Wow, more than a
year and a half has gone by and nary a post from me. Ah well, I am still alive
and well on planet earth and have been busy. Right now we have a
new short term missionary with us having just arrived only 3 days ago. Her name
is Kelly Billigmeier, from one of our supporting churches in Maryland, and she
will be with us for several months working with everything involving video and
photography. We have several video projects that we would like to be able to
complete before we come home on furlough in early February 2014.
Right now Kelly
is the only American working with us. Carolyn Chambers, who was with us for 4
years had to leave us to return to the US to help take care of her Dad who
suffered a massive heart attack. She is greatly missed and was an incredible
help to us for the 4 years she was here. Our Thai office manager, Pookie,
started to college this year and is not in the office very much nowadays. For
several months it has been just the two Hmong men, Tom and me. In other words…we
are severely understaffed. We know that Kelly will be a great help to us and we
are so glad that she is here.
Tom’s birthday was
last week. He was 62. My birthday will be next week and I will be 61. I feel
each and every year. Tom and I are getting old and we can really feel it. My
philosophy of age goes like this. Zero - 39 = young. Forty - 69 = middle aged. Seventy
to the end = old. After 70 you are living on “borrowed time,” which means…OLD!
Our missionary mentor, Bro. Milton Martin, says “it’s not the years, it’s the
miles.” On my highway of life counting up the miles, tooling along, at some
point I was run over by a Mac truck. So, while maybe not chronologically old
yet, my miles have caught up with me and I am very tired. I am looking forward
to going back home to Texas, spending time with my church and my church family
and watching Duck Dynasty on HD TV. Priorities are very important. I will
probably eat crunchy Cheetos while watching the duck people.
Some weird things
cross my mind as I think of going home for several months. I don’t have any
decent winter clothes having lived in perpetual summer for the last 10 years. I
had a really nice purple sweater and a very nice long sleeved shirt, also
purple, but I traded those at a market in Africa 2 years ago for some very cool
African souvenirs. The thought of having to start wearing panty hose again is
also a rather unpleasant thought. Haven’t worn those for 10 years either. I
think
I have a pair of “real”
shoes in Texas. Hope so, anyway. All I have here are Crocs, which are very
casual but comfortable. Casual attire is really the only thing worn here in
Thailand unless you go to some formal event and even then most people do not
really dress up in the way Americans would recognize. I’ve managed to live here
in Thailand for 10 years with only blue jean skirts and a few khaki denim
skirts. Oh, yes, I also have some shirts and blouses, in case you were
wondering.
When I go home
this time, I am taking my good cookware. My pots and pans in Texas are sub-standard,
and I am always looking for my stuff that is here when I try to find a pot or
pan to make dinner there.
In the meantime,
we have a lot of work to do. Hopefully I will post again within the next year.
Adios for now and maybe forever. I am finished making promises to write more
later. Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see.
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