I finally figured out how to change my wallpaper to something fun and how to add a playlist. It's a funny list of things I could think of that I liked at the moment. Enjoy!

Out at the camp in September?

My brother and me!

Tim and me on his 50th birthday.

Monty, Jackie and the girls. Hailey, Natalie, and Rachel

Cara came and to photograpgh a wedding and took some pics of us too.

I think it's high time I updated my blog. I feel like I've been gone from Thailand for a very long time. This is a picture of the front of my classroom. I have 16 students; eight boys and eight girls. It's a little overwhelming to say the least. I had nine girls and 7 boys, but one girl left and was replaced with a boy.

Saturday I went with Tim and Jahnet to Khon Kaen. We spent the afternoon with a couple in the church, Kurt and Pbouy and then went down to the pool in their development where Tim baptized Pbuoy. We had a really nice time with them in their home Pbouy made Gwaytheow (thai noodle soup) for us and it was really good.

The view from my hotel room in Khon Kaen.

I came out to my car to go to dinner this afternoon and was fascinated to see that a spider had built this beautiful web during the night and day. It was perfect and beautiful especially with the late afternoon sun rays shining through it. It was attached to the truck as well and I was sad to have to leave and destroy all that hard work. It was so perfect. I mean I'd be willing to bet that it you were able to measure it somehow you'd find the spaces were all even.

I gave Don my number 82 shirt cause I didn't want people reading me. He enjoys wearing it around the house.

My friend Raht and one of the best friends I've ever had. I'm so going to miss her.

Happy Birthday Lydia! Here with Fawng. This is Dragon fruit. It comes in pink and white and pink is the best, but then isn't everything better in pink?

Lydia loves brownies so I made some for her birthday. They're yummy!

I was invited to dinner at the Luelai's. It's Lydia's 15th birthday and a special last dinner with them for me. Raht made many of my favorite dishes. We had Panang (a pork and eggplant coconut stew) another pork and cucumber stirfry and fried fish. It was all great and I got stuffed.

Jahnet took Raht, Lydia, the girls, and me to NongKhai today so that I could do my last 90 day check-in. Then we went over to the river market and did bit of shopping. After that we went to KFC at the mall. It was a really nice, fun day.

We were using the timer on the camera, but it started to fall into the glass I had set it on and then it went off. Raht is trying to catch it here. I was funny.

My class last night. I took one more shot at teaching them truth. I split them into teams and asked questions. I asked team 1. "How many ways are there to get to heaven?" They all lifted two fingers and shouted, "Two!" Hmmm! One girl on team 2 said there's only one way. So then I say, "How do we know?" They answer, "You can read it in the Bible." I ask, "Where?" The answer is John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." They can quote it and I'm sure God will use the little seed to work in their lives when He's ready.

Lydia with their little dog Lucy. I published Lucy before when she was itsy bitsy. She's not a lot bigger now and she's a sweety. Lydia will be 15 in a couple of days.

Lydia, Raht and Don

I went over to Don's church for one last service and took this picture. From left to right is Don, Em, Chian, Coke, Lek, Yoke, Thok, Lydia, Fawng. These kids have been coming a long time and I'm glad to see they are all still coming. They gave me some nice good-bye cards. I gave Raht a whole stack of cards left from what Jessi gave me when she left and two of the cards I got from them were out of those, but the funny part is that two of them were cards for weddings. I was like Woo hoo! They didn't know they had chosen wedding cards though.

Tonight Jahnet and I went to dinner at a place by the park with some of the teachers from the highschool; Noke, Mayuru, and Laaied. We had a nice time and great food! Laaied remembered that I like a certain kind of fish and ordered it special for me. It was a my "Going away dinner" and they gave me gifts too. It was sweet of them and I appreciate it.

It's a grape.

I went up to the high school today to give my farewell speech and then the students, teachers and director gave me gifts. These roses were among the gifts I received. I wasn't expecting them to do this, but it was so nice.

I sold my truck! Some people will buy anything. LOL!!! Just kidding. It didn't look like this.

The other day when I came home the neighborhood cows were outside my walls and when I opened the gate to take the car in a couple of them decided to come in and enjoy my grass. I wouldn't mind if they promised not to leave behind what they usually leave behind. I decided to help them leave and picked up the lead rope on the brown cow and pulled. It didn't budge, so I had to get the broom and encourage them to leave that way. They left. But then that night when I came home again they were crowded in the road blocking my way to the gate. They just stood there and stared at me. It's like they were saying, "See how you like being kept out of the yard." Moo-ha-ha!

Here's the other little girl.

These two little girls are fairly new to the church, but have been coming for a while. Their hair is cut so short because they had gotten lice and had to have the hair cut off.

I have a teaching method that I like to use with the kids. I'll ask one child if God loves them and they usually answer yes. Then say to the next child, "He/She says God loves him/her. How do we know?" They will answer, "You can read it in the Bible." So I ask the next child where you can read it in the Bible and they are supposed to answer John 3:16. Then we can quote it together. This method works well especially since I've found out the Thai are great memorizers.

Sunday night I was asking these kinds of questions while they were coloring a coloring page, only I had changed it to asking them. "If you plant a banana plant will you get apples?" They answered no of course. It was fine until I came down to these two girls. I asked them, "If you plant a rose bush will it produce fish?" They answered, "Yes." I asked them how they know. They answered right off, "You can read it in the Bible." I asked them several times and got the same answer each time. I think they understand the method even if they don't understand the truth. It was cute and they are learning. Of course if you could read it in the Bible it would be true whether it made sense or not, but I think we'd better review the story of creation. The other pictire won't up load. I'll have to try later.

One of my classes. I caught them off guard.

Looking down from up. This is the view from the third story of the school where I teach. Off in the distance you can see Foilom Mountain.

I played beauty shop last night and put my hair in rollers. Sleeping on them was not fun, but I enjoyed the effect. I enjoyed it all the way out the door. Then the humidity did it's thing and it all went straight in no time. I forgave the humidity though because I like it so much. I took this picture of me to see how it looked. I have to look up when I take my own picture or my eyes close everytime.

It rained all afternoon today, so I went to see how much water I had collected in the pots and got to see a pretty rainbow too. I like the rainy season.

The water pots. I looked into them this morning and saw that they were full from last nights rain. I'll can use all of it in three weeks time.

Gotta love the weather in Thailand

I don't know how you all feel about humidity, but in the past seven and one-half years, I've come to appreciate it and miss it each winter when it gets incredibly dry here. Today was an especially nice day because it's not only very, very humid, but it's cool too. That's the best of both worlds. We're in the real rainy season now too. Not only is the humidity back, but I'm able to collect the rain water in my big water pots. Haven't I heard that rain water is good for the hair? It's dark out right now, but I'll take a picture of the pots tomorrow and post it.

A few more of my rascals.

Fouk Gopb Googk-Gai

OUR GANG - UBC

Some of my "Little Rascals"