Stickywrites

The word for Thanksgiving in Thai literally translates to: “Day Thank You God.”  I thought this a very appropriate name since this expresses the true meaning of why we celebrate this day in America. 

We planned a Thanksgiving Outreach dinner at the Henry’s house together with them, and we invited many of our English students here at New Community.  Crystal & Paul Henry invited many of their new friends from the University campus.  We probably had about 20-30 people there for the night, so praise God for bringing all our Thai friends there that we invited and for making our food spread around and feed everyone.  Both Crystal & I were nervous about our dishes being able to feed everyone since in Thailand many foreign ingredients are very sparse and expensive, and ovens are conventional, small toaster size, not big ones like we have in America.  So only one small casserole dish or pie can be cooking at one time.  Anyway, God provided of course!, and we were able to make a ton of food in time for our guests’ arrival: Green Bean Casserole (thanks to Kim for french fried onions loan), Squash Corn Casserole, Cranberry Sauce, Applesauce (a la Jean Bronson), Grits Casserole, Pecan & Pumpkin Pie, Turkey, Gravy & Stuffing, Sweet Potato Casserole, Mashed Potatoes, and – my favorite – Guacamole and Chips!  I know that sounds like a strange combination, but when you haven’t had guacamole in 2 months youll do whatever you have to do to make it happen.

After we ate and i had explained the normal American custom of eating alot and then sitting around, watching football and then napping on Thanksgiving (which all my friends thought was totally bizarre – they also couldn’t believe how many times I went back for more food) we broke in the Henrys’ new kareoke machine and sang until almost midnight!  Kareoke is very common and popular here.  It was a blast and we are so thankful for the night going well and the scrumptious food. 

Thank You God Day was wonderful for us to enjoy the food, the company, and get to know our Thai friends better.  Thanks for your prayers about this.

Two weeks ago we moved into our new townhome – praise God for a smooth move that went well – nothing too big broke.  We were grateful to be have use of a car to help us move, and it only took 3 trips and half the day to get moved.  Thanks to the Henry’s for helping us clean & move and for a visiting family, The Coiners, for helping us on our move-in day.  God really provided for us – with furniture, all our provisions that we needed, 2 families to help us, and encouragement!  Thank you!So while we have been getting acclimated to life in the new house , we are also getting to know our new roommates: geckos, carpenter ants, cotton-eating ants, wolf spiders (ugh!), and — mice.  We are okay with the bugs, but the first morning in our home sweet home, I woke up to Andrew whispering softly, “Don’t be alarmed, okay, but there’s a small mouse hanging out in our bathroom.”   Why would that alarm me you say?  Well, it didn’t at first.  I actually thought he looked rather harmless, innocent and scared looking up at me sweetly from inside the trash can. But then when I (calmly) went downstairs to enjoy a bowl of cornflakes, I saw the havoc he wreaked in our house all through the night and went tearing back upstairs to destroy the intruder.  He had left droppings all through the downstairs living room, bathroom, kitchen, and had climbed an entire flight of stairs, entered our bedroom, entered our bathroom and then decided to play in the trash can and rip up shreds of tissue.  He also chewed up my houseshoes that I wear everyday!  (No one wears shoes inside of any house here in Thailand.)  This incensed me greatly, so his life ended a few short minutes later after a brief battle that involved an empty toilet paper roll, alot of squeaky mousy shrieks (from both parties) and a trash bag tied in a very “airtightish” way. Just thought you’d like to hear about some of my daily adventures in our new place.  p.s – Did you know mice could JUMP super-high?