WE FINISHED MEDICAL SCHOOL!!!!!

CAN I GET A WHOOP?

Today, was our last official day in medical school. Never would i have ever imagined that i would be spending it in Thailand just four years ago when i began. i can think of no greater place to spend it. i told dr. tom, that "it truly was an honor for me to spend my last day of medical school working for you." too cool.

so, spirits have been a little up here b/c today is the last day here and we have to make it count! clinic was awesome. it was very unusual for a friday. we had a full load of patients, around 40 or so. thank you for praying if you got my request in time. i shared in evangelism today. i looked at Pi Poo Pah, who translates for me and said, "well, it's the same story." :) actually, a few different details came out today. evangelism time was very different for me today, b/c i had a thai lady sitting on the front row who decided to make my testimony very interactive. i went with the flow. she kept saying things, like echoing what i was saying or even asked a few questions. i was confused if i was still in thailand? it should have been something like "preach sister, or amen sister." at one point she put her hand up towards God out of reverence. you know, the funny thing is i was told she isn't a believer. what does that mean? well, it's in God's hands. maybe she found some truth today! praise the Lord.

i'm downloading some pictures right now to get together to send out later today. we also have to pack. we are leaving TOMORROW! it was so sad saying goodbye. i went around today to hug each of the thai nurses or nurse aids. they thanked me for coming to their country to help out and teach about God. i said, "no, thank you, you have taught me so much. you have an amazing faith and i'm so inspired by it." they do! they work hard and do it only for the Lord. very inspiring.

mary told me that i might have missed my calling. she says i should be a teacher. :) this is because i spent last night and sunday night tutoring bruce and luke for two chemistry tests they have had this week. i must say that i love teaching them. i was a little rusty. i guess it's been about 5-6 years since i taught as a teaching assistant in college. God pulled through and it came back. in fact, i think i am more excited about their tests than they are. i asked how it went today and they said the exact problems i went over with them last night were on their tests! yeah! i'm so happy. i love it when God does that.

this afternoon, actually in five minutes, we are leaving to go to a weavers market and a silver market. mary is so excited to show us these handmade items that the people make in this area. i'm excited too. it will be awesome to see. then i made a deal with amy that later tonight after dinner, when we need to all relax, we HAVE to finish Anne of Green Gables or whatever tapes we have left to watch.

we are having so much fun. joy is in the air!
we would LOVE your prayers as we travel tomorrow to a more dangerous country. we'll be there a couple of days seeing a friend of a friend of julie's. :) and then it's off to New Zealand. yeah, i'm done with med school! can i tell you how GREAT THAT FEELS!!!!!!!!!!!! just to think what these past four years have been like. ups and downs. over all, i'm so glad i did it and thankful to see what lies ahead.

trivia for the day

Did you know what Thailand is in the shape of?


answer: an elephant's head with its trunk!


it's true, you can scroll down the blog and see the map i posted. it's a crazy shaped country, not the most efficient you'd think for it's borders. but hey, it prides itself on being in the shape of an elephant's head and trunk and Thai's believe that is good luck!

okay, just thought you'd want to know. :) have a great day!

one more prayer request:

today in clinic, pan came up to me and asked me if i would be okay with sharing my testimony one extra time. they would like for me to give it friday (tomorrow) at 10am. would you lift that up and pray for the Holy Spirit to intercede and for me to step aside? i would love it. i'm truly honored and absolutely look forward to it again. i went on a long walk with mindy this week and she reiterated that it is the gift i am bestowed with and it was so obvious to her that it was the highlight of my week last week. of course, i love being used in medicine, it's just the spiritual part that means more. may it be an additional highlight for God's glory tomorrow.
thank you for praying for that.

a Thai hair washing experience

Mindy, Mary, and Amy have been talking it up for a while now about how Julie and I have to go get our hair washed the Thai way. they've been telling us about how long and drawn out the process is at the beauty salons here in thailand and it's such a fun experience. so, we planned for today to be the day. we did it! not to mention, they told us in advance to expect very straight hair when you are done, no matter how curly it is! hmm, i had to see this with my new curly hair.

so, around 3:15 this afternoon we headed into town. mindy, amy, julie and i walk in the beauty salon and there are two thai women working there. i hoped we weren't going to overwhelm them. they said two of us needed to go to the back and start getting our hair washed. so julie and i went first. it wasn't just an american's way of washing your hair. i don't think i've ever had hair as clean as it is today! they washed it three times each lasting several minutes. they lengthened out the washings b/c each time they spent several minutes massaging the shampoo in our scalps. our necks and face muscles also got massaged. yes, shampoo was on their hands when they massaged our cheeks and neck. i think i was a little surprised by the fact that my ears got washed inside with shampoo!!!!! yes, before i knew it, she was rubbing her fingers in my ears with shampoo. well, i thought we covered our ears up in america for a reason when we washed our hair, oh well. :) then she proceeded to rinse it all off. i guess i have clean ears too.

after the process of washing, we were then in store for the process of drying. julie and i waited and read books while the other girls got their hair washed. then one by one it was our turn to get our hair dried. julie went first and she said for them to do whatever. they did. they dried each strand forever with just a brush and blowdryer and then gave her small braids with the rest of her hair down. it was pretty!

my turn! i went and sat in the chair... they asked if i wanted them to use the straightening iron or the hairdryer. i said, whatever. they ended up using both. every second of seeing my hair straightened was a moment of glee. i was so giddy. it was the first time i have ever seen my new long hair like this. we had to share with them my story, b/c i was too excited. :) i couldn't help but sit there and just keep praising the Lord for what He has done. i kept saying thank you. it was as if i was going back in time and seeing the way it used to look like.

when we were finished, there were four girls strutting their stuff with their straight hair around in chiang klang. watch out world, here we come! the only sad thing was we didn't have anywhere to go tonight. tonight there were no activities planned as far as ministry went, so we all settled for a girls night watching a movie the girls have really harped on me for never seeing. i know, i know, "anne of green gables." okay, now i'm addicted. i love that movie! we're not done. it's forever long. after one of the first tapes, i saw credits and they said the quote for the night was me saying, "it can't be over!"

this was a fantastic day!

She Was Healed of Leprosy!

remember, i mentioned that we met with this thai woman named Wan Pen who is a seamstress here and is making thai clothes for julie and me? well, we went today for our final fitting. the outfits are beautiful. the fabrics are gorgeous. more importantly, the woman behind the sewing machine is amazing! today for the first time, i heard her story. we asked her how she learned how to sew so well. we heard that it was from a leprosy hospital. that's what mindy told us. i didn't really get what she meant by that. so we asked mindy more... come to find out, Wan Pen had leprosy when she was much younger. she was sent to a leprosy hospital in Nan and heard about the Lord in the hospital. she was witnessed to there. she decided to believe in Jesus as her savior in the hospital and told the Lord that if He healed her she would commit her life to Him forever. well, God healed her!! can you imagine that she is a lady with leprosy who has been healed like someone in the Bible! this is too cool for me to hear. this is the same lady who is sewing me my special thai outfit. now i have such a ministry to share when i wear it. i will also have a constant reminder to always pray for this woman and her continued faith in God. Anyway, she learned how to sew in the hospital and when she got out and was healed she started the cell group i mentioned to you in bangedi in her home. because of her, all of those kids go to solid rock. through her, God has led other people to Christ in this area. like Dr. Tom's sermon, God does use what seem like bad things for His greater purpose and glory! use this woman as an example.

do you understand how i am totally constantly amazed here? it's just never ending with stories of people's lives that are so amazing and hearing how God uses anything for anyone to be saved.

A Girl with Zeal for the Lord

today is thursday. we have had a great day today. it has truly been a day packed with fun. earlier today we (Mindy, Dr. Tom, Julie, and I) had a great clinic with our patients. I had one lady come for a larger goiter, knee pain, and follow up to ear itching. Her goiter was still there and she was on meds, her knee pain was arthritis, and her ear was residual from an infection. She brought her daughter, whom I did not meet to clinic. right after i saw that sweet woman, we had our evangelism time. today, julie spoke. she talked about the storm we had here recently as of two nights ago and how that can relate to the "storms" of life we have in our hearts. i think it was so applicable to the people since they truly only understand nature. that's what there is plenty of around here. :) afterwards, the thai staff got up and sang a beautiful song again. this one was different. this song ended up carrying some importance...

apparently, my patient's daughter went up to mindy and asked if she could get that song on a tape. this girl was in school and wanted to play the tape over the loud speakers in her public thai school b/c she was tired of things playing over the speakers with no meaning. she wanted this song to play because she said it had meaning! can you belive it! how cool. mindy was so excited and i was ,too, when she came back and told me. not only that, but it gets better....
so mindy invited this girl to come to church sometime here and she said, oh no, she wouldn't just come by herself, but she would tell all of her friends so they could come to church with her! who is this girl? she's amazing! what a zeal the Lord has instilled in her!

i found out that the reason why this girl was so excited for the Lord was because she has brought her mom to the clinic twice now and each time she has heard about God and her mom always gets better after coming. how humbling it was for me to hear that we are working in such an effective ministry. thank you God. it is such an honor to be a part of a place and job where lives are changed physically and spiritually.

prayer requests

i would appreciate your prayers, while i'm thinking about it for our health. julie has alreay been through a bad cold. some of the other missionaries have had them too. i haven't, until last night. i have congestion in my chest and pray that it will get better before it gets worse. we just want to be used to the fullest in our last few days here.

i also have a prayer of travel safety. saturday we are leaving and will be traveling most of the day, if you could pray for that. i pray i will not get sick after we leave here and the accessiblity to the clinic.

saturday we are going into another nearby country to see a friend. please pray for extreme safety there. after two days, we're heading for new zealand.

thank you for lifting these up!

the Mien village

wednesday afternoon, after totally being blown away by such a fruitful morning in clinic, i was signed up to go with the group to see the Mien village. julie and i went and helped amy work with the children, while two other thai staff workers ministered to the adults in the village. it's a very primitive village and the houses are poorly constructed wooden structures with dirt floors. we sat outside on a blanket in the grass and sang songs and did arts and crafts with the kids. i wish i could show you their amazing smiles again. adorable. we were there for a few hours and when the sun started going down, the mosquitos started coming out. i don't think i've ever been bitten by a bug that drills a hole in your leg like today. all of us could look down at our legs and see tiny dots of blood b/c a mosquito had been there and drilled a hole. ruthless!

after the others finished with the adults we drove out of the mountainside village to stop by an elderly christian lady's home to pray with her. she was outside by the road. she was wearing the traditional Mien head dressing. she was a precious child of God with a frail body and shaky voice. some of her grown children were outside too with us and after they left, she asked us to pray for her son who wasn't a Christian. we prayed for her and her arthritis as well. again, how amazing it is to stand there in the middle of the mountains, standing in a remote village in Thailand and see how the Lord has already instilled faith in some people. what a blessing for them to have that eternal life. now, will the others? at least a spark has started and it will grow into a flame. it will take continuous weekly village visits to grow these ministries. praise God that there are some to grow. i still get so overwhelmed when i think that these are eternal lives being changed.

New Life Wednesday

What's funny is that in Houston on KSBJ they really do call Wednesdays "new life Wednesday" b/c that's the day on the radio that they share the gospel. well, today was that for us in clinic. i have amazing news!

again, seizing every moment with the patients... i had a lady maybe in her 50's who was there today with her daughter maybe in her 20's. the mom was the patient b/c she was having her left eye twitch now for two weeks. this was the first time we had seen her. she was seen by an outside clinic, and they were not able to help her. first thing on my mind was that it was eye strain or stress. i get these too. i went and talked to dr. tom about it and we agreed that she was stressed and not sleeping. i clarified this with the patient and we gave her some meds to help her sleep better at night and to help lessen the anxiety. i asked her what she was worried about. noi was with me translating. she is a mother of three girls and she is worried about each one of them. they have all moved off to different provinces and it is overwhelming. i explained the eye twitch to her and what it was caused by and she agreed with us. they were from the hmong village people. at times, the daughter would translate to the mom, what we were saying in thai (or what noi was saying after i said it in english). after a good discussion about her stress, i told noi that we needed to tell her about how we believe in the God of true peace. i gave excerpts from going through difficult times in my own life and noi passed it on. i then went to grab the tract in my coat pocket. it had the picture of the hearts before and after Christ. i mentioned that in another blog about how some of these tribal people can't read or write, so pictures are the best. the before picture depicted her heart with anxiety and stress as seen by the different animals with characteristic meanings. the after knowing christ picture shows all of those bad things or lies outside the heart with an open eye, light, the cross, the dove in the inside of the heart. they kept smiling as we told them.

i asked noi to ask them what they thought. they said they think it is good. they have some relatives in their village who are christians and they have been thinking about it. they said they wanted to go back to their village and discuss it first. i shared with them that this is a personal decision we must all make and how we can't be influenced by others. i started to get excited at the thought, so i shared it with them, "what if you made the decision to believe here and then got to go back to your village and share the good news with everyone!" they smiled and asked for the phone number so they could get back in touch with us. i told them i would give it to them, but also said i had someone they could talk to here more about it if they wanted. they said they'd stay and ask more questions. so, we got Bang, a nurse aid who is a christian and also from the hmong people group. she was perfect to share with them. she can more closely identify with the strong family ties they have in their villages and the previous lifestyle of worshipping spirits. when bang came out of the room, noi came over and gave me a huge high five!!!!!!! the daughter got saved! can you believe it? she wasn't even the patient! she just came with her mom to help translate. God works in mysterious ways. the mom is still going to think about it, but i'm pretty sure she is almost ready to accept Christ when she goes home. all of us who got to partake in that experience know our reason for living today. wow.

Tuesday, the storm

Tuesday during the day was a typical hot, humid, very sunny day. it is so precious to see all of the nurses and nurse aids walk around the property with umbrellas for the sun. they asked me today where mine was. i just explained that, yes, i know i should be using one and then leaned on that crutch that americans are used to it b/c they like to look tan. noi said i should start a trend when i come back to america by carrying umbrellas out in the sun. she said i could be in the guiness world book of records. hmmm, unlikely. :) she's so cute. seriously, we can just look at each other and start laughing. i love noi!

okay back to tuesday- clinic went really well again. again, each and every patient was an opportunity for ministry. i shared several tracts with patients and prayed with several of them. it was a very meaningful day.

tuesday night, we went to the tuesday night market. mary ashburn and mindy took us. chiang klang looks forward to this every tuesday night. it is a traveling market where people come to sell, well, just about anything. fruits, vegetables, watches, shoes, jeans, t-shirts, hair straightening irons, electric plugs/wires, knives, tools, etc. it's a mumble jumble of a flea market mixed with a fruit market. we walked around and got more fruit and a few odds and ends. it was fun. we were for sure the only farangs there. we are used to people just staring. we just smile back. we got crepes with chocolate there. yum. sort of. not like paris, but more like a waffle cone in a way. still good. then it was getting late and the sky was changing colors and the breeze was picking up. we made it home just in time for a huge storm! i've been here through several rains or storms this past month, but none like last night.

we got to the house and the electricity had just gone out. we all ate at a candlelight dinner, literally. we had to bring candles into the kitchen to see what we were putting on our plates. no fans. so we opened the front door and left the screen door shut for somewhat of a breeze to come. at one point, julie commented on the sky looking like a strobe light with the lightening. it did! after dinner, dr. tom said we were all going to watch a movie together on his laptop. they have been wanting to show us this movie called, "Joshua." it's a movie about what it would be like if Jesus came back during modern times, but not the second coming yet. we loved the movie! i loved the rain storming outside with God's firework display and then being inside all watching our movie together as our little family. i highly recommend that movie, i don't know how i missed it. well, the power didn't come on for another 16 hours!!!!!! so, you got it, that means we didn't have fans for the night or lights. clinic on wednesday didn't have electricity either. we've had a few clinic days like that before b/c of when the government does those power outages to save electricity. i found out today was legit and really b/c of the storm. it's nice to be able to sit here in the light now, with a fan on and type on an electrically operated computer, trust me. you'd be amazed at how much we've adapted. today i was in Pua to get money from an ATM, inside the bank was real air conditioned air. julie and i totally forgot what that feels like. it's wonderful!!!!!! wow. i will remember to appreciate it when i come back.

then, after the movie, julie and i were off to our neighboring rooms with our windows open to try to sleep. when i went outside to brush my teeth, remember i told you the sink is outside. i really do like it being under the stars like that, especially when it's a full moon. it's so awesome. the rain had stopped and i was out there, but i heard the loudest sounds coming from what seemed like thousands of bugs and frogs. they go crazy after storms!!! i've been in a city too long to not know this is normal, i guess. but seriously, one of the frogs sounded like an adult man as if he was addressing all of the other frogs. julie and i both started laughing b/c we both thought it sounds like that man who's voice is projected at 6am to give the local news in thai. it's a very low, eary sounding monotone voice. well that was mr. frog last night too. :)

bangedi cell group

monday night we had plans to go into the neighborhood called bangedi in our town, chiang klang. the missionaries do a lot of work with these people. the kids who go to solid rock have been from this part of town. anyway, a lady in the neighborhood actually went to the missionaries asking her if she could open up her home to start a Bible study with their help. of course! so, every monday night we do that. this was my first monday night to go. there are always different things going on different days with different groups going out, so you choose which one you want to help serve with. julie and i both went with mindy, amy, bruce, luke and anna. several of the thai staff were there, too, to help lead it. it was in the home of this lady who i met on sunday. we met her b/c she offered to make outfits for julie and me that were made out of beautiful thai fabrics that we got to pick out. we did that sunday afternoon and designed our own outfits, if you will. she is gladly sewing them and it was cool b/c monday night she already had my skirt done. when i got to the house, everyone was sitting on the floor and they wanted me to try the skirt on for all of them. so, of course, i put on a little fashion show down the runway with the full pivot turns and all. occasionally, i stopped with one hip out and one arm swinging. you get the picture to know that everyone was laughing hysterically, including me. just when they thought i was done, i did it again. okay, enough! i had to settle down, we were going to do Bible study afterall. it's just that when you can hardly speak a languate, sometimes actions do have to be louder than words, and that was a way of expressing myself to them in a humorous way to bring smiles to their faces. we would be used to that in america, but let me assure you, they are not used to that here, so it was hilarious.

back to the cell group- on our way there, mindy and i picked up an elderly man. he asked if he can start coming to cell group b/c his wife died a few years ago and he is lonely and wants friends. bless his heart, so now he comes to the cell group, he's probably in his late 70's. God is truly doing mighty things in hearts of all ages here in thailand. i'm amazed! the lesson was great and we had a worshipful time singing songs. as i sat on the floor of this woman's house, all i could think about was, "thank you, Lord, for these Thai people who desperately want to know you and are willing to come meet every week to grow in their walk with You." i know we have that in america, but it is so easy to become complacent or busy and not go or desire to do that. may we all stay inspired by these thais here. they truly desire it.

Carpe Deum

I'm telling you this starts the last few days of our time in thailand. we are leaving this saturday, so i am trying to seize each moment we have left for God. i remember one camp travis i worked at we had a t-shirt that said "carpe deum" meaning "seize God" it had phil 3:12 with it i think. that is what every last moment here is all about. it's not about us, but about Him. well, i guess we stepped up to the plate and God met us with loads of opportunities so far this week. (i'm writing this on wed. and have a lot to tell you for just these three days.) I remember Monday's clinic going really well. I had the opportunity to pray with several patients. I know Dr. Tom had a patient that day with serious kidney failure and all they could do to him was offer him eternal salvation, since he was going to be facing it soon. his BUN was 210 and his Cr was 15.5. for all of you medical folks, you know that is not good. the only answer in america is dialysis. well, like i've told you before, that doesn't work here in thailand b/c it is way too expensive, so it is more of a death sentence. so sad. oh, julie had her girl come back with the alopecia areata. she grabbed me so i could go in and say hi to the sweet little 13 year old. you would not believe it!!! two weeks ago, we injected her scalp with steroids and her hair was growing back in! we also had prayed for her that visit, so it was so awesome to share God's glory with her on Monday and show her that He did that. her entire family was there so we all rejoiced. she had even shaved off her few long strands of hair that had been left. so now she was even all the way around. before, i mentioned that she could do that if she wanted to, but if she didn't want to, i understood and she could just keep those strands of hair. i was totally impressed at her strength and how they cut them off. seriously, my dermatologist told me that usually she doesn't recommend that girls cut them off b/c somehow it makes you feel like at least you have something still. i'm glad she didn't have a problem with that attachment. it was such a joy to see her and to see her new hair!!! it was growing in so fast and the same color as before. big praise! as far as i could tell it was growing in straight. brought back exciting memories of the baby steps of joy that i. too. experienced. then mindy called me to her room, too. it seemed like everyone had great patients with special stories. i think i got to vicariously help or live through it with everyone that day. mindy said she needed me to help share my testimony. i just said, sure. as i walked in the room i asked, "which part of it?" and dr. tom heard and said, the tumor. oh, no problem. so i went in to meet an older woman with her grown adult son. mindy was counseling them b/c the mother had uterine cancer and they were tired of chemotherapy and wanted to take her off it all together and i guess were seeking advice from our clinic. the only thing, was that i have never had chemo. i told them that, but told them a little bit about my story and how i want to help people one day who have cancer. i wish you could have seen their faces tune in and smile. it was like they lit up knowing someone cared for them. that was just a touch of what i think it will feel like when people know you are at least wanting to help them. they had a very distorted idea of what chemotherapy is about. they thought it was making her cancer cells grow! no!!!! we explained the point was to do the opposite. anyway, after i left the room, mindy said the son wanted his mom to go back on chemo and they would talk about it more. the problem with that patient was that she never had surgery to remove the uterus and it was stage 3. in america they would have done surgery plus chemo. but in thailand they refused surgery b/c she had diabetes. uhh, how sad, when you know something can be done about it. what do you do? our clinic is not set up for those kinds of surgeries. so, the only thing you can do for her is pray. we did.

Charlie and baby oil?

Charlie is the dog around here. poor thing, he has a skin disease. Jerry is by trade a nurse, however, she doesn't use that while she is a missionary here. she sort of adopted charlie and is taking care of him. it's just so funny to be having a conversation and then one day hear jerry say, "yeah, i'm going to rub baby oil all over charlie today and see how that works." all i can think about is how hot it is here and how he is going to get either a sunburn or a tan with that. in fact, julie and i both in unison said that to one of the thais, and then we both said in unison, "oh, yeah, they don't do that here."

let me explain... it is exactly opposite from the united states when it comes to skin color here. they prefer to look white here. it is more beautiful in their eyes to look white. so they actually go buy creams in the stores with whitener. yet in the U.S. we are buying self-tanner b/c our culture prefers tan skin. while i'm rubbing on bronzer in the mornings here, these thai girls are rubbing on whitener. it's just so funny how hard we try to be who we are not. wow. deep thoughts.

Dr. Tom's sermon

Sunday, after we got back really late the night before on Saturday from the b-day party, Dr. Tom was giving the sermon. I was excited, b/c I knew I would understand it all in English. we had a great service. the first part of the service includes everyone praying together for specific requests. i see how this really brings the body of the church closer and unified in one Spirit. Then, there was the band that led worship. Bruce and Luke, the missionary kid twins, have been put to work as soon as they moved here. they did not know how to play the guitar or drums before coming to thailand, but they know now. you do always end up doing things you never thought you could do on mission trips. noi taught bruce the guitar and she made sure to tell him if she was going to teach him this, that he must always use this gift to glorify God. that means, he would be playing in church or whenever needed. well he stepped up to the plate and he's doing it. then anna, used her gift of dance. she taught her other thai adolescent friends a dance to an english Christian song. they all dressed alike and performed it. it was precious. not only did they have good rhythm, but they were so creative in how they glorified God with it. at one point in the song, they positioned themselves as a live nativity scene. anna was mary acting like she was holding Jesus. then i saw the most precious thing... a thai girl in the background was flapping her wings like she was an angel. these kids have a great faith. after being blessed up to this point in the service, dr. tom came and led the sermon. no, he is not trained as a preacher, but as a physician. well, the Lord can use him in any way He chooses, so Dr. Tom also preaches from time to time on the mission field. he is a great teacher. i learned so much from his sermon about Elisha and Naaman in 1 Kings. he discussed the healing of Naaman's leprosy when Elisha's servant told him to be healed by dipping himself in the Jordan River seven times. can you imagine, he thought the water was muddy and he has cleaner rivers back in damascus, so why would he need to do this, he thought. well, he needed to do it as an act of faith. finally his servant convinced him to do it. sure enough, he was healed. interestingly though, his skin became as pure as a baby's skin. God didn't even settle to give him back his old skin, but instead God gave abundantly beyond what Naaman could have imagined by getting new, fresh, like a baby's, skin. what a great picture of how God gives to us in such abundant ways. God also used the bad leprosy for a good opportunity. just like God uses the bad in our lives for good. anyway, good points made.

no more curry!

tonight at the birthday party, we all lined up to go to the buffet to get the thai food prepared for us. amy was with julie and mei and she made sure to tell us to stay away from the "dried blood." i asked which dish it was and she said the one that was "brown." well, there were several dishes, so i spotted one that was brown and decided to stay away from that. i was excited i saw a dish i like here called green curry chicken. you pour it over rice. amy and i were next to each other and as i was putting the curry on my plate, she said watch out for the brown things! what??? i thought they were on the dish next to mine. she said what i was mistakenly looking at was pork. the brown things she had been referring to were IN THE CURRY. hello! this is majorly important for me to know about. the dried blood was in my curry on my plate! what could i do? so, i went back to the table and thought i could just pick around the dried blood squares. suddenly it occured to me, that it was in a liquid medium and dried blood can dissolve! i took one bite and realized i think i was tasting blood.
needless to say, i put that plate to the side and focused only on the fruit.
just some fun surprises you find out about in other countries!

julie, on the otherhand, had her own crisis. she ate some fish and after getting a mouth full, proceded to tell us that she had about 12 bones in her mouth! she couldn't do anything but excuse herself from the table and the room and deal with it in a bathroom.


i crossed another life stepping stone. dried blood, who knew?

The Inspirational Birthday Party

hey it's me again. i just got back from the party we heard we were going to. we went to nan, an hour away, and it was for a missionary's 60th birthday. his wife put on a huge bday party at this nice hotel downtown in the ballroom. 90 people were invited and were mostly thais or missionaries from the region. i am so honored we were able to be a part of it. these missionaries have literally lived what you would call a missionary life. they were in laos for a while before it became communist and had to flee the country back in the 70's with only two suitcases. they have been missionaries for 30 years. that's something to celebrate in addition to his 60th bday. it was awesome to see how everyone is inspired by them. they are just normal people. in fact, one of their closest friends on the field brought the spirit of home to the party by playing his guitar and singing songs like john denver's "country roads." we all sang along. it was fun. he then started singing some backwoods songs from deep in the heart of the south that i was pretty sure i heard yodling in. :) it was a very organized evening. each form of the entertainment were sentimental things for him and his ministry. there was a really cool slide show showing their history in asia. wow. i wish you could see how much they have served God over here. i think i probably have prayed for them at some point back in acteens. the ashburns said they are inspired by that couple and that they are like heros to the mission field. i could tell. afterwards, we talked with doug, the birthday man, and he told it plain and simple to julie and i, "if you just let God do it, it will all work out the easiest way in life." i agree. it just has to be turned over to Him.

i realized that this is not a normal medical rotation for med students. this is one of the most enriching opportunities. it's not a day job, but a 24 hour thing. i could look around the room tonight and see living examples of testimonies at every table of people who have transported their homes and lives and started new ones in order to work for the Lord in Thailand. it was not something of the ordinary, but of the extaordinary.

saturday a party

hey it's saturday! i'm having a great day, are you? i hope you are. you should be having sweet dreams actually right now as i type this. we've been doing some reading and laundry. actually, i've been listening to you! yeah for real, we decided to try to use the internet to hear the radio back home. we got on ksbj houston. it was awesome. i heard them say their little jingle, "ksbj houston." i loved it and was smiling. if i can hear it in thailand, i figured the soldiers in iraq can hear from back home too. that comforted me for them.

julie and i had lunch with jerry and somehow conversation started spinning and we ended up hearing jerry's testimony. it was truly awesome and special. everyone has an amazing story in life that can be used even if that person thinks it is mistake made in life. i fully believe blessings will come from any of those and "there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." thank you Lord. wow. we talked about the new pope elected. i guess they went with the one who's in his 70's? a lot of history has been made while we have been here with the pope and the prince charles's wedding. hmm, i'm glad we've been able to see some of it on satellite.

so, our big plan for the day off is to go to Nan, an hour away and stop by Lotus (the WalMart store) and then go to someone's party that everyone on the grounds has been invited to. hey, if i can go to a funeral of someone i don't know, i can for sure go to a party of someone i don't know. i'll fill you in later.

the last solid rock

friday - we prepared for having a huge "solid rock party" for all of the kids who live in the villages nearby. these are the kids, elementary school through high school, who come every friday night to learn stories from the bible, to play games, to eat dinner, and to learn english. we hold solid rock in the clinic. since this was the grand finale, we said it was going to only be a night of fun! so, i had the chance to be domestic during the day and i loved it. i helped make homemade pizza from scratch! julie took a picture b/c she said this was a monumental moment in history. we made the dough and helped roll it out. well, you know how the rest goes. the end result was we had six huge pizzas with different toppings. during the day while julie was taking a nap, mindy and amy came over and asked me if i wanted to go with them into town to get ice cream for the kids. bruce said it was a fun experience. i don't even know if i should call chiang klan a town, but it has a main street with vendors on it. i thought it would be fun to leave and go explore with them this ice cream store. we bought a huge box of coconut ice cream that we were going to let the kids eat with chocolate syrup. when i got back, mary and dr. tom said that if i hadn't already been to chiang mai or bangkok, i would think that going to the ice cream store was a really "cool" thing to do. :) we joked that for this rural area, it is a big deal to "go into town." i said we should have dressed up for the occasion. after all, we were going to be seen in the town, right? just kidding. after all of the preparations for making pizzas and crafts, someone went and picked up all of the kids from their villages and brought them to the clinic. we played some games that help them with their english. one was an animal game. we all sit in a huge circle and each person is named for an animal. i was "turtle." so a person stands in the middle and starts off the game by calling out a name of someone in the group or their animal name. for example, someone says, "turtle." then i have to say my name plus someone else's name before someone in the middle can run to me and tag me. so i had to think fast and say something like, "turtle... dragonfly." then the person who was dragonfly had to say someone else's animal name. that way the kids can practice english words.

the second game was a hoot. it involved all of the farangs and thai staff acting out charades. the kids had to yell out what we were acting out in english, so they could practice their vocab. the thai staff saw a different side of julie and me. afterwards, mary said she had no idea we had it in us to act. i told her, i had actually taken acting lessons when i was little and was definitely a drama queen, but was just supressing that while i was here (for their sake). my words to act out were pretty easy- banana, sing, and run. for some reason, they died laughing in hysterics when i did "sing." i asked mindy if i could use my voice, and she said, no, so i quickly replanned my strategy and on the count of three they let me loose to use my imaginary microphone and go to town with serious singing with the head shaking and all. i never heard the end of that one from the thai nurses! they kept wanting me to do it again. no. julie was worse. she had "chicken" so she didn't do the simple thing by just flapping your arms like a chicken. oh no, she had to squat down on the ground and proceed to walk while squatting and move her head back and forth front to back like birds do. i was on the floor laughing so hard. i was like, "she is not doing that!" the kids loved it and were able to guess! afterwards, we settled down while listening to noi share her testimony. it was in thai, but i knew what she was saying, since i heard her share it with me one day in clinic. i gave her a big hug at the end and was so happy she could be used. i think it's really important that they see a thai person's life changed by Christ.

afterwards, we were all hanging out and somehow things started to evolve into julie and me sharing american cultural things with the thai nurses. they asked questions, and we would explain with words or actions. we explained what a 70's person would have been dressed like and how they would have acted. that involved doing some 70's saturday night fever motions. let's just say that produced an immense amount of laughter to them. we then imitated an 80's person stereotype with the pony tail on the side. at one point i said the word "water fountain," and noi didn't know that word. so i got up and imitated drinking from a water fountain with swallowing and all included in the act. things we take for granted. i'm still laughing as i write this. noi and i have this thing with caterpillars. we basically die laughing anytime the word is said. it all started a week ago or so in clinic b/c i told her i was itching a lot here b/c of allergies or something. practically every patient comes in with itching and i'm always like join the club. i haven't had a rash or anything, it's just that i can itch. it's gotten better with my anti-histamines. but noi had a theory that it was some type of "worm" she said that i must have been rubbing up against. i had to clarify she didn't think i had worms. we laughed in clinic that day and she said, "no, it's if you touch your skin anywhere on your body next to one, you will start itching." i was like, "no, i don't think it works that way medically." i finally figured out she meant "caterpillar" not worm. would you believe, one day i opened up the dermatology book we have here and it opened right to "caterpillar dermatitis"! for real, there is something if you rub against one and they sting you, you then proceed to itch like crazy and get a rash.

so last night at solid rock, she pointed down to my leg and says, "zsila caterpillar" i looked down at my leg and there was a dark spot in the shape of a caterpillar! we freaked out until i realized it was actually a scab that came off. sorry, for the details, but it wasn't a caterpillar. i will never look at a caterpillar the same again. by the way, they are everywhere here.

Testimony round two at the clinic

today, friday, i was set up to share my story again with the patients. well, the morning started off in more of a hurry than i had hoped. i pulled a five minute getting ready episode when julie came in telling me i had that much time before work. good thing it's just across the tennis courts. apparently, it was the dramamine and the benadryl that i took that made me sleep quite soundly. it all worked out. i even got breakfast. i was hoping that i'd have more time to pray about sharing my testimony, but i knew the Lord would faithfully provide as He always does.

at 10 am, Ajan Nui came and got me for evangelism time. i felt this glow of joy already at the thought of it. i went outside and saw the patients, then immediately started smiling. in my heart, i prayed God would truly use it today. all the missionaries were there again as well as the clinic staff. last time julie hid in the side hallway to not be a distraction and i told her to sit right in front of me this time. in fact at one point i referred to her. when i made reference to my new hair, i said, "see that blonde headed girl right there? well, she prayed that i'd get some new and different hair. it worked, b/c now it is curly." it was cute. things just were said in a different order today that made sense. not only did i focus on the fact that my life was existing proof for God, but that their lives were, too. i said "look, you all are miracles, you have hearts and brains, right?" i asked them "do you tell your heart to go beat, beat, beat, beat..." they died laughing and then i said, "no, God does, b/c He made you." anyway, i encouraged them to not wait any longer if they were wanting to choose Christ, b/c you never know when those storms of life are going to come and how much you need His help to get you through them. i wanted them to know how to have hope when they die as well as a living hope day after day. i shared about Jesus and his purpose for coming and how he paid the price for our wrongs, since they believe wrongs need to be paid for with a right as well. i just explained that it can't be us who pays, but Him. i said, "so he died for us." i made sure to tell them, "i don't worship a dead God, though, He is definitely a living God for sure." these are just glimpses of it. i shared about being a patient, too, and the brain tumor. it all worked in.

mindy said something really special to me afterwards. of course, i was on this exhuberant high afterwards b/c of sharing. it's so crazy, i truly get a high from sharing about God and my testimony. mindy said, "zsila, have you ever wondered if evangelism is your spiritual gift?" i told her i took a survey thing and that's what it said. she said if that was what made my day more than anything else, then that was definitely my spiritual gift and that i should incorporate it. i jokingly said, "great, so i went to med school for nothing?" no, i know, that's why i want to be a doctor. i see it as ministry. i'm actually thankful for the confirmation of my spiritual gift and see it as both an honor as well as a responsibility to uphold it.

again, the girls ended the clinic with a beautiful thai song that ajan nui said she prayed about during my testimony and picked out with His advice. i couldn't help but smile at the song books they were holding which said "Bible Songs of Color--Rainbow." It was as if God was smiling down on us and continuing to prove "He is faithful to His promises for those who have a steadfast faith in Him." Isn't He awesome?!

My Thai sign language with the man sitting next to me

Sitting to my right at the funeral was this elderly man who kept looking over at Mindy and me. mindy already warned me that because we were "farangs" everyone would stare at us at the funeral and that it would be good b/c often they are just sitting there waiting, so it gives them something to do.

in the right back corner there was a man who was grimacing and moving his jaw around a lot. mindy leaned over to me and said two words, "tardive dyskinesia." i knew exactly what she meant, so when she asked about him later in the funeral we would refer to him as "tardive." in a way he was our friend. we kept checking on him throughout the funeral b/c honestly he looked like he was barely alive. in the midst of having an extremely frail body habitus, he was smoking. lovely. he was off in his own world the whole time, but we always leaned back to check on him.

back to the man sitting to my right. he was elderly and thai. i realized before long that he didn't hear. he was using some form of "thai sign language" that we think he made up. he was looking out for us and trying to explain things to us about the funeral in his own sign language. mindy said she saw him at one point explaining to us about sang kran and how many people had been drinking. i missed that one, i was looking somewhere else, i guess. at one point when the monks came out, he got really excited and was trying to motion for me to wei the monks. well at that point i leaned over to mindy and said, "i'd really like to try to explain to him who we are." she said go for it. so i moved my chair closer to him and began to do some made up form of zsila thai sign language that i hoped would communicate with him. i pointed to my cross on my necklace first. he saw. then i pointed up to God and pointed back at the cross for him to make the connection. i pointed to myself and then my heart and tried to do the motion you've seen before with the hands crossed, symbolizing love. lastly i pointed back up to heaven or God. all together "I love God."
he nodded his head and smiled really big. he was buddhist, but he still smiled for me and for my love for God. i then pointed to God again and held my fist clinched tight with the other hand over it, like a protective seal. i was trying to show him, God was holding me in his hands tightly. he understood, b/c he nodded several times.

mindy saw what i was doing and said, "zsila, this just might be your strongest witness yet while you are here. you never know." i jokingly replied, "in my made up sign language?" hey, she could be right, you never know. it was so special communicating with him. i really sensed that i was supposed to try.

after the funeral, we walked to the front of the yard to pray with the man whose mother had died. guess who followed? my sign language friend! he came out to the street, too! all during the funeral, i had noticed he was wearing the "spirit" bracelets which are multple peices of strings wrapped around their wrists for the spirits they worship and ward off. i felt compelled to communicate again with him. i pointed to his spirit bracelet and then made the motion of breaking them. i made the motion of "you don't need them or no more." then i pointed up to God as if that was all he needed. he looked at me bewildered and in agreement and nodded his head again. i pointed to my head as if asking him "do you understand all of this?" he pointed back to his head, nodding which i will take stands for "yes."

this is truly a cool story. i will have to explain it to you better when i'm home. it was just an unbelievable opportunity that i took a chance on. talk about doing new things for the Lord. even a new sign language! just so you all know, i don't have a clue how to do sign language back home.

The Buddhist Funeral

Mindy was invited to attend a funeral of someone's mom who passed away this week in Chiang Klang. The son of the woman who died is actually a strong Christian and one of the few in the village. Mindy asked Julie and I if we would want to go with her b/c it was something we should probably see. i definately wanted to go. b/c we got back from sagat on time, we were both able to go with Mindy. actually, it was more of a "family" event since our whole clinic staff went together with the pastor, ajan ganochai and his wife and son. mindy told us to "wear something dark or black." so we did. thai funerals are typically at night! this is different. they also last several nights depending on how much money they family has to keep the funeral going. there are festivities and entertainment that come with the funeral as i found out when i got there. so we park on a small street with more impoverished looking homes. immediately when i step out of the car, i hear loud music being blasted down the street that is traditional thai instrumental music. just think about the King and I and the traditional music they played with the cabin/theater scene. that's pretty much like it. mindy said you can always spot where the funeral is by the music and the yard with all of the chairs out front. we did. there was a huge blue tent set up and many white plastic chairs were set up under it. under our feet was nothing but dirt. the house was old and wooden with many peices of wood missing. the roof was made of hay or some type of grass on it. the door was open to the house and you could see insence burning inside with the smoke rising from candles and some type of shrine decorated with christmas tree lights. inside the house was where the monks were supposed to arrive and do their chanting. apparently, depending on how much money the family has, is how many monks you get. all of these things help bring merit to the person's life and help them so they will have a better after life, according to the buddhist tradition. i sat outside on a plastic chair next to the girls from the clinic and everyone just waited. there was a huge table set up in front of us where family members were sitting behind like a registration desk or something for people to pay money to them and sign in. seriously! there was a huge chalk board outside to our left that had someone periodically signing in someone's name and how much money they contributed. everyone sees how much each person there donates! i think it's to help pay the costs of the funeral. then in front of us was a huge entertainment system, equipped with a TV, DVD player and stereo system with a microphone! this was all outside! the TV is there to entertain the guests while they wait. they didn't turn it on while we were there. maybe it's for the day time, i don't know. but i guess people come for several days of the funeral and need it after a while. the house was the home of the diceased woman. i asked noi if i could go inside the open door. leave it to me to ask. :) she asked and then said we could. so julie, me and noi went inside the house. i wanted to see the shrine inside. i heard that they always creamate bodies and put them in boxes. we took off our shoes before stepping into the dilapidated home and stepped on boards inside that you could see straight through to the dirt floor beneath. it was very dark and a very small room. they had obviously cleared out an area for when the monks were to arrive.

while we were waiting on the monks, thai women came up to us asking us if we wanted water. later on, they served people dinner outside. i happened to notice one of the women was really a man dressed up like a woman. i have been meaning to blog you to tell you this is really common here and culturally accepted. usually the men dressed up as women are thai prostitutes, but i'm not sure about all of them. the first one we saw was at the beginning of the trip in bangkok, and i just absolutely refused to believe it was true when julie told me. however, it has become really easy now for me to see them after seeing so many in thailand.
back to the funeral- so the monks came and sat inside the house. everyone in the audience outside put their hands in the praying position as if they were waiing the monks in their honor. only the buddhists did that. the whole group of christians kept our hands in our lap. we listened to many minutes worth of chanting that is done in indian i hear. the buddhists in thailand borrow the chants from india, so they are speaking another language other than their own. i saw some men in the crowd who appeared to be moving their lips as if they knew the chant. i guess it is mere memorization. we were there a good while and after the monks left the funeral, it was a good time for us to get up and leave too. it was a very unique experience, but not the most uplifting one.

sitting to my right at the funeral was this man... i'm going to blog about him next. there is a special story there. :)

A Full Day

Thursday we had clinic as usual. Ajan Ganoche, the pastor, shared during evangelism time. he used illustrations that were very unique and specific to the thai culture. first of all, i have to tell you that most of our patients cannot read or write. they are from remote mountain areas and they just don't know how to. so when sharing about God we can't use words on paper, so we use pictures. he held up pictures demonstrating life before knowing Jesus and life after knowing Jesus. it's not like a picture you have seen at home. it shows a heart with different animals in it that stands for the before Christ in your heart. each animal represents something to the culture and they all know it. for example, there is a snake which means liar. there is a tiger which means anger. there is a pig which means dirty. there is a turtle which means lazy or "i'll put off knowing God for a while longer." there is a fox which means you always want more. all of these represent the heart of a person before he knows Christ. then ajan ganochai flipped through some more pictures and showed a heart after knowing Christ. there is a picture of an eye that is opened and a light is shining on it. all of those animals i described are outside the heart now. the heart has been purified. anway, that's how they can tell people here with pictures and no words. very cool!

after clinic, i joined with the group that goes into the mountains and up to sagat. julie and i went together and our job was to teach english to the children. we had already taught them the alphabet and colors two weeks ago, but we wanted to review those again and add body parts this time to teach them. this time up the mountain, i was on dramamine. no more magnet bracelets for me. not even half a dramamine, but a whole pill this time. so, of course, when i got there i was a little drowsy. what can you do? there is no winning this! noi was in the back seat and it was so obvious when she got car sick b/c all of the sudden we smell this camphor/echalalus/menthol stuff that she puts under her nose. thats how thai's fight car sickness. it's like tiger balm. so when we got a whiff of that, Mary politely said, "should we turn up the air conditioner or open the windows?" that was the clue that someone was getting sick. noi made it, bless her heart. it's a big thing for a lot of us, but it is so necessary to keep going to these villages, and we are still going to go!

i'm still amazed with how orderly and obedient these children are. when they see our car pull up the mountain they all run out of their homes and come to the building we have english and bible school in. they bring their friends too. we sang fun songs like "chuy chuy chuy chuy umm ba ba, ay yai yai, ay yai yai..." :) it' s fun! it even has motions, but i can't show you them right now.
so, when i got up to teach the alphabet, or review it rather, i want to make sure you know i was feeling very drugged up on dramamine. that would explain why the entire room bursted into hysterical laughter when i said the alphabet and went from "H" to "L" skipping a few important letters like "IJK". oh, everyone gave me a hard time about that at dinner. you know, i have to give them something to laugh about, right? one more dinner side note, apparently i said, "okay i need to go lie down for a minute," and right after that Anna mimicked me saying "okay, go lie down (with her hands flipping out in front of her you know like a southern belle would do if she was saying oh honey or oh please child." supposedly i did that. honestly, i have to show you the hand movements to explain. sometimes i talk with my hands. i think i should watch that since it's becoming involuntary at times. :)

well i had to eat dinner in a rush, b/c i was getting ready to meet mindy to go to a buddhist funeral. i'll tell you more in my next blog.

another prayer and praise night

wed night we all got together for the weekly prayer meeting held over at the clinic with praise and worship too. the whole clinic staff came and the thai pastor, ajan ganochai, his wife and his son. they led us into beautiful thai worship songs. then they went through multiple things that we as a group prayed for. we prayed on a larger level for thailand, then northern thailand, then for the missionaries, the different villages/tribes, then specifically for any one with a special need. i'm telling you, if i had a need, i'd want these people to know about it. they are prayer warriors!!! i sense such a faithful, steadfast spirit in them. they truly love others above themselves and hold to prayer in a serious way. i'm so thankful for how they minister to me in that encouraging way. we prayed in "thai style" that i told you about where everyone prays outloud all at once for the request mentioned. it's a beautiful thing! allowing God to meet our needs is truly the only way to go. i'm so thankful they are diligent to do it weekly. no wonder their ministry is being blessed.

Another Encounter with Life at Clinic

wed at clinic was another special day. i can't say that any day here is not special, actually. God always seems to surprise me with something or someone. one of my first patients for the day was a young 19 year old girl who wanted an abortion. is this sounding familiar to you too? we are getting these girls in waves. mindy, the physician assistant, says they hardly ever have them this often. she said it is an unusually high season for these girls to be coming in like this. so as you know from my last blogs, i have been in the room and had dr. tom explain the statistics of potential harm to the mom that the abortions can cause and that we don't do them in this clinic. i guess that's another weird thing to us that they keep coming since everyone knows that this clinic doesn't do them. so i can only conclude the obvious assumption that they are convicted inside and are coming to seek counsel from us before they do it. i know that means they are doubting it. why else would they come to our clinic, if we clearly do not do them? the only answer i can give is that God is guiding their hearts to come and give these babies a last fighting chance for life.

anyway, pan was my translator and she came and got me to tell me it was another abortion case. my heart just sank again. hers did to, in her broken english she told me she does not like these cases. i agree! so i found dr. tom and asked him if i could share with the patient alone this time since i was pretty sure i knew what he would say. i reviewed the statistics with him that he usually shares and he said, i got it. he agreed it would be really good for me to handle it alone, since i would most likely get 13 and 14 year old girls in pediatrics who want abortions. i need to know how to counsel them.

so pan and i went in and i made a point to introduce myself and let her feel comfortable with me. she had to feel at ease with me before i could help her. i explained the statistics you've heard me write about before. these statistics which harm the mother are actually quite alarming to the patients. her eyebrows perked up several times. her reason for wanting it was that she was 19 years old and wanted to finish school. all i could think about was which is more important a child's life or grades? i asked her that and she nodded her head in agreement. it hit her. i liked that she was stopping to think about it. most of the time, the girls just stubbornly keep saying they still want an abortion. this time was different. i slowly got to her level and tried to really have her picture the situation. we counseled her for over an hour! needless to say, i didn't see that many patients that day. thankfully, we have several people able to see patients, so it didn't affect the flow. it afforded me this opportunity that God had so obviously provided. i explained that her baby already had a brain and heart and that the baby was formed. it only needed more time to grow inside her. i asked her if she wanted to see this miracle inside of her on an ultrasound. she actually wanted to! you don't understand, most of them who are set on an abortion can't stand the guilt and do not want to see the baby on an ultrasound. this woman did! she was changing her mind!!!! she was having second thoughts! it was just me, pan, the patient and her unborn child in the room. praise God. before the end of the visit, she said she was having second thoughts, but she didn't come right out and say she wasn't going to have it. you know, i'll take second thoughts, b/c that will stay with her on her way home. i have a hopeful feeling for her. the visit was an hour long so i can't explain to you right now what all was said, but it was so worth the time and visit for even just one.

so at lunch, i said to jerry, "you know you guys should expand the ministry to include supporting girls while they are pregnant and after they give birth if the babies need placement since there are so many girls coming to this clinic wanting abortions." jerry smiled and said you just never know what God will do here. there is a tremendous need out there. so we can definitely be praying for that.

Sweet Medicine

The last patient I had was really interesting. it was a great way to end the day of clinic. he was an elderly man with most of his teeth rotted out of his mouth and he had the complaint of a dry mouth for a month, but mainly at nights. he had been trying to solve the problem on his own by drinking eight glasses of water every day, but nothing was working. so he came to us. i asked a lot of questions. if it was the states, he would have gotten maybe more of a work up for an autoimmune disease or something, but since we can't test that here, i knew the best remedy for him. i went to dr. tom and said, "don't you think the best thing for him to do is suck on candy everyday like lemon drops or something?" dr. tom totally agreed. i've seen this work for people back home so that's why i mentioned it. so i went back in and asked pan to translate to him that "everyday he should suck on some candy, preferably something tart and that will make his mouth produce more saliva, but be sure to wash your teeth afterwards." i have never seen a patient react this way ever!!! he had the hugest grin on his face as if he had just won a major prize! he was tickled to death that his prescription was candy! it was like he reverted to childhood and was told this. it absolutely made my day seeing him have so much joy. i wish that all of my patients were that ecstatic when they get treatment.

as we were walking out of clinic, i relayed the story to the nurse aids and to julie. julie said, "zsila, your going to make his teeth rot out!" i kept explaining the story and then interjected, "by the way, his teeth were already rotted out, plus i told him to brush his teeth." the nurse aids got the biggest kick out of that side comment. they understand english, let me tell you they understand. i just wish you could have seen his smile. that's what being a doctor is about, getting those more often.

"you have the last one!!"

Today in clinic we had a great morning. it was really packed for a wednesday. julie shared during evangelism and it was really good. she mentioned how the building didn't just appear there by itself, but someone had built it. just like that building, we didn't just appear, but we have one Creator. she led into some verses and pi poo pah translated for her.

well, towards the end of clinic, i saw there was one more card laying out which is their form for a chart. i grabbed it and said this must be the last patient! Pan who had been working with me all morning got really excited and smiled and said something in thai to me. i asked her what it meant and she kept saying "congratulations!" i asked what for and she told me that she had said in thai "you got the last one and now you will get the best looking boyfriend!" i said, "oh, really!" awesome i'll take it! i asked if this is really a thai culture thing or just the girls in the clinic being silly. she said it really is a thai thing! how cute!!!!! so, be looking out i might get it! :)

"it's not sulfur..."

yesterday in the lounge where the computer, refrigerators, microwave, and sink are i noticed a peculiar smell. i thought it sort of smelled like sewage. i was worried that i had just been in the mountain village and was hoping it wasn't me. :) well, this morning i smelled it again and i noticed it was coming from the sink. it was the water! i got worried, since we use the water to clean the dishes. we don't drink that water. i told julie to be careful and to not use it for now while washing dishes. the water was clear, though. she said, "oh i'm sure it's sulfur." uh no, i've been to yellowstone national park and smelled sulfur in the hot springs. i've also been to camp travis where the well water tastes like sulfur. i think i know when something smells like sewage and not sulfur. so she came and took a whif and sure enough agreed that i was right. later today i asked jerry if she could smell it too. she agreed. we think it is the drain backing up and that is what is causing the smell. anyways, these are some of the things you deal with on mission trips in second world countries. this is second world and not third world they tell me. i remember in venezuela the water was brown! we can be thankful for water at all. it is a luxury i know.

Joy and Shadow

Back in Chang Mai when we were riding the bamboo river raft with the Israeli girls, not only did i teach them a jewish song, but i also shared with them the meaning of my name that i had discovered in israel and venezuela. on our israel trip back in late 1998/early 1999, the jewish tour guide told me there was a name very similar to mine that meant "safe." well, in venezuela my host dad told me that the name in Genesis that phonetically could be my name meant "shadow" or "refuge." i told the girls that and they thought about it and then one of them said she totally knew. she said that the archaic version that they don't use often is "shadow," but she said the more modern use of the name the closest to mine means "joy."


yea! i am so excited! i love the meaning of it. i've waited my entire life to find out the meaning, so you can see why i'm so ecstatic. how perfect is that? just thought i'd share with you the great news!

hairy strawberries and mangoseens

Before we came to thailand, julie was so excited that we'd be seeing fruits that we never knew existed. i really didn't believe her. well, i don't think hairy strawberries also known as hairy eyeballs nor mangoseens are prevalent in the tropics of the USA. i cannot believe it. God is so creative. these two are totally different and might be my new favorite fruits. although, i won't be getting them once i leave here. the hairy strawberries are a little bigger than strawberries and are red with long green prickly hair-like projections coming off them. you have to peel the fruit to get to the soft, sweet, white hard-boiled egg shape interior that is the fruit. these are also known as hairy eyeballs b/c of that white part that does look kind of like an eyeball. i'll just stick with hairy strawberries. wow, they taste sweet like a plum and pomegranate mixed. i can't explain. we thought maybe this is what heaven will be like with new fruits to offer.

mangoseens are pretty cool, too. they are this dark purple fruit a little larger than a plum but more oval shaped that have like a four leaf clover stem to them on the top. that will tell you if your fruit contains all the components to the four leaf clover shape of the white soft fruit inside. we'll just have to take pictures to show you.

just thought i'd throw out some fruity names for you to ponder and know that the world is bigger than you think.

The long and winding road

This afternoon after clinic i joined up with a group that was going to make a trip into a mountain village to visit the Hmong people group. they are fascinating. we have a lot of Hmong people come to our clinic. they seem to trust the western doctor more than thai ones b/c the Hmong people and thai people traditionally don't get a long. the Hmong actually descend from the minority in China. they look chinese.

i have a prayer request for me and for the thais, too. a lot of us get really car sick and it makes it hard for us when we need to go on these village visits. today, i didn't take dramamine, b/c i wanted to be a little bit more coherent. instead, i wore the magnet bracelets. i don't think anything was working. i was holding on to my stomach with one hand and holding on to the car with the other hand. i sat in the back, b/c i wanted others who get car sick, too, to be able to sit up front. can i tell you that i timed the curves? yes, every three seconds, we made a curve or switchback. how is anyone proned to carsickness supposed to do that? every three seconds, i was holding on for dear life to keep my body from moving side to side to stay in some type of equilibrium. all i could pray was, Lord, get me up this mountain. then afterwards, all i could pray was, Lord, get me off this mountain. it was hard to not be able to take in the scenery. in fact, everyone in my car knew why i couldn't talk. i had to literally sit there and concentrate on breathing. how sad is this? this is a bad thing inherited. oh well.

the Hmong people at the top of the mountain made it rewarding. we were making home visits to people in the village who have become christians and to pray with them and ask them if everything was going okay. they go weekly to disciple them. well, most of the men were out working in the corn or rice fields so we talked with two elderly women. one of them was a christian and the other one wasn't. now, this was going to the unreached parts of the earth. these people live alone in the mountains and have hardly anything. dirt floors. kids were everywhere, children don't wear any diapers. actually, thai people in general don't wear diapers, i hear. i don't know how that logistically works. :) we sat outside the home of one of the women. there were pieces of aluminun tin as the roof lying loosely on top of the wooden structure or house. everything inside the house that i was able to glimpse at had dirt for the floor. i even saw a child stirring a pot with leaves in it, that looked like their dinner. these ladies didn't know exactly how old they were, but they claimed to be around 70. i really doubt it. they looked late 80's or 90's, but maybe that was just the aged look from working so hard all of their life.

i was really surprised that the three christians they knew in the town were older. after sitting outside with the ladies for a while, and after getting through two different translations, one from Hmong to thai and then the second from thai to english, i found out some disheartening news. one lady's son is deciding to go back to animism or worshiping spirits. that is what most of the mountain tribes claim to believe in. so now this woman is saying that if her son believes this, she may decide to not be a christian and go back to believing in spirits. this brought up an interesting conversation at dinner, about once saved always saved unless the person was never saved in the beginning. sad and interesting. please pray for them. that village needs believers and it doesn't need it's believers to waver from the truth and go back to their previous ways. i totally saw paul writing the different churches when we were there. i thought of how his heart burned passionately for all of the beginning churches to stay with the truth and not go back to their former ways of life. start up churches, especially like this small community in the remote mountains of thailand, need encouragement. the thais i work with are willing to go every week and nurture them and help them grow. what amazing servants and workers they are in spite of some of them getting car sick on the long and winding road up the mountain. i realized the real long and winding road is the road to spiritual growth for these people. i pray they will be persistant and continue despite the ups and downs and the rights and lefts every three seconds that life can offer. it still is not worth it to go back to believing in false spirits. talk about pressing on. i pray that's what they do. they need fellowship and teachers. that's why missionaries like the ones i work with are here. thank you, Lord for that.

Pro-Life

You may remember that i mentioned a patient back on the first day of clinic--a girl who was here to consider getting an abortion. i know it is as prominent in the states, but i honestly haven't had many patients like that before. today, i had another similar patient.

i walked in the room and pi poo pah was with me to translate. the girl who was 19 years old was sitting with her boyfriend, also the same age. the boy had a nervous smile and laugh while the girl was sitting there expressionless. thai people usually do not express their emotions in the most obvious way. her chief complaint or reason for being there was "pelvic pain" bilaterally. then they proceeded to tell me that she was pregnant and that they were there because they wanted to talk to a doctor about getting an abortion. also in the room with us was ajan nui (she is learning to translate and is educated in ministry). i asked a few questions about whether she was having any more problems and then i said, "why don't we get Dr. Tom to come help us." the thai nurses were like, "yes!" we immediately went searching for him as if it was urgent. we couldn't find him, so we rushed to go use a phone to call him. he ended up being in a room at the clinic, so i went in and told him i had a similar case to our last girl who wanted an abortion, and i thought he might want to come in and share the statistics that he shared last time. he nodded his head and agreed to come in with us. i forgot to mention to you that she had already taken some type of medicine to induce a miscarriage. uhh, my heart sank. through the translation, i couldn't exactly figure out what she had taken.

dr. tom calculated out her pregnancy to be 12 weeks. this baby was fully formed! this baby had a brain and heart and was a true life. he gave the statistics of how much this can hurt the mom in the end. for example, statistically studies show that women who have abortions suffer more from depression, they have higher rates of breast cancer, and they are more likely to not be able to have future children b/c of scarring and blockage. everything was being spoken in thai, so i really could only read their faces. the guy kept smiling and giggling. it was strange. i really think he was nervous. the girl just still sat there without any emotion. finally, word was translated back to me that the boyfriend wanted her to keep the baby, but it was the girl who was insisting on the abortion. we had to explain to her that we do not condone abortions nor do them. we also explained that at this point she was killing her child and she was going to have to suffer the consequences of knowing that for the rest of her life. we shared, what if she had been aborted, she wouldn't be here today. nothing was getting through to her. at this point, the thai nurses took over and just kept the conversation going. ajan nui and i were silent for a while and it was very obvious with our bowed heads that we were praying for some type of miracle of conviction for this couple to let their baby live. with more conversation, i found out that the boyfriend and girlfriend are from two different tribal or people groups that do not get along. in fact, they are keeping their relationship a secret from her mom. his parents know. the girl said that if her mother found out, her mother would insist on an abortion 100%. why did i think that this was shakespeare's tragedy, romeo and juliet? it seemed like no one was going to win and that a death was inevitable. how horrible. then i looked around the room and noticed the irony in the dynamics of who was in the room. first of all, dr. tom is a physician who has adopted a child from romania to rescue an unwanted and uncared for child. the girl had mentioned that no one would be able to take care of it so she shouldn't have it. dr. tom said, "trust me there are plenty of people out there who will take care of your baby. if you only knew." i knew that hit home for him. the girl also said her excuse was that it just wasn't the right time in life. secondly, in the room was pi poo pah, who is 8 months pregnant and about to pop out a new life. the irony is that she was doing the translating and was someone who was excited to have a baby and about to literally have one versus the one she was talking to who didn't look pregnant yet but was not wanting it. then there was ajan nui who is married and will be having kids soon. then there was me, a single girl who would love to have kids one day. everyone appreciated life in that room except for the girl. it hurt to see how much people who want kids but miscarry, while this girl purposely is trying to miscarry. i am still praying for her conviction. anything is possible with God.

A Purposeful day

Yesterday, Monday, i had an unspeakable joy after I shared in the evangelism time. i always get that way when i share what God has done for me. it's the reason i'm here. Clinic was packed! the waiting room was completely full. i was excited that God had big things in store for me to share. i prayed about it before, but decided to not really plan it out. i just prayed for the Holy Spirit to shine through. He did.

all the missionaries were in the room and the nurses and nurse aids. it was great seeing their encouraging faces. pi poo pa was my translator. she is a very pregnant nurse that works with us and can speak english. she is due may 8th! imagine how it is to be pregnant like that i this heat! there was a microphone--of course, too low to the ground, so as i was trying to pull it up. they decided to just take it off and let me hold it. perfect! that way, i could hold it and then hold it in front of pi poo pa while she translated. i've never had to do a translation thing like this before, since usually my experiences have been me speaking in spanish or english. i shared with them my story, b/c i knew it could relate to them. i mixed in together basically everything. so it was a hodgepodge testimony that included all facets of what it's like being a Christian, experiencing healing, etc. i focused on their needs and even made it interactive. thank you for praying, i was really calm and i had to stop after every few words, but i think it still made a lot of sense. i was convicted by it! i felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. that's why i get so much joy in sharing, b/c it always ends up not being me who speaks and i always walk away learning so much from what came out of my mouth. God just reminded me again how amazing He is.

julie is sharing tomorrow (wed here), so please lift her up, too. i think i'm going again on april 22nd (10 am our time). you guys are about 12 hours earlier than us.

evangelism time couldn't have ended more perfectly, the thai staff got up and sang the most beautiful, worshipful song. i wish i had it recorded. there was just a presence that was different yesterday in clinic. it was such an honor to be a part of it. thank you, Lord, for that.

No More TESTS in Med School!

We finished our Texas Medical Jurisprudence exams! Yea! I'm so glad! Julie reminded me that is our last test in medical school. to think of all the tests we've taken and they are over, praise the Lord! that is an awesome feeling. this test actually wasn't that big of a deal, but it was necessary that we pass it online.

can i tell you about the journey we had while taking it? before we left for chiang mai, we were only able to take the first part of the two exams. that was b/c of a time factor and interference with nature, shall we call it. it was hilarious. it was late the night before we left and julie and i were in the lounge. we kept having interruptions by all God's creatures great and small. we'd be trying to read the book or take the test and then you would see something move by out of the corner of your eye and it was almost as if we were watching a tennis match. our eyes would be looking at the test or the book and then you'd see our heads move from right to left as we silently in unison followed the path of the lizard on the wall right in front of us. not to mention the sounds these lizards make. lizards the length of your pinky finger can hoot and holler, let me tell you. it sounds like a loud kissing hi-pitched noise. we always know where one is when we hear this. oh, i love it when i hear it coming from near my bed especially! :) then an 8 legged spider would run across the desk just above the keyboard when we were trying to take a timed exam! at one point i was sitting across the room and julie was at the computer, then all of a sudden she froze and gasped. oh yes, sitting right next to the mouse of the computer was a massive tree roach! at this point, i couldn't take it any longer. this was not conducive to studying or my distraction free test environment! :) if only the people in america knew what we were going through just to pass this test. only in thailand can you have modern technology coexist with lizards and every type of tropical insect that you've only seen in museums. trust me! i'm serious, i saw a spider the other day that was something i have seen in the natural science museum and i'm pretty sure it was poisonous. great!
back to the roach - like i said, enough was enough. i calmly asked for a shoe and went to town getting that buddy. he was a little fast, so at first i only got part of him and he turned over and did the famous cochroach dance. does la cucaracha sound familiar? i've noticed most of these critters just come out late at night. i forgot to mention the ants that were near the keyboard, but never seemed to sting us.

we took test two today after our trip and decided to do it right after church while fewer nocturnal creatures were out. it seemed to work out well.

anyway, i must say i've never taken a medical school test quite like these and will always remember the distractions that come while taking it in thailand. please, i'll take people coughing or getting up out of their seats anyday over these creepy crawlers. :)

it was a fun experience!

One night in Nan

The next morning after breakfast, Mindy called saying she was close to the hotel. i was standing in Starbucks right next door to the hotel in chiang mai, as i had been doing every morning we were there. hey, i had to live it up while we could get it. this was certainly a privilege and considering how tired we truly were from our late nights at the night bazaar, it was necessary. so mindy picked us up and we started our trip back home with a one night stayover in Nan.

One of the reasons i like traveling so much is b/c you get to meet people like Mindy. wow, what a story this girl has. talk about adventures in life for the Lord. she grew up as an MK or missionary kid in Papa New Guinea. they literally lived in villages and had to cut off heads of chickens and get water from a river an hour away from the village, etc. she made it to the states for college at Pepperdine in Malibu (talk about culture shock) and then went to Physician's Assistant school at Yale (another culture shock). she is very outgoing and able to speak thai. her parents actually work in chiang mai as missionaries, too, but through a different agency. we heard lots of her tales as we told her our tales of life, too.

Nan is not a big city at all, it is more like a very small town, but bigger than Chiang Klang for sure. we stayed over at a hotel there that had a huge swimming pool. the reason for this stop was b/c Mindy needed to visit someone in prison nearby as part of her ministry. two nurse aids from the clinic road the bus down to meet us at Nan and we all stayed together. we all had dinner at this place where you cook your own thai food. it was very interesting! yes, meat was sitting out and bugs were flying. i just prayed that the heat of cooking it would make it okay. they gave us these cool grills on our tables heated by charcoal and it was like barbequing. The two nurse aids who came were Noi and Bang. They took care of the meal and made sure we understood all that was going on. Mindy is great friends with these girls already so it was a good time for them to catch up. we really enjoyed getting to know them at that level too. we did some swimming and resting in the sun while we were there and left today (saturday) by mid afternoon. before we left Nan, we went to this big store there that is like a Wal-Mart. We all split up and met back in an hour. The only thing i was buying ended up being, tea, tea, and more tea. i got different varieties of chilled bottled teas (the one with honey in it that i like) and then some jasmine green tea bags. well, i had a "zsila moment" in the store. you know you are tired, when out of the corner of your eye you see someone who looks american and you turn your head to them and smile and to your surprise, IT IS A MANNEQUIN!!!!!!!!!!!! yes, i smiled and nodded my head at a plastic person! okay, maybe i do need some more sleep after this trip to chiang mai. how hilarious!!!!!!!
today has been extremely HOT. we think it must be over 100 here. so, julie and i came back and worked on our tests for medical jurisprudence some and now i'm blogging. tomorrow, we are going to church and then the Ashburns should be coming back from their trip around 6pm. several people here have been getting sick, so it would be great to lift up everyone's health and energy. i got the email from my mom about the thailand bird flu epidemic. i asked jerry about it and she said that was a prominent problem a few years ago with the chickens here and they slaughtered them all to get rid of it. i don't know, we aren't near any storks, but there certainly are lots of chickens. so far so good here. God got us here and He'll take care of us.

A taste of home

the driver ended up going beyond the call of duty and offered to take us to the airport to run some errands. we had to buy another ticket for a short trip after thailand before new zealand. right next to the airport in chiang mai is a huge mall. he offered to drop us off there and then we could just get a taxi back. we did it. i was so relieved when julie said she was in the mood for pizza. i just couldn't do thai food for some reason. i guess i just needed a break. it was great. then we shopped around the mall separately and met up so we could head to one last night at the night bazaar.

this time, it was serious, we had one last night to see everything and get our last minute items. so we separated and actually both had great adventures on our own. julie was in a bead shop for hours making friends with pakistani people there and ended up having to spend the night giving medical advice. i, on the other hand, was all over the place zipping in and out of booths. i did make friends with a thai guy named Don as he kept trying to sell me watches everytime i passed by. i lived it up at the bazaar and got more inspired to get a few more things. just past midnight, i thought it would be closed, but there were still some places in the bazaar open, so i just kept going. finally, it was really time to shut down, so i headed across the street and beaming in the light was a store with a sign on it saying "massage." i totally thought it would be closed that late, but to my wonderful surprise it wasn't. i went in and the room was full of people getting massages. so, i asked if they were still open and they took me in. the only thing was i knew julie might freak out with me not getting back, but this was my last opportunity for a cheap massage so i just took it- they were open after all, right?

so, i proceeded to have the best massage thus far in thailand of course, for the same price of $5 an hour. can you believe it!! the guy worked on my feet and did not know any english. all he could do was look at me and use his hands to motion as if he was holding a rock. then he said, "boom boom boom" and made the motion of many rocks. yes, i know, he was saying my feet had knots in them. duh, i felt them. that's why i was there. :) my poor little feet needed serious help with all of the walking we had been doing in flip flops.
so my massage was from 12:30am to 1:30am. since when do you get a massage that time of night??? that is pretty funny. they closed at 2am. these places are like on every corner around here.

i went back to the room and had to gently tell julie where i had been. she was tired that night and i wasn't. we had totally switched places. in fact, i went back out to go find an internet cafe that night, but they were all closed. yes, i'm adventurous, but it really feels safe here. don't worry, i'm being careful. :) so, i just went back to the hotel and we packed everything up and went to bed. mindy was coming to get us friday morning for the drive back to chiang klang.

The handicraft tour and the day with the driver

The next day (Thursday) we had a tour set up to go see handicrafts. we honestly didn't know what we were going to see, but the Ashburns highly recommended that we do it. it ended up being really cool. a driver met us at the hotel and we had no idea he'd end up being our driver for the rest of the day. we got to know him really well and it was a very positive thing. we asked at the beginning if he was buddhist and he said yes.

he took us to ceramic, silver, jewels/gems, laquer, umbrella, woodcarving, cotton, and silk factories. all of them were set up the same way... they would teach you about how they make everything from scratch, i mean from the worms with silk and the bark for making the paper that makes the umbrellas! then they would bring us into a large showroom where they would sell their items. yes, it was a very touristy thing to do, i'm sure with touristy prices. however, we did get a little inspired and did a little shopping, of course with others' gifts in mind. i can't tell you what i bought. :) i did get inspired for something functional too, though. i was able to get some things that will work for decorating my new room wherever that home ends up being in Houston.

at one place, the driver asked us if we wanted coffee in one of the little cafes attached to the stores. we opted for getting iced coffee since we were hitting that afternoon drag plus we had only hit the ground running once we got to chiang mai and still weren't stopping in our short time there. we had to live it up, so yes that meant more caffeine. that ended up being the biggest blessing to sit and talk with him. the Lord opened up doors and we all shared our beliefs. he told me that being buddhist is one of the most freeing religions there is b/c you don't have rigid rules or laws as other religions impose. he said you are free to make up your mind and believe whatever. i was thankful that the conversation had started and gently replied that "i understand where you are coming from and why you say that, but i have to tell you about a different kind of freedom that i have." i told him my definition of freedom was different and that i'm free to not worry about "karma" or whatever bad i do will come back to get me. i'm not worried about dying and the after life of still paying the debt for what i've done wrong. i'm not worried about things in life like where am i going to live. i'm so free b/c Jesus paid that wrong for me. we explained how, yes, a wrong does need a payment, but it can't be by us. it has to be by Jesus and His death. i told him how much i love talking with the Lord and know He's watching over me in everyway and that He cares that much about us. it's like He's taken the load from me, so that is freedom!
i got an email from amy who i did missions with in spain and she shared with me a powerful way to share with buddhists, so i shared that analogy, too. in thailand, they really respect their king, i mean even the most remote villages i saw in the mountains would still have pictures of the king inside their homes. he does a lot for the common people. so, i explained an analogy of Jesus being our King as if their thai king decided to die so everything the people had ever done was bad could be paid for in order to set them free. i said that's like Jesus and what He did for us too. anyway, our driver was really interested in talking and even said he has a christian friend who has shared with him, too. so, i'm just thankful that we were able to have purpose in that day and at least water the seed. we will definitely keep praying for his "freedom."

Getting wet and getting ready for the dinner show

Wednesday after the elephant experience and river rafting, we went back to the hotel with only about an hour to spare before we had to be back at the hotel to be picked up for the thai dinnner show. however, i needed something to wear, since i didn't have time to wash some clothes before we left on the trip. i really thought i would have time to wash the in chiang mai, but that didn't happen. so i had to go shopping, of course!

uh, getting to the shops was the problem!!!!!! as soon as the van dropped us off back at the hotel, everyone in the van was like, "oh no!!" yes, "oh no!" was right. you see, our hotel has this huge fountain in front of it, so everyone was playing sang kran right there and getting EVERYONE on the street WET! julie and i got totally hit as soon as we stepped out of the van. that was nothing until i had to brace for the crowd while shopping. julie and i went on this little street that has shops and restaraunts, like Hard Rock cafe, etc. before we hit those restaraunts, we stopped in some shops without getting wet. i told julie i'd go on and keep looking and meet her back at the hotel just in time for dinner. so off i went by myself. to my surprise, tons of people were lining the roads cheering, dancing, and splashing water everywhere! it was truly a jolly holiday, more so for some than others. :) i walked by hard rock cafe and that's where it was over for me. i heard some americans say " you are too dry" and the next thing i know about 10 people cornered me and poured buckets of water all over me and shot water guns straight at me. I WAS TOTALLY SOAKED, I MEAN DRIPPING PUDDLES OF WATER SOAKED! i just smiled and laughed and said, "thank you" and kept walking. i was in a huge hurry to get clothes. well, there's one problem, how am i supposed to go into these shops when i am dripping water everywhere. literally, it looked like i had just gotten out of a swimming pool with my clothes on. so, i went to some shops and stood outside and tried to direct the women inside the store as to which shirt i was pointing at and they'd come and hold it up to me without touching me. i was literally "window shopping."

i remember julie and i passed this one place that had a shirt that she thought would be cool for me to where, but it had dragons on it. would you believe, in the rush of the moment, i had to go back and just buy it. that was my outfit for the dinner show. how hilarious! i'm telling you, sang kran makes you need more clothes, b/c they are all wet and won't dry fast enough here.

the dinner show was really nice. we sat on the floor with low tables and had pillows as back support. very ethnic! as they brought us our food, the thai girls would wear beautiful dresses and dance with their arms and hands twisting very slowly and smoothly. then the guys would come out and dance with them. it was like being at a luau in Hawaii. we enjoyed it, but for the first time i think i needed to not have thai food. i was on the verge of being burned out. oh no! not good. after dinner, of course, it was back to the night bazaar. i was really tired that night and it felt good to sleep.