Picture Central

Bret's 3-minute tutorial before giving Ryan the keys
and making him drive on the busiest roads in town
on the busiest night of the week.  Nice.

Are you ready for all of these pictures?

1. Ryan’s visit - Bret’s brother flew all the way for a visit in the beginning of January.  It was so refreshing to be with family! We rented him a motorbike and made him drive it around the city after being here for, oh, 5 minutes.  I wish you could hear him tell you all of the hilarious things that happened on that bike! 

Then we did all the touristy things - visited the Royal Flora exhibit honoring the King, an excursion to Sunday night Walking Street night bazaar, and a full-day ATV trek through the jungle (definitely recommended for anyone visiting Chiang Mai).  Ryan even got to guest lecture in the high school health class about Godly decision making. 

Rest time - since 1 of the ATVs
is broken down...again,
and the other has a flat tire. 

In addition to loving that Ryan was coming - we were also excited because with him was coming a suitcase full of goodies from our family.  However, when we picked up Ryan from the airport, there was no suitcase to be found.  Luckily for him all of his supplies were with him in a carry-on.  Apparently our suitcase didn’t make it out of Delhi.  After just a tiny bit of research we found that “once a suitcase gets lost in Delhi it’s as good as gone.”  And apparently Jet Airways is notorious for losing bags! Here are some sweet comments we found spanning several websites about this exact same thing: 

“...almost a month has left and they were not able to track my baggages”

“lost my two suitcases enroute, and what’s more amazing is it was on a direct flight!”

“I did not receive my bag...Today is one week...I still haven’t recovered my bag. This is very frustrating.”

JetAirways was very unhelpful, but Thai Airways worked hard for our cause - helping us contact the right people and being so patient with our many phone calls.  Eventually we spoke with the perfect lady.  She located our bag in Dehli, fought for us when we were told we would have to pay to get it back, and eventually reunited us with our bag.  Thank you!!  After hearing our story, a friend’s dad who travels through India often told us, “With all the traveling I have done,  let me confirm that this is indeed a miracle.  Praise God.”

2.  Soon after we got into our second semester, the boys basketball team had a tournament in Bangkok.  It was a weekend full of basketball.  While it wasn’t quite as exciting as watching our Hoosiers would be, there were lots of cheers and screams that came from my mouth throughout the weekend.  Bret did a great job job leading the boys over the weekend. 

This weekend also adds to our list of the times we’ve been close to terrorists.  Is this something many people can claim?  I suppose lots of people could be close to terrorists...we just know when we have been: 


(A. Flying from Minneapolis to Amsterdam as the Underwear Bomber was flying on the opposite flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, 
B. being in hotel 2 doors down as a bomb went off in a bank in Athens, C. being at the airport the same day a terrorist was arrested in Bangkok)

Us with Rachel and Master Park (the 7th degree black belt)

3. We finished up our extra-full month (actually the month is only half-over isn’t it?) with a send-off dinner in honor of the “modern dance” major who has been leading our stretches and trying to get us to dance in tae kwon do.  We’ll still do TKD regularly - we just won’t have our good friend cheering us on (or laughing at us, taking video of us, and snapping photos).  We love you Rachel! 

Just last night as were riding home on our motorbike past the old city lit up with Christmas light reflecting in the moat, I was praying that God would help me remember this time - specifically this night but also this time in a broader sense.  When we're 80 I want to be able to talk about "when we lived in Thailand" and about seeing God's work there.  I haven't written much recently, but I need to.  This is one way that God will help me remember.