Happy 80th Birthday!

Thailand's King celebrated his 80th birthday on December 5th. This King is loved by his people, so all around Thailand on December 5th and 6th the King was honored and celebrated. Our children cleaned their rooms, made their beds, cleaned around Agape, and even cleaned the restrooms extra well to honor the King. They set up his picture and flowers in our worship hall. We had a little celebration in honor of the King's birthday. A group with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) came and celebrated with us. There were about 15 people in the group. It was really fun being able to hang out with more foreigners. Sometimes I think if I don't talk to foreigners every once in a while I'm going to forget how to speak proper English. When I'm not talking to foreigners, I sound like a cave man :) After we celebrated the King's birthday me and Terra had to go into town to buy all the children's Christmas presents. We had so much fun making our way through Mae Sot by ourselves and bartering with the people as we bought things for 130 children. When we were on our way back home, after we spent the entire day shopping, we wanted to make a quick stop at 7-eleven. We saw a 7-eleven and decided to drive to it. We ended up going the wrong way down a one-way road. It was so funny. We finally got going the right way and parked our car. When we got out, of course, there were 2 police men standing on the corner. Right when I stepped out of the car I heard them say "Ohhhh Farang". They just laughed at us. It's funny how we can just get away with that because we are farang :)

Terra and I were asked by the Huai Bong School to be part of a parade in the Huai Bong village. The parade was in celbration of the King's birthday. We had the parade on December 6th. That morning we woke up at 3:30 in the morning because they were picking us up at 4:00. We had to go get our hair down and our make up. While we all got ready at the salon, Krudam told me that yesterday at the celebration at Agape one of the YWAM people prayed for her. She said today her heart felt so good. She felt like all her burdens were gone. She told me she wants to be Christian like me and take care of the Agape children. PRAISE THE LORD!! I told her she can be Christian and we can give all our burdens and worries to Jesus. It was awesome!

Anyways, We arrived at the salon and the first thing we had to do was put this little tube top shirt on.

I figured it was so the face make up wouldn't get on my own clothes. But, no, they do the strangest thing here. In Thailand everyone likes to be white, they think it's beautiful. So they took this white creamy make up and put it all over my arms, chest and back. They kept saying how pretty it looked and I thought I looked like a dead zombie. I didn't like it one bit.

Once they completed my zombie look it was on to my face make up. This wasn't any better. They piled the make up on, but at least my face was now the same color as the rest of my deadly looking skin, so it wasn't so bad. I felt like I was about to go compete in a pageant. Once my make up was done, it was on to hair. I was the leader of the parade, with marching baton and all, so I had a big fluffy hair peice put in my hair. It looked really funny.

Once we were all done with our make-up, hair, and dresses, it was time to go march in the parade. Me and Terra were the only farang in the whole parade.

As we walked we had to stop so many times for people to take pictures of us. I felt like a celebrity. It was a blast!! I practiced marching a couple days before, so I had it down. I had so much fun twisting and turning my baton, and I even threw it up in the air a couple times, watched it spin, and caught it. I'm a professional now, so if anyone is in need of a leader for a parade, I'm your girl :)

After we finished the parade, we all had to march in front of the school and government leaders. As we marched I had to salute them. It was funny watching how excited everyone was to see us farang in the parade :) Anyways, it was so much fun and our Agape kids who were in the parade also did a great job too!!