We enjoyed our short stay in Pai and yesterday made the 5 hour drive to Mua Suai and then on to Chiang Rai last night. What a day! We met our friends, Kirk, Suzi and kiddos yesterday in their little village. Suzi and Kirk came to Thailand over 20 years ago with Wycliff ministries for Bible translation. They have been diligently working with the Bisu people in their tiny village of about 200 people ever since. They inspire me to the max! They originally started working with the Bisu people and for 7 years only knew of a handful of people that spoke the language, pretty much just their small village. They were discouraged and after 7 years only 2 people had come to Christ in this very superstitious, amniest tribe. They began to question their life work and then through some very strange circumstances learned of a group of Bizu people in Burma and then shortly after that found a community of Bisu people in China, the suddenly found 1000's that were in need of the Bible and so excited for their language to be written, recorded, remembered for all time. If you think of them pray for the Bisu people, they have seen 6 people come to Christ in 20+ years, the first being a blind woman-the blind will see!!! The Bisu people cooked for us and we loved their food, you eat everything with your hands, or use the sticky rice as a scoop. It was fun. Afterwards, they showed us the Powerpoint presentation they show churches and I cried through some of their testimony. They are my unsung hereos. Suzi is from Baylor and her parents live in Ft.Worth. So humbling and challenging to see how slow their work has been but how God has encouraged them and sustained them at just the right moment. They have lots of those 'goose pimple' stories!!! They took us in to Burma, and they were sooo helpful, they speak Thai, Northern Thai, and Bisu-great to have as tour guides. It's so funny, we were in the middle of no where and there is a pie place about 20 min from the Bisu village. A Thai lady who lived in Los Angeles at one time has set up this Pie place near Mua Suai, what a treat!!!! We went there and all had old-fashioned chocolate, lemon, apple, coconut....pies with meringue. Too weird to be in the middle of no where eating pie with flaky crusts!!! Our driver enjoyed it too. Suzi says it was weird to have us in their tiny village, surreal meshing our lives together. Texas girls in a hidden Northern Thailand village together. The Bisu people cooked for us and we loved their food but you have to eat everything with your hands, or use the sticky rice as a scoop. It was fun. If you think of them pray for the Bisu people, they are strong in their animists beliefs, they have seen 6 people come to Christ in 20+ years, the first being a blind woman-the blind will see!!!

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Driving Thailand Oct.2012

One thing that we have not done during our time here in Thailand is drive to Northern Thailand. I've taken an overnight train ride to Chiang Mai, I've flown up to Chiang Mai a couple of times but driving up to the mountains of Thailand has always been on Mark's 'to-do' list. Songkran, our driver, agreed to drive us and Ethan, Mark and I are taking advantage of the half-term break this week at their school to do just that! Dustin stayed at home to work on course work for his IB curriculum while Nok, our housekeeper looks out for him. We drove about 9 hours our first day to reach Sukhothai, the first ancient kingdom of Thailand, where the original Thai alphabet was born. We spent the morning exploring the ruins of the ancient temples of the city after enjoying our lovely, Thai, hotel before driving to our next destination of Pai. Mark and I figured it would take approx. 4 more hours to reach Pai. After 11 (!) hours of terribly, curvy, mountain, roads that were at some points not paved; we finally arrived. We LOVE our driver, Songkran, but we were so lost yesterday!! We definitely were on the non-tourist track which I usually enjoy so much, but we had planned to meet some friends in Pai for dinner-we rescheduled for breakfast. Having a driver is an experience, it is quite a blessing for Mark at times, he gets tons of work, phone calls made... while commuting back and forth to work. We only know one other family that has been here as long as we have that have their original driver. We have friends that have had over 25 drivers in 4 years. We are so thankful for Songkran, he has never had a sick day, he has requested a couple of days off to visit his sick father, he has only been late two times in over 4 years. He has a great personality, he likes to laugh-sometimes at inappropriate times but is just a jolly, nice guy. He initially was unsure about taking a week away from his family and driving us up North but eventually said he wanted the work and extra pay. He said he had driven North many times. When we initially set off he handed us a map to follow along and never once have I seen him reference it in the car.I was impressed-at first. Mark was reading, watching the sites, dozing and I occasionally was trying to figure out where in the world we were. I just couldn't figure out the route Songkran was taking but was trying not to fret about it and leave the driving to him. Most of the road signs were in Thai only. It is a weird thing having a full time driver, I never tell him how to drive, I don't screech when we almost run in to someone, I set in the back seat and for the most part am oblivious to where and how I'm being driven around-I wish I could do a better job of that when Mark is in the driver's seat. After driving 8 hours out-of-the-way I wish I would have stepped in and said something earlier. It was a most trying day but we saw lots of things that most tourists will never see that is for sure!!! I was about ready to scream/cry in the back seat by the time we found our resort but am thankful that we arrived safe and sound FINALLY. One other note, we try to speak another language, "Codespeak" when we are all in the car and don't want Songkran to understand what is being said. Our Spanish is very limited so we try to use a 'BIG' vocabulary. It can be hilarious. Yesterday I am saying stuff like, "I think we may need to reference the atlas, as our route seems to be muddled." It can be pretty funny, yesterday, Ethan would say, "What are ya'll talking about?" and I just have to say, "Codespeak" and he knows that we are trying to talk about Songkran without his knowing. Man! I wish I knew more Spanish!but we are working on increasing our vocabulary while having a driver!

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Summer 2012

We had a very busy, hectic summer and I was just terrible in taking pictures, not many memories captured on photo:( I've got to do better! But I did want to post the few that I have stored in our files. Someday this blog will be my photo album/journal and the only stored memory I will have of Summer 2012! Lots of things happened this summer. Dustin spent the summer serving as a music intern at Cornerstone Church in Jackson Hole, Wy. He is worse than me in taking photos and thus I have none from his entire summer:( Nathan participated in two short term medical mission projects. One with FAME ministry and he was working along side a medical team in the Dominican Republic. The second was stateside in Pennsylvania working with Joni and Friends. There are just a few pictures on his facebook page to commerate those experiences:( Ethan attended Camp Travis in Austin and otherwise travelled around with me all summer, lugging our suitcases everywhere! We spent the first two weeks of the summer with Aunt Lola in LaPorte, TX. It was so fun to be able to so many friends from when we lived in that area. Nearly every morning I took a long bike ride in old LaPorte, to Sylvan Beach, past our old church, just thorougly enjoyed the cooler temperatures and down time. We then flew to Los Angeles where Mark was auditing a refinery in Los Angeles for two weeks. During that time Nathan was in the DR. Ethan and I enjoyed checking out LA-Universal Studios, we took a Hollywood tour-thought it was amazing that Billy Graham had a star on the Walk of Fame?! We went to a Cirque-Soliel performance that was awesome. Dustin flew down for one week and we toured colleges with him. USC, UCLA, UC at San Diego, Biola, Master's and Pepperdine. What a busy week! He is busy applying to Biola (1st choice), Master's, UCLA and UC at San Diego. Then Mark, Ethan and I flew to Denver, Colorado and met my parents and Nathan there. My parents had been to the Calgary Stampede rodeo and were driving home. Nathan flew in from PA. My parents actually got to spend time with Dustin in WY, visit the church he interned at and spend time with his host family. We then ALL (it was quite crowded with 6 adults in a pick-up-my boys are all man size now!)drove to Clovis, NM to spend time in their home. We celebrated Nathan's 18th Birthday there and all the family that lives near helped us honor him. Sadly, it was the first birthday that Dustin and Nathan were apart from each other:( signs of the times! they are growing up!!!! Nathan, Ethan, Mark and I then drove to Houston for MD Anderson appointments. Both Mark and my Mom had good reports. My parents flew to Houston and met us there after attending Bob Herndon's funeral. Ethan stayed with my parents in Houston while Mark and Nathan flew to Virginia for college tours and Dustin flew in and we flew straight to University of Michigan for Dustin to visit their music school. Nathan is wanting to attend a Nursing program. He has already been accepted to Liberty but will also apply to University of Virginia, VCA and James Madison. So many big decisions for our family in the coming year. Dustin and I had a wonderful time in Michigan. The weather was just perfect! We stayed with friends of ours from Thailand that had just relocated back to Michigan. They live in the most peaceful town of Holly, MI. We had fun trekking with them and we also took a two hour kayak trip through some beautiful country. Dustin and I flew back to Houston to retrieve Ethan. Mark enrolled Nathan in his final year at Fork Union Military Academy in VA, two weeks early for him to attend Officer's Training. He is heavily involved in leadership at the Academy this year. He is over a platoon and is serving on the Honor Council, they hear all cases and decide if cadets will be dismissed from the Academy for infractions. He is also President of the Interact Club and on the Rifle Team. Dustin, Ethan and I then flew to DC and Mark met us there and we returned to Thailand. It was exhausting!!! I was so ready to get out of our suitcases and be home in Thailand. Any way, I'll post the pitiful pictures I managed to take this summer-sad!

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