February 3/2010

We’re here! The getting here was an adventure in itself. We rushed out of Church on Sunday to make it to the airport in Calgary on time, just to make sure we cleared customs - got there 3 hours early and made it through in about 4 minutes! We had asked everyone to pray about that one part of our flight in particular and it worked!

Our flights were good to LA, and really nice from LA to Bangkok. We were on that airplane for 18 hours, but they treated us very well! We had great Thai food, wonderful flight attendants and - get this - DR. MARIO! They had video games in each seat. Granted, they were probably to keep kids happy, but we were on that plane for 18 hours, I think I mentioned that. They kept me happy.

We flew into Bangkok at 6:30 yesterday morning (4:30 Monday afternoon at home), and as we were on top of the clouds, saw the most brilliant orange sunrise. I asked God for that as we flew in the dark the whole trip. Thanks, God! It was beautiful!

It’s very humid here and I think my hair turned into a frizzball about 30 seconds after we walked off the plane...and...our bags got a longer layover than us in Denver...we will be reunited this afternoon and we will feel human again. We have my clothes, but nothing else. However, there’s a mall right across the street that has everything. I guess I didn’t need to pack the 4 bottles of bug spray and all the sunscreen we’d need for three weeks in +35. Oh, well, live and learn.

We only had about 5 hours sleep on the plane - which isn’t worth 5 hours of sleep in my bed. So...we were tired, but determined to stay awake until Bangkok bedtime. I was fast asleep at 6 and had a great sleep...Kelly was wide awake at 2, but fell back asleep. I think we’re on Thai time now. We’ll see how we do coming home.

Yesterday was spent getting hotels worked out, meeting Pastors Al and Terry who have been here for 28 years heading up Victory in Asia, meeting their family and staff at the children’s home, magazine, Bible school and TV station they run here. The girls helped one of their daughters set up her day care that is opening soon and the guys went to see more of the ministries. Then...Pastor Terry wanted to take us to get a foot treatment where you sit with your feet in water for a half hour and little fish eat all the dead cells off of them. I had heard of this, but never had it done - and now I know why. I was awful! - for the 3 nanoseconds my foot was in there. I pulled my foot out of that water so fast, I think I flung a few of those suckers onto the floor. Yuck!!! Dr. Hazel had the same reaction. Oh, well, we tried to be brave :) However, the 1 hour, $3 foot massage we did end up going to was amazing! We’re going for a Thai massage today which I hear isn’t relaxing, but good for you. I know a lot of things that are good for me that hurt really bad. Still, I look forward to it.

So, amongst all the shopping...oh, yes, us girls shopped, too - really great shoes for $8 -
resting and massages there was a bit of work thrown in. Just getting settled in before the real work begins. We have a Leadership conference starting tomorrow, then we’re heading to meet a man who has a ministry set up that sounds like what we want to do. We’ll go visit that and then head to Cambodia for the 9th.
Thanks for all your prayers and support! I’ll keep you posted as much as I can.

PS. I love you, my wonderful children!!! We miss you!