Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I love to eat lice for dinner

That's how Thai people say rice. It's funny. I always correct them and try to get them to say the "r" sound, which is very difficult for them to pronounce. I have them shape their mouths like me and we have a chorus chanting "rrrrrrrr". However, this time the word I'm wanting to use is lice. Many of the children have lice here. And now, that lice has decided that it wanted to make a new home in some nice, clean American hair :( I guess it just wouldn't be Thailand without contracting a little lice. I went to Pastor Winai's house and Nomyo put the medicine on my head, so I should be all clean tomorrow (I'm praying). After Nomyo put the medicine on she put a shirt on my head with string to keep it on (I put a picture of this up on kodak). As I walked back to my room, t-shirt on head, I saw some of the children and staff walking around with their flashlights in hand scanning the ground. They were looking for frogs to fry up for their breakfast tomorrow. I started to laugh......only in Thailand would I be walking around with a shirt on my head while people around me searched for their frog breakfast :)

Two nights ago me and the family (Pastor Winai, his wife Pranom, May and Noah) were treated to a delicious dinner by Nelson and Joann (the missionaries from Phuket). It was delicious and the company was wonderful! After dinner, we said our goodbyes and then we headed to Runjira. This is the place where the refugees wait before the UN transports them to America. The refugees are not allowed to leave Runjira, and it can take up to days before they are deported to America. Pastor Winai's brother and his family were here waiting to go to America, which is the reason why we came. They had already been waiting there for 4 days, without the freedom to leave. Once they go to America, they must stay and work for 5 years and then they are granted citizenship. Then they have the freedom to come and go as they please. As we visited with Pastor Winai's family, they were full of questions for me. As I am an "expert" on America :) I was more than happy to answer all their questions, and was very excited for them! Pastor Winai remained talking with his brother and I journeyed out to see the rest of Runjira and the refugees. I took out my camera and started to take pictures. Everyone loved it! I felt like I was a National Geographic photographer amongst incredible poverty! The children all ran up to me and kept pointing at themselves saying they wanted a picture. Then they would hold up their pointer finger, explaining to me they wanted me to take one more picture. Everyone kept coming up to me and they were wanting me to take pictures of them and their family before they left for America. I took pictures of dozens of families, dozens of children, and dozens of babies. The parents found the prettiest thing they had for their children, put it on them, and then rushed up to me with their precious baby in hand telling me to take a picture. It was incredible! I had little children running all around me, parents with huge smiling faces running up to me, and babies staring at me because a farang is so strange to them. As Pastor Winai and his family went to the room to continue to talk, I continued to mingle amongst the people. I didn't want to leave them. The joy that brought to me was amazing! I loved it! I finally said good-bye to the many new friends I had just photographed and went to meet Pastor Winai and his family in the room. We all had a powerful time of prayer, as we prayed for Pastor Winai's brother's family as they would travel to America. We especially prayed for the health of his two daughters. They were both running high fevers, and if they were too sick the doctor would not let them go to America. But Praise the Lord, because the daughters were healed and they all left for America today!!
Please continue to pray for all the children here and their health. Also, please keep Pastor Winai's health in your prayers. It has become to where he can barely see out of his left eye at all. Also, we just found out that one of the children's fathers has a brain tumor and one of the children's mother took poison and tried to commit suicide. Please keep the children's parents in your prayers. Also, continue to pray for my health with my voice, it has been doing really well! Thank you for all your prayers, it's the best gift we could have!



*I uploaded pics of the Runjira and the children.

4 comments:

Jaro said...

The beauty of life surrounds you with a little something different every day. Am so grad you rike it...old Chinese saying. Seems they have a different way of pronouncing things also. Its nice you got rid of your lice.
Nothing like frog legs to get you going for the day. Or maybe frog n eggs, similar to our ham n eggs. What a treat. lol

Ashley Autumn said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! You had lice! That's hilarious! You're a real Thailand girl now. Does the medicine that they use work well, or should we send some American lice treatments your way? Dad's giving me a few things that I'm waiting on to send your package, so I should be able to send your package out soon, and I'll be sure to include some work-out videos! Hahahaha! Fatty! :)

(Don't worry, all my jokes are in jest. Dad's comments are always so serious and enlightening, and I figured you could use a good, old-fashioned fart joke or fat joke or lice joke every now and then.)

Chris M. said...

Lice, frogs, photographing mass groups of potential imagrants...sounds like quite the adventure. I can't imagine the depth that God is building in his relationship with you. And I am excited to see what continues to come. When you get home we'll have to hang out for a week to catch up! But...I'm going to make you shampoo and condition a few times before coming over ;o)

Maura said...

oh my gosh...this makes me jealous, in a good way :) it's cool that you're getting such a broad perspective of the country and the issues these people face---it's rare to be so exposed to things like that. def doesn't happen in short term missions...you're in a great place...