A different kind of Easter

Decorating the church for Easter

Kids making papaya salad

Jeab in red! She's doing a lot better.

Two new Easter albums: http://picasaweb.google.com/briswann . There's a lot to report on this entry, so grab a drink and snack (maybe some leftover Easter chocolate) and get comfortable. I'll number them:

1. making pad Thai with students


2. another visa run


3. Easter celebrated differently this year
4. Jeab's recovery!
5. jellyfish and soccer
6. kids' classes at Step Ahead

So here goes: 1) We had another great meal with the famous cook, Jit, who's been one of my favorite students ever since I got here. She and 3 other ladies, also students here, came over and showed us how to make pad Thai. However, even though it was the 2nd time around for me to watch, it's very complicated and I still don't think I could do it on my own. It was probably the best pad Thai I've ever eaten- Taste of Thai, sorry- NO comparison. :)

2) Ok, this visa run takes the cake for number of complications and severity of motion sickness. To make a long story short, on the bus ride to Ranong, I had the barf bag out and ready (though I'd taken some motion sickness meds, a new kind though), but by an act of God I managed not to throw up. I thought I'd die. I wanted to. For the motorcycle taxi which drove me a total of approximately 15 minutes- but waited for me while I went on the boat- I paid 4x the amount of money I paid to take a two-hour bus ride from Kuraburi to Ranong! Then I was put on a boat w/ 2 Swedes, a Philipino lady and her cute little daughter, which would've been no problem except that they wanted to stay in Burma and shop for about 2-3 hours, whereas I wanted to head straight back to Ranong- as soon as possible. The boat guys wanted me to take the same boat back w/ them, but I said absolutely not- I had dinner plans that evening w/ the Australian family I'd stayed w/ in Kuraburi! After paying a bit extra in baht for having a $10 bill that wasn't "new and crisp enough," according to the Burmese officials who stamped my passport, I thought I was ready to return to Ranong. As punishment for not wanting to return on the same boat as the Swedes and Philipinos, they put me on the slowest boat, which stopped approximately every few meters to pick up Burmese and Thais. We must've had 15 people crammed on that little fishing boat. The whole boat trip including the haggling over the $10 bill on the Burmese side took 3 hours; it should've only taken 1. On the bright side of all this, I met a nice German guy on the bus ride back, and I had a lovely time w/ the Austrlian family in Kuraburi. I stayed 2 nights w/ them, and they had 2 guests from their home church who were helping w/ a water project in a nearby village. We played a fun dice game the first evening and went out to eat the 2nd evening. I love spending time w/ the Higgs, who are so sweet and so much fun. We seem to have similar preferences in books and theology as well. On the final leg of my journey back to Bang Niang, the bus driver asked for my phone number- but he asked one of the bus attendants to ask me for it. I didn't give it to him, but when I was waiting at the front to get off at my stop, I had a good laugh w/ the 2 bus attendants and the driver, and they complimented me on my Thai. They asked me how many years I'd been here already. :)

3) On Saturday, we had an especially fun morning w/ the kids at church. After some songs and teaching, they cooked lunch! They did a great job. And we decorated the church together. On Sunday morning, we had a candlelight sunrise service and ate rice porridge w/ garlic, ginger and cilantro for breakfast (have you ever had rice porridge on Easter morning?). We sang songs- really funny too, b/c they didn't sound like hymns or traditional Easter songs; they sounded like oldies- I mean 60s rock! And we played a game where we passed around a plate of boiled eggs, chopped in half and w/ candles stuck in them, and when the music stopped, whoever was holding the plate had to eat one and feed one to his neighbor on each side! Then we went home between services and had our usual service at 10. That was really nice. The kids- including the ones from our Saturday class- sang a special song- "prajao bpen kwam rak"- God is love. Paul's brother Mark was visiting for a few days, so it was really nice to get to know him a bit as well. Now he and Paul are off traveling in Chiang Mai.

4) Jeab, our housekeeper, has recovered for the most part! Praise God. She came to the Easter services and today was her first day back at work at Step Ahead.

5) I've been playing soccer w/ the boys at the beach lately, which is great. I really, really miss doing competitive sports, but I find it really hard to organize people to do anything here. Benz played tonight, too, which made me glad to not be the only girl. Unfortunately, after the first match we all went into the sea and I got stung by a jellyfish in about 5 different spots. These jellyfish are not dangerous ones, but it sure did hurt anyway! There were never any jellyfish around the first 5 1/2 months that I was here, but for some reason, there are lots of them right now. Almost everybody has been stung- Paul, El, and some of Paul's friends who were visiting.

6) Lastly, Liz and El are teaching a kids' class at Step Ahead while the kids have their vacation from school. It's great! Today was the first day. Jit's kids are studying w/ us, too.

Done!