Our travels left us a little over-done.
International flights generally board about one hour before departure, so we patiently sat down and our metal cylinder filled with passengers on a completely full flight. We then waited, and waited some more, while occasional announcements were made using words like problems, troubleshooting, and delay.
I kept using words like claustrophobia and Are you serious?! as they turned off the engine for said troubleshooting and sweat began to drip off of hundreds of people.
We waited for an additional TWO HOURS in a fully-loaded aircraft before we took off for an 11-hour flight.
I also de-boarded with my barf bag, which is never a good sign.
But then we landed sunny-side up in Mae Sot!
We were welcomed home to kids running up to the car. We had a whole crowd gathered around while we stood outside and pulled out our set of keys that unlock our bicycles. While organization used to be one of my stronger attributes, it is failing me more and more, and I had packed away the keys that had our house key on it. We then proceeded to open all of our bags on the porch in 100 degree heat while we laughed and explained to our neighbors that we didn’t have our keys! They were at least very intrigued to discover what we bring back with us from America.
We made our rounds about the community and caught up with families and saw how babies have grown. We enjoyed our gifts of soy milk and fish noodles and fried tofu. Per usual, we were told over and over again how fat and white we are after coming back from the States. This time we even received a few fat and beautifuls, so I guess that’s an improvement.
We also had the chance to be welcomed home by our new neighbors, which we are really excited about! While we were away, two great friends of ours, Kelvin & Laura, moved into the house next to us–the other side of our duplex! The goal is for us to be working toward community together–in this Burmese community as well as between us as English-speakers.
We are so absolutely excited about this as it unfolds, and our welcome back was a reminder of why community is such a blessing! We walked into a freshly mopped house–which is more of a blessing than I can say. This means we didn’t have two months worth of dust and dirt, cockroaches, ants, or anything else that would have decided to move in! They also made us dinner for that first night back, so we were able to unpack, enjoy a delicious meal and conversation, and then sleep. Really?
Basically, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, in a place where we are already thankful for such beautiful friendships!
God is good, and we are sunny-side up 🙂