What a Weekend

These are the Girls that I live with... Sophia, Kelly, Carly, Me, Tisha

I cannot believe that I have been here for a little over a week now. Sometimes it feels way longer and sometimes it feels way shorter. While I miss home terribly I really am enjoying my time here. I am blessed to be working with amazing women. My housemates are amazing, and the Thai girls are amazing.

On Friday I worked in a room with Thai women making the bags that the jewelry is sent in. I made friends with two of them, Fon and Am. They are 21 and 20 ... and lots of fun to be around. Their english is very limited but their desire to learn is very strong. So I was not able to have a great conversation with them, but I was able to build a relationship with them through teaching them english. I am very excited to work with them again.

Friday night we did outreach in the bars again. It was a bit easier this week, i suppose because I knew what to expect. Almost right after we entered the bar a girl came up to Carly and started talking to her. A little while after that I started talking to a waitress. I couldnt hear her name over the loud music, but she was 22 and she had two children who lived in a village with her mother. She moved up here to make more money working in the bar. Praise God that she has only been there for a month. Hopefully I will be able to go back and speak with her again. Pray that I will have that opportunity.

On saturday we went out into a more rural area almost three hourss out of Bangkok. We went to the floating boat market. It was amazing. We went on a boat through the water and traveled from shop to shop. There were other boats in the water selling fruits and foods as well. Hopefully we will have time to go back again ... it was quite the culture shock.






On sunday I relaxed and prepared for the week that was ahead. We went to our first service in english. It was good to finally be able to understand what was being taught. But more than anything it made me miss Norco. After church we are MEXICAN food ( it was actually pretty good) and then we went home and rested for the rest of the day. I watched a movie last night called "if only" im pretty sure that it never made it to
theaters... but that didnt matter to me because I still cried like a baby.

Work went well today. I will write more about my week later.

Did you get a perm?

YES ... but it didn't really work out to well. I got one. I swear.

See... they put the roller things in ... lots of them... then they poured chemicals all over my head....

Then ... they wrapped me up in a blue towel...
After that they washed my hair and put tons of product in it...
and ... it was kinda curly...

Then Car and I went out to eat ... in this picture I am in a park that we walk through a few times every day. It is beautiful.

Worth of Lives

Now that I have had a little more time to adjust I was thinking it would be a good time to post a blog. At the moment I am waiting in a salon with chemicals in my hair. Carly and I got massages the other day and while I was at the salon and I decided that I would have to come back soon to get a perm… why you ask? I have no idea. I hope I don’t regret this … I also hope that I still have hair in an hour. I will post pictures soon.



After work the other day Carly and I wen with Sophia... one of our Thai friends to the mall where we got cell phones... and shoes and McDonalds!

So anyways… My time here has been great so far. A little different than I thought that it would be, but it is getting better daily… no doubt because of prayer. So thank you to all who are remembering Carly and I as we are here … it seriously makes the hugest difference.



Last night we went and did outreach for our first time since we have been here. Outreach means that we go to the redlight district and try to become friends with the girls … who are prostitutes. It was a night that I will never forget. The girls there were so young, so bare, and so innocent. The men were old, foreign, and animals. The more I thought about the lack of respect the men had for the girls as human beings the more I cherished knowing the men that I know. I am so blessed to be able to know so many men who treat women as God’s own children. What they should be treated like. I did not have the chance to talk to any of the girls last night, but other workers did, so I would have to consider that a well spent evening. These girls and men are so lost. Pray that I will be able to understand where they are coming from, their thoughts, and reasons why they do what they do.

Taipei, Taiwan

We are almost there! In just a few hours Carly and I will be wandering around Bangkok trying to find our new home. Our flight was good... the food was a little wierd, but they had amazing blankets and little down pillows ... so the food issue didnt even matter. I slept most of the time and Carly watched episodes of Lost on her computer. I still feel like im in America... I don't really know when I will feel like I'm gone. Im excited to get there and see what we are really doing ... where we are living, and who we are working with. Hopefully we will have internet service when we get there so we can let you know all about our new home, and of course that we made it there safely.

Im sure that I miss you if you are reading this.

The Past

So ... life has been pretty non-stop, and it is about to get a lot busier. I am going to do my best to post often from now on... especially since I will soon be out of the country... Over the last few weeks I feel like I have done so much... I house sat in Redlands... I was in Mark and Megan's wedding (which was beautiful), I have been working five days a week (sweet little twin babies), and I have been getting ready to spend three months in Thailand.

This past weekend I went to Brawley with Adrian... that is where he is from. It was so hot. I don't know if ive ever been in heat like that before. I had a great time while I was there, I really do enjoy spending time with his family. On sunday we went to a Dodgers/Padres game... Dodgers won 5-0 and lets just say his Dad was not happy... they are all Padres fans.



So yea... life has been busy, really good, but very busy.