a few more stops.

After our trip to the jungle, we stopped through Bangkok and Chiang Mai on our way home. These were really wonderful stops: we saw a couple in Bangkok that lived in Mae Sot with us last year; we had some wonderful meetings and spent time with friends in Chiang Mai. And we took some random photos to document it all!

We went to see Catching Fire on opening night in Bangkok, which was pretty amazing. And it was a little bit fun to know that us seeing it on Thursday night at 5:30pm in Thailand was way ahead of many of you. For once in a very long while, we felt trendy!

We also found this shirt in an Adidas store, and we’re just not sure their marketing team thought this through. With all the human trafficking that is happening around the world, it might not be a good idea to wear a shirt that declares you a predator.

There is another new mall in Chiang Mai, complete with an ice skating rink! It is quite small, but a hilarious experience to watch. In America, most of us have at least experienced ice, whether it is on roads or sidewalks or rinks. For Thais, there is very little ice experience in their lives, so you have a host of adults and kids alike that are horrible at ice skating. No one is going fast, and most are just barely scooting across the floor.

We stayed with our wonderful friend, Sacha, who also happens to have a piano in her house! A real piano! {I’m not sure if this is common knowledge, but the climate here isn’t ideal for keeping pianos in tune, so they are very rare, and keyboards are used. I can’t think of one in Mae Sot, and she is the only one I know of in Chiang Mai.} Stephen loved the chance to play, and I loved the chance to listen and sing along while I wrote out addresses to our Christmas cards!

And then we went to see Catching Fire again with Sacha! Feel free to judge us, I suppose. Movie tickets are pretty reasonably priced here, and in Chiang Mai they were playing Catching Fire in 4DX. What is 4DX, you say? Since you don’t live in Asia: it is a new technology developed in South Korea. It adds a “fourth dimension” to movie watching–your seat moves and there are external elements including smoke in the room, a variety of scents, water sprayed on you, and blasts of air. 

It is just as weird as it seems.

But Catching Fire was super fun to see with all the extra elements. And it was fun to see with friends and laugh at all the oddities of having blasts of wind come at you and splashes of water falling on your head. You can also opt out of the water if you choose…

Amidst all of this we had meeting after meeting in Chiang Mai. In some ways, this was so good–God is good! We have had so many questions over the past few months, and there have been so many struggles. We have been really unsure about the future.

At one point as we were headed up the stairs for yet another meeting, Stephen stopped me and turned me around to say, “We’re on the same team, okay? …We’re on the losing team, but we’re on the same team…” It made me burst into laughter, and it made me really, really thankful that Stephen is hilarious. Laughter has gotten us through countless difficult days.

And in many ways, we still are unsure. We still don’t know most things about the future. But God has been so present in all the questions. And we had some very hopeful conversations in Chiang Mai: not necessarily that we found answers, but that God provided direction. We know where we’re headed, even if we don’t know what awaits us.

I say all this to communicate that we are hopeful.

However, throughout this trip, I have never been more homesick for Mae Sot. I just ached for being in our own home and in this shady little town we call home now. I’m not really sure why, but I just ached for it. 

And it was really just as lovely as I thought it would be to come home.
More on that to come.