More from Thailand

Well, the past week was quite different from the rest so far. We had company! Bro. Tom, Krinny, Ann and Pookie all came up on Wednesday. David talked to Bro. Tom about how things are going and the information we have collected so far. We also had a good time playing Dutch Blitz at night and going on a picnic at a waterfall. Friday afternoon the Lang family joined us, and we all enjoyed supper at Canadian Dave's. Saturday morning everyone left for the Hmong camp and boy, was it ever quiet! Just like whenever I travel, a few things got left behind, but we'll just take Krinny's shoes and Pookie's garlic with us next weekend when we meet the Gaudets in Chiang Mai:) We are looking forward to a little trip out of Mae Sot, but please pray for travelling safety as David will be driving us up over the mountain road.
I guess I should confess that the miserably hot weather here the past few days is all my fault. I complained about the rain, and the last two days have been unbelievably hot. As in, I bought an umbrella to protect my skin from the sun. I would really love it to be pouring buckets right now, really.
Yesterday morning I made a big mistake. I decided it was cool enough to wear my floor-length denim skirt. We went to Gospel Baptist Church for the 9:00am English service, like we usually do. After that, we decided to go find the Karen church that a lady at Handicap International invited us to. She had drawn us a little map, but it's actually not far from our house. Well, as soon as I got out of the truck I knew I was in trouble. It was hot outside, but I could feel the heat coming out through the open doors of the church building. Too late! We went in and sat down...just out of reach of the fan. If I leaned forward I could just barely feel some air moving, but not much. Thankfully, I had my popsicle fan to move the blazing hot air around:) David was even suffering. The service started at 11:00ish, so we figured it would be over around 12:00 or so. Nope, it was about 1:15, and I was actually getting dizzy from the heat and hunger (and need to pee, of course). It was a really neat service, although we couldn't understand anything because it was all in Karen, which is different from Burmese, and not even close to Thai. Anyway, we went to the Canadian for lunch. I had a big fat burger and fries and , yes, I had a coke:) Chugged half of it as soon as he put it down. SO! I've decided I will pack my long denim skirt into the bottom of my suitcase and forget about it until I get home and it's 50 degrees:)
Today we went to Burma to renew our visas. It's hard to believe it's that time already! We still had a few days, but sometimes they close the border so we didn't want to get stuck. 1000 Baht per day if you have an expired visa, no thank you. We should have learned from yesterday to go early, but we didn't get to the bridge until almost 10:00. It was already hot and I had the umbrella out and open! We filled out the Thai paperwork and the walked over into Burma. Well, we thought Mae Sot was dirty and poor, but Burma was nothing like our little town. SO filthy, and the poverty is heartbreaking. The people just sit and try to sell their wares, and stare at the white people. We went and saw two temples, and then walked around the market. Of course since we were going into Burma, today I woke up really nauseous. The market was about all I could handle. I kept gagging, and David just said, "If you need to ralf, just ralf." Thanks. But I did hold onto my breakfast (I figured out that it's much easier if you breathe through your mouth). The smell of fish and rotten chicken was everywhere. We had planned on spending a good long while over there, but after about two hours we came back. I was still gagging, and it was REALLY hot. Walking back over into Thailand was like coming home! It seemed so clean, and the people were so much more hopeful and purposeful. We did get our passports stamped, so we have officially been to Myanmar!
We came back here to the house and I went upstairs to sleep for an hour. I can't seem to get enough sleep these days! Or drink enough water. I drink liter after liter and I'm still thirsty. Thanks Sticky Bean!
David just commented that now in our family 1+1=3:)