Last week was the 9 year anniversary of losing Abbie. We spent the day reflecting on her life, the last 9 years without her, wondering what she would be like at 16...Time does heal in so many ways, but we still miss her so much. At dinner we all went around sharing memories of Abbie-Lou. Dustin and Nathan both have good memories of playing in the woods in Louisiana, running around the pond, climbing in the treehouse...sadly, Ethan has no memory of her. Which makes me sad because she loved him so much.

She was sure from the moment I told her I was pregnant that it was a boy and from then on she called him "Baby Bob"! When she came with Dustin and Nathan to meet Ethan for the first time in the hospital she just knew we would be taking him home that moment. You can't imagine the howling from all three of them when the nurse took their brother away! The first night we did bring Ethan home, she jumped up beside me to look at him and proceeded to poke him with her toy, bow and arrow, which made him cry, which made her cry and I just decided to cry too! Wondering how I was going to handle 3 1/2 year old triplets with a newborn. Ethan's crib was in Abbie's room and when people would ask her how she liked having a new brother she commented, "He cries a LOT!" I think back to her funeral and how small he was, he slept through the entire service in the back in Aunt Lola's lap.

Mark misses her giggle the most. He misses his sweetheart very much and it is painful for him to even verbalize it. I hold the memories of her sitting in his lap during church close. Nathan seems to have an even harder time talking about Abbie. Most of the time we were reminiscing, he was bending over fiddling with his shoes. I remember about a month after she died we were all huddled on the boys' bunkbed talking and praying together. Mark started crying and Nathan FINALLY cried some saying, "Is it really okay for men to cry?"

I miss her spunkiness, her looking over her glasses at me, her little, tiny, bottom. I miss her hugs. I miss having a girl around the house. I had a dream about 2 weeks ago and Abbie was still with us, about 2 years old-I got to hear her giggle again and give her some really tight hugs. What a gift that was to me, I haven't dreamed of her in some time. I did dream once in Virginia that she came and visited me from heaven and she said, "Mom, you know I don't want to come back and I will see you again before you know it." That brought me much comfort.

I listened to a sermon not long ago on sorrow. Do you know what the only man-made thing will be in heaven? Jesus' scars. I had never thought of that before. He is well acquainted with our sorrow, our pain, our grief. Remember when Thomas doubted until he touched Jesus' scars and then he believed? I have emotional scars from losing Abbie but I pray that my scars will point others to Christ. That others will see His grace is sufficient, He IS enough. That God will receive glory because of our scars. Oh, let it be so!

Thank you to those that wrote, prayed for us, and remember with us every year. I couldn't have made it without you all. Much love.

Bakery Girls go to the Beach

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On Thursday I took 18 of the bakery girls, 6 security personnel, and 8 boys from the boys prison to a local beach. The girls have been begging me for weeks to get the permission from the prison director and plan the excursion. Many of them have not been out of the facility in years. It was really fun to be able to give them this small gift and see how much joy it brought to them.

We took a small amount of money from the bakery funds to pay for food and drinks. It took about 20 minutes driving up and down the beachfront before a suitable place was approved by our security. We were in an isolated place that really wasn't that beautiful, few trees and on the industrial side of Rayong but that didn't seem to discourage anyone from having a wonderful day.

The girls swam in there shirts and long shorts or pants. Afterwards we all enjoyed a lunch of spicy pappaya salad (Som Tum), fried chicken wings, sticky rice and basil and pork. For dessert we had coconut cooked over a fire inside a bamboo leaf, really tasty.

The day was almost perfect, one of my favorite girls-Som was unable to join us because she has been put on probation until January, she would not tell me what she did, she was ashamed and soooo sad to miss the beach outing. I forget all the time that these girls are prisoners, look at their sweet smiles, it's hard to imagine isn't it?

Loy Krathong

Today one of the most important Thai holidays was celebrated at the boys' school-Loy Krathong. The school encourages all students to dress in Thai traditional dress for a day of traditional Thai dancing, lots of Thai food, games...The Thai traditional dress is so colorful albeit quite warm if you wear Thai silk. Parents are invited for the festivities. At the end of the event they give each child the opportunity to float a krathong. Loy means float and Krathong means raft. The Thai people, during a full moon in November float 'rafts' made of banana leaves, flowers, candles...to honor the water goddess. I was so grateful that the school made the krathong offering optional and put it at the end of the day, we left after the traditional dancing and festivities and did not participate in the symbolic ceremony of worshipping an idol.

The secondary school is divided into 4 'houses' and Dustin is head of the Yellow House and represented his house in the costume and interview competition. Each student is asked a random question and have to answer it on the spot. Dustin's question was, "Name someone you admire and why?" Dustin responded, "Abraham Lincoln because he fought for all people to be equal in America. Some may not know why he was called Honest Abe. One time he walked over 10 miles to return change to a woman who had incorrectly gave him too much." Then students and faculty vote on the winner. Dustin won!!! Really proud of him. He just became Yellow House Captain about 2 months ago, a speech was given and the student body voted. Dustin put his speech to song and played the guitar. It was a hilarious song at one point he sang, "if you vote for me we won't just be yellow we will be 24 carat gold!" That saying really took off, all the yellow house is so proud to be known as gold now!! But one mom told me that her 5 year old(who Dustin gives guitar lessons to) jumped on their coffee table one night, buck naked and said, "This isn't yellow this is 24 carat gold!!" She just wanted to thank Dustin for his influence on her little guy!!

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The Rayong Bakery

On Tuesday the Pattaya International Ladies Club made a visit to The Rayong Bakery. The PILC initially helped start the bakery project over 8 years ago by purchasing their industrial ovens, providing training and an outlet to sell their baked goods. The Head of the PILC Welfare board organized the trip for any members that were interested in seeing the project first hand. Nineteen ladies attended the morning visit. I was proud of my girls, they had the kitchen spit-spot. When I visited last week they were scrubbing the floor with toothbrushes, cleaning out the freezer, scrubbing everything from top to bottom. The ladies toured the facility, helped make some bread rolls and eagerly purchased over $300 of the bakery's goods. The bakery is a wonderful example of how a welfare project can become self-sustainable.

Jelly Belly

One of the really special treats that friends have sent us while we have been living in Thailand are Dr. Pepper flavored Jelly Bellies, we love them! You can imagine my excitement to learn that a Jelly Belly factory has opened in Thailand! They are the only factory outside of the US and they take care of all the companies' International business and hope to someday soon be selling their jelly beans in Thailand. They started building the Thai facility two years ago and are still not at 100% capability. The Pattaya International Ladies Club toured the facility on Friday and I joined in. It was so much more interesting than I ever imagined, a lot of work goes into making each individual jelly bean. A 5th generation Jelly Belly founder and his daughter moved here from the California facility and started their International business. The daughter who conducted our tour assured us that we should be able to purchase jelly bellies here soon (sadly, she said Dr.Pepper flavor will not be sold here :( but she advised me to try the cherry coke flavored ones for a nice alternative!) It was a fun day and the boys were so excited to see the gift bag I received full of jelly bellies! A little taste of 'home'!

Planetshakers

Jesus-name above all other names!

Planetshakers Concert

Sunday afternoon several families travelled to Bangkok for a Planetshakers Concert. A Christian group from Australia that travel around the world proclaiming the Good News through music. Mark was unable to attend with us because he is currently in Houston attending some meetings, having a check-up at MD Anderson, and doing some Christmas shopping. With his extra ticket we were able to invite one of the boys' non-christian friends, we continue to pray that some seeds of salvation are being planted in his heart and we will see him come to the saving knowledge of Christ. Dustin and Nathan do not have even one Christian friend in their grade now that the Clarkson family moved.

It was a wonderful time of fellowship with friends and worship. It's quite exciting to see so many Thai believers gathered together praising God. In a country that is less than 1% Christian one can start to feel pretty lonely so it's quite uplifting when many of those are gathered together giving glory to the one, true, living, God.

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