Happy Valentine's Day!

This weekend was filled with celebrations for Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year. Fireworks were going off outside while I was in the shower, and I thought it was our toilet, about to explode! While sitting at dinner the other night, Annie pointed out a red star in the distance. They were "wishes", miniature hot air balloons that people send into the sky with their hopes and dreams...and the first was followed by several others. If we find them here, I'm sending one up (naturally with no indended recipiant). My Valentine's Day gift was so very romantic...Derek surprised me with Calamine lotion!

We visited one of the preschools that Step Ahead supports on Thursday. We spent the morning with about 25 Thai children, helping them to make paper flowers for Valentine's Day. After the project was completed (completely by the 4 teachers and ourselves, since the project was too difficult for the kids), they took turns bowing in front of Derek and myself to say "please" in Thai so that we could give them each a flower and a candy bar. Half of the kids proceeded to shove the candy into their mouths, and the other half felt sorry that they hadn't, because no sooner had all the children received their prize than the teachers promptly collected them to keep until the end of the day.

They sat in a circle in the middle of the room and sang us the ABC song. About half of the kids wore a type of uniform, red shorts and a light purple shirt. I'm not sure what the policy was about dress, because the others were wearing all sorts of random things. We attempted to teach them the Itsy Bitsy Spider when prompted to teach a song (it's the first thing that came to mind), and although they had NO idea what the song was about, they enjoyed teasing us as we tried to make the spider crawl with our fingers. I know there's a trick to it, but I couldn't remember how to do it properly, so we just mangled our fingers until they were satisfied. We were both reminded why Christ was so drawn to children in their innocence...they were adorable!

We had to leave to visit Thai Totes to meet the women that Step Ahead employs. Outside the structure probably 20 monks had gathered, which surprised Maew. They usually aren't found in the villages and rarely leave the temple as a collective. They had gathered to lead the locals in prayer/chants, which we've recorded for your viewing enjoyment.



We met the women who make the bags for Thai Totes and one of them taught me how to sew the leather cuffing on to the bottom of the bag. It is much more difficult than it seems, since you have to stick a very long needle into the bottom and feel around for it inside without jabbing yourself. Then, when you turn it around, you have to stick it through until you get it in the right place, which isn't easy since you're shoving it through thick "straw" strips.

We recently met a group of five men who are visiting. They are all trekking through southeast asia until they either head home or go to a Bible school in Taiwan in March. They are friends of Annie and have added an exciting dynamic to our little group. They work for YWAM (Youth with a mission) and are coming from extensive volunteering in Indonesia. They have been given nicknames by the locals: Crab, Fish, Ocean, Squid and...the last one is escaping me. They're staying at one of our home stays in the local village and are waiting on God to know how long they will be with us. We were given nicknames as well, two days after arriving, since they couldn't pronounce our names correctly. Derek's is pronounced "Da-won" which means Sun, and mine is pronounced "Dao", meaning Star. So, you see, they gave our guests names that were along the same theme...

We held a Valentine's Party yesterday, which was supposed to begin at 4 (that means it actually began at 5) and during the party, the power went out for a good half hour, the longest period we've seen so far. We ate by candle light and enjoyed all the things we had slaved over all day. Derek had helped to roll spring rolls and Annie and I baked a bazillion sugar cookies in our tiny "easy bake" oven, which had one rack and only one small pan that would fit inside. The hot pads were so warn through that it was like grabbing the pan without one, so I let Annie get the cookies out :-) We were struggling to keep the cookie dough cold enough to roll out and the extreme heat was melting them to the counter tops. They turned out well, and helped to satisfy my longing for something with real SUGAR in it. We hid a few away in our little fridge and I'm going to slowly work away at them...I'll save them for a rainy day. That is, unless Derek gets to them first ;-)