To love well...

Well I've been back in Texas for a few weeks now, getting back to normal life. I've finished my first week of school and am getting back in the swing of things. As I step into a new year I'm excited about the things that lay ahead. One of those things being my trip to Thailand. As you may or may not know I will be going to Thailand for 10 days in March. I will be spending my spring break traveling over there. I wanted to share a little about about what is going on over there with ya'll...

During my time over there we will be spending five days working at the Huay Nam Khao refugee camp in Phetchabun, Thailand. This camp is a place where Hmong (pronounced "mung") people are being held. This people group have been fleeing Lao since the 70's. They are being persecuted in Lao and are fleeing to the jungles of Lao and to Thailand. The government of Thailand have declared that the Hmong people can not be citizens of Thailand and therefore it is illegal for them to be there. There is a lot of history behind all of this. The Thai government has been putting the Hmong people in refugee camps in the northern part of Thailand. The conditions of these camps is not good, many reports have been filed before the government banned all media from the camp. Although conditions are not, the Hmong people would choose to live here rather then be sent back to Lao. Once they are sent back to Lao they are almost always killed within days. The government has been sending back 160 refugees monthly.

While over there we will be joining a team that has an excellent relationship with the guards of this camp. They have opened up the doors to this team and allow them to do as they please in the camp. We will be joining them to go in and do what we can in five short days to love these people. One of the men going with us is a pediatric dentist, so we will be doing some dentistry work. We will doing some ESL stuff, the details are kind of vague at this point. We will do what is needed and just love on these people. I feel as though the past 26 years of my life I have been learning about what it looks like to love well. I'm excited to go and be able to love these people who may have no idea what love is.

The other part of our time in Thailand will be spent in Chiang Mai. We will be working and staying at Care Corner Orphanage. Care Corner is an orphanage that holds 80 children. These children are either orphaned, living with a disability, or their parents could not take care of them any longer. These children are not waiting to be adopted but rather grown up in the orphanage and develop the skills to survive in the real world. On their website are stories of a few of the children that are there, I am so excited to meet children like Amima.

My heart longs to be help these people and I am so excited to go and love well!

Home Sweet Home...

Well it has been awhile and I thought it was time to update ya'll on the happenings on my life over the past month or so. My goal is to better about writing on here so we will see how that goes in 2008!

Well I finished classes on December 6. That last week was very hectic and stressful. I had about 45 pages worth of papers to write along with 3 finals (all due on the same day!!!) I was able to get all my stuff done, the papers were some of the best I had written all semester and I did well on my finals. I only had one final during finals week so I rejoiced in the fact that I was done on the 6th. I was looking forward to a long awaited break.

That long awaited break was taken away when I found out I had to take a College Algebra class during the wintermester! I was not happy!! So I was to spend 12 days of my break in a classroom for 4 hours. The class has turned out to be a bit of a joke. I am currently in that class which tells you how much I need to pay attention.

Anyhow the week between classes was spent relaxing! I finished my Christmas shopping and spent a lot of time in bed due to being sick. I think the stress took it out of me physically. On the 21st I left to drive to Little Rock to meet up with Les and Jonathon. We went to bed earlier and headed out about 6:30 the next morning to head to Minnesota for Christmas. At this point I was

very sick and not feeling well, ready to just get to Minnesota. It is normally a 13 hour drive, I was excited to be out of the car. But then we hit a Blizzard outside of Kansas City. We couldn't drive faster then 30 mph. We ended up having to stop and get a hotel. We ordered Pizza and watch tv, all feeling bitter we were not in Minnesota. The next morning we left hoping the roads would be better... they were not. It took us another 8 hours. All in all it was a 32 hour trip!!! The whole way we were saying how much more me appreciate living in the south.

When we finally got to Minnesota we rested and showered and then went to the Vikings game. It was a BAD game but it was fun to be with everyone. I was still very sick though, and I continued to get worse. I spent the next week trying to get better. I went to the Doctor's office on Christmas Eve and got some medicine. So it was a week of rest. I got to spend some time with Em which was great! I also got to spend a night at the Hilton with some women I joined staff with a year and half ago! It was SO good to spend time with these women!!! I then went to Mankato and spent some time with people dear to my heart. On New Years day Melissa was taking me back to Westbrook to meet up with Les and Jonathon so that we could head back south. On our way we spun out and ended up in the ditch. Thank the Lord for a trucker who stopped and pushed us out. I'm not going to lie it was really good to be back in the warm no snow south!!!

So I've been back for about a week now... It has been good to be back in a routine of things. I think I made the decision that I am made for the south and will more than likely not move back to the freezing cold midwest. There are so other exciting things going on but I will save that for another post! So here I am in my math class, ready to home and go on a bike ride (oh yeah I got a new bike!) and enjoy the 75 degree weather!