can only get the the village by hiking about ten miles up a large mountain. The village that they will live in has no electricity, running water or bathroom facilities. They do not take showers/baths or wash their clothes. The food that they eat is "suspect" and when they are finished eating they put the plates outside and let the dogs lick them "clean", then their next meal they pick up the "clean" plate and put their food on it, and eat it.

Yummy!! George will NEVER be able to go to this village.

They also don't have toilets or any sort of bathroom because they say that they are "stinky". They go to a special area outside the village and take a long stick to ward off the wild boars and dogs. After they are finished the pigs and dogs "have a little snack".

These missionaries are truly amazing people, to knowingly and willingly go into this remote and isolated area to help give these peopel the Word of God.

John 17:17 "Sancify them in the truth, your Word is truth"

Buddhism, Star Wars and The Matrix

While we were traveling to the village near Chiang Rai we visited a Buddhist temple known as the "White Temple". The architecture was amazing, but scary. Most Thai temples are a combination of red and gold with many other contrasting colors. This temple was completely white with mirrors to reflect the light.









They have a moat around the temple that has hands coming up from it that are people grasping to get out of hell. It was very scary looking to see all these hand reaching up.





(LOOK CLOSELY FOR THE HANDS REACHING UP)

Our pictures are not good because they were doing construction and we couldn't get close. The architect is a rich Thai man that is seeking to earn merit by building this temple.


We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the temple, but the walls were one large mural of modern movies and events(Star Wars, Matrix and 9/11 Twin Towers) and Buddhist symbols. We were told that the mural represents how modern Western culture has destroyed Thai culture.




(This is a warning that drinking leads to hell)

(Same thing except smoking)


You can't see it very well, but there is a four sided skull with a liquor bottle on top. The other picture has a skeleton face with a horn coming out of it and hands reaching up from hell.


This temple reminds us of 1 Timothy 3:5 "holding to a form of 1agodliness, although they have denied its power"

Mission work can be a headache

We went to Chiang Rai to visit a missionary couple we met when we lived in Lop Buri. They lived in a remote village for about two years. Corrine started having bad headaches last November. She finally went to the hospital and they took an x-ray and CT scan of her head and diagnosed her with.................................a tapeworm in her brain! It originally seeded into her calf muscle and then traveled to her brain. The doctors told her that she was very lucky to have such a LARGE tapeworm, because the CT scanner only takes pictures every 3 mm. If the tapeworm were any smaller then they may not have found it. She said it's weird to say a prayer of thankfulness for such a large tapeworm. She had to take de-worming medication for one month along with many antibiotics. The doctors told her that she would have a "tapeworm calcification" on her brain for the rest of her life and that she could continue to have headaches and start having seizures from the tapeworm calcification. By God's grace she has not had recurring headaches and never had seizures. She had a follow-up CT scan and to the doctors surprise there was no evidence of the tapeworm calcification. She is doing great and now takes worm medication every six months.

This is a very rare and she got this due to living in a very remote village and receiving produce from the villagers and not cleaning it adequetely. George is now even more of a germ-ophobic. He keeps telling me to wash his fruits and veggies in antibacterial hand cleanser.

Stairway to heaven?

Definitely NOT!! We climbed all these stairs to get to the top of a mountain to see a Buddhist temple. This temple is located just outside of Chiang Mai. Good thing I've been working out!! We had to climb what seemed like a million stairs to get to the top.

The view was majestic, but it was heart breaking to see people worshipping the creation rather than the Creator. We saw many people, from the very young to the very old, bowing down and worshipping idols.

Today, after the trek to the top of the mountain, we went to downtown Chiang Mai and ate at a hamburger stand called "Mike's Originals". We had cheeseburger and fries. They were very tasty, especially since there is very little "ground beef" in Thailand. They eat water buffalo and call it beef(George thinks they eat a lot of cat, but call it chicken).

We continue to struggle with the time change! The good news is that we wake up really early in the morning and are able to get a lot accomplished. George spent the morning continuing to prepare the devotions for the Sattha Soccer Ministry.

Acclimating

We are getting settled into life in Thailand. We are getting used to the heat and humidity, sights, sounds and SMELLS that make Thailand so unique. Despite the smells the beauty of God's creation is evident throughout this amazing country.

Faster than a speeding bullet

We made it to Thailand , after being delayed at LAX on the runway for 2 hours. We had to sprint to our connecting flight in Hong Kong. When we got off the airplane at 10:45 am and walked outside at the airport in Thailand the heat and humidity overwhelmed us. Thailand is 12 hours ahead of Texas time, so our bodies kept telling us it was time for bed. We managed to stay awake all day so our bodies could get ajusted faster to Thai time. We slept through the night, for the most part, but were wide awake at 5:30am.

We were headed to Chiang Mai Monday morning to take supplies to a missionary family. We caught a taxi from the guest house to the airport. When we walked in to check in we couldn't find the airline we were flying out on. We asked a lady at the information counter and her eyes got very big and she told us that we were at the wrong airport. The new airport is typically a 45-1 hour drive away. They hailed another cab for us and told the drive that we needed to get to the airport extra quick. The driver took that directive to heart. We got on the freeway and he floored it. He was driving a hot pink cab, similar to the one above. He was weaving in and out of traffic and tailgating slower cars. Finally, George told him(in Thai) that he should slow down because we were scared. The driver smiled and nodded and kept the petal to the metal. I looked over and we were doing 150 km/hr (90 miles per hour). I thought for sure that we were going to meet our Maker, so we contemplated taking off our seatbelts to make the transition to heaven faster. Only by God's grace did we make it to the correct airport(in 20minutes, instead of 45). We kissed the ground when we got out of the car!! Once we got inside and our hearts stopped racing we realized that George used the wrong thai word to tell him that we were scared. Instead, he told him that we were sad. The taxi driver probably thought that we were sad because we were going to miss our flight so he drove faster.

Thailand or Bust!!

We leave today for Thailand. How am I going to fit all this stuff in my suitcase? I haven't figured that out yet, but hopefully I will soon. We will get into Bangkok Sunday about 10am. It will be a long couple of days, but we are so excited to be returning to Thailand for the Sattha Ministry!!