Happy Mother's Day Mom

This week Thailand has been celebrating Mother's. The queen's birthday is August 12th, so they celebrate Mother's day every day during the week of the queen's birthday. Stores give people a discount during this week and pictures of the queen are up everywhere. Even the commercials revolve around mothers and the queen. Everyone you see is wearing blue, which is the queen's color. This week we have been preparing for the mother's day celebration that we will have tomorrow. All the mother's of the children, the children's teachers, and other pastors and friends will come to the orphanage and join us in the celebration.
Today, the children only had a half day, in celebration of the queen. I went with May to the children's school, Huai Bong School, because their English teacher wanted to meet me and because they were having a celebration at school. I met the English teacher and her name is Krudam. She told me that she wanted me to teach the children English at the school. I will be teaching Mon.-Thurs. for 3 hours each day every week at the school and then teaching at the orphanage at night. I'm very excited! She's going to give me books and things to help me prepare my lessons tomorrow. It's going to be a challenge, but wonderful! At the school today they had an assembly where they honored their mothers and the queen. Some of the children sang and some of them danced. It was wonderful. They had me go in front of the whole school and introduce myself. I am a celebrity here :) They picked the best mother of all the mothers and her children gave her flowers and the school gave her a plaque. Then the children were told to go and honor their mothers. As all the children went to their mothers, our children (the children who live in the orphanage), came to me and May, pinned flowers on our shirts and bowed down to us. As they did this, tears streamed down mine and May's faces. The children were crying also. My heart broke for them, because so many of them do not have mothers and the ones who do have mothers, their mothers could not afford to come and visit their school. Me and May were the mothers they have, but it's not the same as having your own mother. I held some of the girls and hugged others as tears streamed down their faces. As I held them, I simply cried and prayed for them. It was so touching how the children would come up to us, give us a flower, bow to us, and honor us. I had overwhelming feelings of love for these children. I love each and every one of them. I want to adopt them all and bring them home with me. After all the children went to their mothers, the principal invited me, May, and all the children in the orphanage up to the front. We all sat up in front as they took pictures of us and everyone clapped for us. It was incredible. If I only spent today here in Thailand, it would all have been worth it. These children are my children. I love them so much!!
After the assembly, we ate lunch with the children. They served us rice with seafood. The shrimp still had the shell on it and there were crawdads staring at me from my bowl. I gave all my seafood to May and I watched as no one peeled their seafood, but ate the peel right along with the meat. It was pretty gross, I must admit. I took pictures of our lunch, so you can see them on Kodak. After lunch we went to one of the teachers because she was giving us traditional Thai clothing to wear at the Mother's day celebration. I was receiving the Thai clothing along with the girls because I will be participating in the dance that the girls are doing tomorrow. After we got the clothes we went to the salon/jewelry store and rented the traditional Thai jewelry to go along with our clothes. All the women kept telling me "Oh....soy...soy...lo e". This means "Oh beautiful, beautiful, lovely". Then we spent the whole day in Mae Sot buying supplies for the celebration.
We came home and there was no time to waste because we had to begin the dance rehearsal. It is me and 4 other girls doing the dance. They put me smack dab in the center of all of them. I guess I'm the star of the show tomorrow. It's not every day a farang does a traditional Thai dance....actually Noah told me I'm the first one :) It was really fun practicing the dance, but my hands are killing me. They can put their hands in some crazy positions that I just can't do. It's because they have Karen hands and I have American hands. My hands seriously are still hurting. The style of dance is beautiful though and very slow and graceful. It's difficult for me to be graceful, as you all know, but they sure taught me how. So tomorrow I will be doing a traditional Thai dance in traditional Thai clothing as we celebrate the traditional Mother's Day. I'm so excited for tomorrow! I will upload pictures of my celebrity moment tomorrow :) Mother, tomorrow I will celebrate and honor you. I love you so much! Happy Mother's Day Mom!