In my last update, I said that I would write again in a few days or a week. What a liar I am. It has been almost one month, but time flies by so fast that I can miss whole days sometime. There was this movie I saw once with Richard Gere. He was a defense attorney defending some nutcase on the pretext that he (the nutcase) couldn't remember killing somebody because he "lost time." This is not exactly the same thing, because I know for a fact that if I had killed anybody I would remember. I have been working steadily for nearly 2 weeks learning a new computer program so that I will be up to speed when our new video equipment arrives here in Thailand. So, you see, it has been a concentrated time of doing the same thing every day. One day runs into the next and before you know it 2 weeks is "gone." However, if during that 2 week period I had actually killed anybody, it would have been out of the ordinary, and I would have remembered.

Moving on. It is now Friday night at 11:00 PM. Tom, Carolyn, Pook and I went out to our regular Friday after work evening meal. Pook had been listening to Tom and I talk about Korean food. We both hate it, but I hate it more than Tom does. He can actually eat some of it. I, on the other hand, can stomach very little of it. So Pook decided that she just had to have Korean food just to see what it was like for herself. There was a new Korean restaurant recently opened pretty close to us, so we opted to go there for our evening meal. Unfortunately, the food was very authentic. I chose a dish that I was familiar with (did I mention that we lived in Pusan, South Korea for 6 months?) Anyway we all ordered our food. Mine was beef soup and 765 tiny side dishes, just like they do it in Korea. Everybody else got a main dish and they also got 765 tiny side dishes that were different from our tiny side dishes. Washing dishes in a Korean restaurant must be a nightmare to die for. Everybody liked their main dish, but the side dishes were a real cultural extravaganza for Pook. Kimchie, which can only be described as a variety of weird veggies all soaked in vinegar until they are fermented, is kind of the Korean national dish. It comes in millions of varieties and I can barely tolerate any of them. I am not a vinegar person. But Pook is a very brave person who likes a challenge and likes to learn and try new things. So she tried everything that we had and we had about 9 kinds of Kimchie. As we were leaving the restaurant, I asked her if she enjoyed her cultural experience and she said that she did very much enjoy the experience. I asked her if she liked the food enough to eat it again. She said "No." I took this to mean that she did like the cultural experience of learning what Korean food actually tasted like, but she didn't like the food itself. On the way home in the car she mentioned that she didn't feel too well. Kinda like me the first time I ate Korean food. Tonight was the first time in 10 years that I have eaten Korean food and hopefully I won't have to eat it again for another 10. Next Friday night we have plans to eat Japanese. Pook likes raw fish and loves other Japanese food as well. I only like raw fish if it is cooked, preferably deep fried in nice light batter. I have trouble even watching people eat raw fish. I don't like the smell of raw fish either, so Friday night should be another interesting experience. I am going to sit as far away from Pook as I can, so that I do not see or smell the raw fish. When I walk past fresh, raw fish in the market, I have to hold my breath and hurry through before I have to breathe again. I must have had a really traumatic experience as a small child in the fish department to have these issues.

I talked to my daughter on the phone today. She lives in Lithuania. I was supposed to call her at Christmas. The last time I talked to her on the phone was December the 12, which is her birthday. I must have "lost time" somewhere in there. But they are all OK. If I don't hear from them, I know that everything is OK. If things are not going well, I hear immediately. Likewise, if I call her unexpectedly...like ever...she wonders if somebody died or is in the hospital.

Everybody is OK. Pray for us. Time is flying so fast that we are losing it. We need health and strength to do our jobs. The Lord is blessing our ministry here in Thailand and we are looking forward to some things coming together that have been in the works for awhile. We will let you know more about this as the time gets nearer and more finalized. In the meantime, I will write more later, maybe soon, or maybe not. Depends on if I find that time that I lost somewhere.