Good-bye beautiful country of spice and smells, Hello home!

Well… this is it. My last entry from Thailand. Soon this country will be McFarland-less.

I will miss this country. Not because of the food or the atmosphere or the smells… but the people. I’ve made true friends here. The missionaries are all absolutely incredible. Some of the kids I’m really going to miss. (I would say all, but it’s difficult to have a heart to heart with the language barrier so undeniably present.)

A few of my favorite Thailand memories for you. Some you’ve heard, others you haven’t.

Lightning bugs. (They glow green here!) They're just darn cool.

Lightning storms. (And I did see green lightning. That was a trip. The whole sky flashed green. Jonathan and I hitched a ride home in one of the trucks that night, the motorcycle seemed a bit foolish at the moment.) I will never call one of our wimpy California storms ‘intense’ again, no offence.

On the way back from one of the villages, I looked out our truck and saw a little girl, she must have been two or three, squatting in a pile of trash with two older boys. But this is a mind tweaking memory because she was one of the happiest children I’ve ever seen, her entire face was pulled into one massive smile, her eyes mere slits on her muddy face, her hair sticking in every direction. She waved franticly at us ‘farongs’ and jabbered at us delightedly. I only saw her for a split second, but the image is burned into my memory.

Staying up late and talking with Ari (one of the Zoe kids) about the weird dreams she has. They were funny and we bonded. Only a few nights ago she opened up and told me about some stuff that’s going on at school. It was very cool.

Language lessons with the Bible students at the Boy’s Home. This was them teaching us Thai, not us teaching them English! It was very entertaining for all involved.

Laughing with April. That’s all I’m going to say about that. If I tried to tell the stories they would A: not be as funny as they were the first time and B: take too long to tell. Let me just say that you missed some good times.

Queen Esther. I'll explain when I see you. Or ask Jonathan.

The utter delight I felt the first time I understood how much something cost when the vendor told me in Thai.

Thai Massages. ‘nough said.

Doing a good job on the projects I set out to accomplish for Zoe.

Riding with some of the House Parents and talking about the tiny frogs as they hopped across the street before us. I said that we have big frogs in America and they said Thailand only has little ones. The very next thing they asked was if we eat them.

Watching Jonathan teach English.

Walking along at the Night Safari with April and having two little Thai boys walk up behind us, shouting back to their parents, not because the animal in the cage was cool, but because there were a pair of ‘farangs’ up there!

(A small side note, our adventure with the lion cub was completely on our own, I'm sure ZOE International would not have approved if they had know what we were doing. But it was on our 'off time' so we felt it was ok to take some risks. I just wanted to clarify, that was not a Zoe sponsored event in any way shape or form!)

I could go on and on, but I’ll save some of them for when I actually get to see you face to face. Tomorrow I’m going to be out all day, then I’m spending the night in a hotel (mainly so I can have a sleep-over party with April) and then going to the Airport early Sunday morning. So this is officially the last time I will write from Thailand. At least for this year!

Let me finish by saying that Zoe is doing an incredible thing here. Now that I know these kids, I can’t imagine them in the horrible position they were once in. It breaks my heart now more than it ever did, because the numbers and statistics have faces, names and personalities. They’re lovely, mind soul body and spirit.

Some of you have asked what will happen to this blog… I think I’ll just leave it up, and maybe post info about the upcoming trip in February (or is it January?)






In the mean time… check out our next project. Stille Nacht!! The Sanctuary’s Christmas show.

http://silentnacht.blogspot.com

We will be focusing all of our time and energy on this, so I thought it might be fun to keep a blog up about it. If you have any desire, enjoy reading it! Maybe you’ll get the urge to jump in and help! Yes that was a shameless plug.