City of Ranong and beyond...

We continue to enjoy showing Lori around our life here since she hasn't been back for so long. When we went to the south in particular this month, she had not had the opportunity to see any of the work that Mike has been doing these past four years with the Moken Sea Gypsies. It was all quite fascinating to her.

First stop was taking her to Mike's favorite restaurant in Ranong that he eats at almost daily.Ranong is famous for several natural hot springs around the town. We stopped to have a look, but could hardly put one foot in the water. The Thai's love sitting in these hot springs around some park areas in the evenings. Early Friday morning, we loaded up the kid's from the new children's home to go out to the islands and visit their villages. Some of them had not been back since school started.

Once on the islands, Lori had a following of little boys wherever she walked. I loved watching these little boys play with handmade small toy boats that they had made. Little boys in most places, play with cars like their Daddy's drive, but these guys are playing with the most common form of transportation that they have grown up with. I also enjoy watching the children play on the sea floor when the tide is out. This sea mud was stinky, dirty, and gross to me- but none-the-less it is their playground. One of the newest baby's born while we were away. The powder supposedly keeps them cooler and is beautiful. Every ones favorite place on the island tends to be sitting on the front bench of the church overlooking the village. The tide is way out here-- but Lori is still taking in the beautiful view and God's creation.

Snorkeling in Trang

The province of Trang is known for having some of the most beautiful islands and beaches in Thailand. While we were at the National Games, our director wanted to give us all a break and a chance to see some of this gorgeous creation by God. He was most amazed at the prices of something like this in Thailand. A full day boat trip to four different islands, including stops at caves, beaches, etc. with lunch and snacks on the boat and snorkeling equipment all cost just under $20. We had such a fun day together.
The first stop was this famous Morakot Cave. I actually had to borrow this photo because I didn't have my camera with me in the water. We had to get off the boat and swim 80 meters through a dazzling sea cave to get to this beach encircled by high steep cliffs. It was unusual beauty and amazing. I will say that getting there was a bit interesting. The guide had around 50 of us hang on to the person in front of us and we couldn't let go, as we moved like a large caterpillar with the waves through the cave. This is part of another group coming back, when they were finally allowed to break free of the worm technique. The group on our boat getting ready with all the equipment for our first stop to snorkel.

Another island with more snorkeling. The coral and fish were pretty colorful.

The cliff on the side of this island was covered with bats. We could hear them squealing and just stood and watched them for quite awhile.

I tried to zoom onto some of them to show how huge they were. You can see them on the far top left of this photo. I was just glad that I was not there at night time, as I'm not a big fan of bats.

Lori has a really cool underwater camera and got some great shots of the day with us underwater too. She put her pictures together on YouTube with a great presentation of her photos. . Have a look at her images here.

Back To Trang

No, I'm not going back down to Trang-- but I never finished sharing from our time at the National Games. We kept on the go non-stop that week, and I have so many photos to share. These are my last hightlights to share.
This was another sport that we found quite fascinating. It was a new sport added this year, Hang-Gliding. This photo was taken of a show that was just for fun after the competition. This is Reid, full time staff with Athletes in Action in the USA, giving our team a little insight on the (not so popular here in Asia) sport of wrestling. Reid himself was a USA National Champion of wrestling from Minnesota.

Part of our team went to the wrestling matches, and here we are once again given the VIP seats up on the stage with the President of the Thailand Wrestling Association.

Ice is in the midst of her shooting competition here. She is a Christian and wanted our team to pray with her each day before her shoot.

We had the opportunity to go to allot of Martial Art Sports which are so popular in Asia.

This is pretty good throw at a Judo match. Boxing for girls is not one of my favorites either, but another popular one.

If there is a chance that you would like to see photos from more of the sports and events we went to, I will include this link to a photo album I made on Facebook of our time at the National Games.

Please continue to pray for the 800 athletes that received the gift DVD's we gave out with testimonies of Christian Olympians. The staff here are now beginning the follow-up process of the stacks of new contacts of interested athletes from our time there.

Kabaddi

One of my favorite games to watch at the National Games was Kabaddi, maybe because it was such a new sport to me. If you are curious about the game you can read more at this Kabaddi website. It reminded me of a complicated game of tag that children play, but very fascinating.

This is two guy teams. The one green player is trying to tag someone on the red team.

They are very quick in their movements. It is very popular in India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
Even the girl teams get very aggressive with each other. Each different sport event at the National games had a table of nurses in complete uniform right next to the playing area at all times.

We always cheered for our home team, no matter what the event of course!

The best way for you to get an idea is to watch this little video footage I took at a game!

Tiang

At the end of our week in Trang, Mike came down to pick up Lori and I and remembered that one of the students in our ministry in Chiang Mai many years ago was now living in Trang. We called her and she immediately came to join us for dinner along with her husband and two children. We were shocked to see Tiang so grown up after knowing her as a young disciple and a university student. That night she insisted that she treat our whole team to the local cultural Trang breakfast the next morning. (Thai hospitality really puts we Americans to shame sometimes) We had been hearing about this famous Trang cultural breakfast, so were ready to enjoy it along with a local. Dinner our first night together.

A Trang cultural breakfast.

The main dish is called Muu Yang. It is slabs of pork with a special sweet sauce on it. This lady is chopping up the pork slabs one ofter another to be served after they have been roasted.

Another specialty is the fried donuts. I couldn't help but think throughout the meal, how my Dr's. instructions to cut down on cholesterol were not happening! The entire meal was a total cholesterol feast. It's fun to watch Asians flip their fried foods with chopsticks. Rolling out the donut dough.

Another specialty is their "Trang Cakes". We were given these as gifts by Tiang to take home, too.

Then as if she had not done enough for us, she told us that she wanted to stop by her children's store as she and her husband own three stores. Mike had been telling her about our ministry and work with the Moken children, and she had been moved to donate some toys for us to give to them. We were amazed as she kept carrying out of the store more and more toys for us to take to the kids. Sweet Tiang is in the back here and Jin and Sao (two of our TCCC staff) were with us.
Here are our wonderful Kids Home parents, Somsak and Uan, the day we gave them the toys. Only the two oldest boys were here for the picture, and the rest of the toys went out to the kids on the islands. Thank you Tiang, for your giving heart toward the Moken kids. They will love the toys, for sure! This one is for you, Caroline; just so you can see that I delivered your notes for you!

Monkey School

Mike has been passing a Monkey School on a road near his work in the south for years. Travelling down the road, he will often see monkeys hanging off the side of trucks and has always wanted to stop at the school. This week, while Lori and I were with him he finally made the stop.The monkey trainer gave the three of us our own private little show where the monkeys started out with the traditional Thai greeting for us.He then had the monkeys demonstrate for us how they twist and turn and bite off the coconuts to get them out of the trees. They are able to pick out exactly which coconuts are ready for harvesting and which ones to leave a bit longer. After the demonstration time, we were given a little time to play with the monkeys if we wanted- but since we all knew they are notorious for biting, we didn't really spend allot of time cuddling with them. Me trying to act relaxed- but wanting him to keep his sharp teeth away from me!After we left the school and as we drove down the road, we continued to see monkeys hanging off the side of trucks full of coconuts on their way home from work, I guess.

This guy seems to be enjoying the wind blowing on his face. The trainer told us that a good monkey after being trained can sell for between $300 and $3000 dollars. Not a bad occupation to consider if cash gets low!

To Burma and Back

When Lori came back with us to Thailand, she was give a 30 day visa. It will expire this week and since we were so close to Burma today, we decided to cross into Burma and get her a new visa. Don't think you can see it here, but the Burmese like to paint designs of white powder on their faces for beauty. This little girl on the boat next to us had a beautiful face. The Welcome to Union of Myanmar sign. Once we got inside to the market, it really didn't look that different from Thailand- but we did notice a few cultural differences. They did have a different style of transportation.

This little guy was our personal boat man who jumped on and off the boat with our passports to get them stamped leaving and arriving in each country. He was also very good at directing the boat in and out of the parking places. We were so impressed with him and he had the sweetest and most helpful nature about him.

You can see him out there pulling our boat into a parking (docking) spot. After the the trip we gave him a tip a little over $1 and he acted like it was $100. Glad we got that task done- and now we can have Lori with us legally for a few more weeks until her next visa run.