There are about a million ways to title this post. Most are song titles to the best music of the year.

Stephen has been busy–very, very busy–on Partners’ Christmas video, due out at the beginning of October, and it has made our house feel very Christmas-y! I can hardly wait. The kids are pretty much just confused.

Here are some behind-the-scenes of his genius.

Guys, he created the music himself. He took a classic Christmas tune in the public domain and made it his own, which he then recorded and mixed on seven instruments: guitar, ukelele, cajon, piano, bells, bass and drums.

Wow. (!!)

A sweet couple photo lost and then found amidst the chaos!

While recently in Chiang Mai fora few days, we took a date night.

I love date nights in Chiang Mai. You probably won’t see anyone you know. The restaurant choices feel endless, and the delicious restaurant choices feel inexhaustible. And then there are movies and coffee shops and other things that stay open past 9pm!

And on this date night, we enjoyed a leisurely dinner and went to see Jobs, which Stephen was so excited even made it to Thailand, let alone while we were in Chiang Mai.

We had a little time in between that we browsed the mall, making our only purchase of two new puzzle games for the neighbor kids.

Dinner for two: $13
Movie for two: $6
Puzzles for countless little friends: $16
….having little friends that aren’t even yours, but you miss them in less than 24 hours: priceless.

In a whirlwind of returning from the last trip and heading out to another, we got two packages in the mail!

Everyone kept telling us that the packages would die off as we were here longer, especially after people came to visit and saw that we didn’t really have it that bad. 

I’m happy to say that they haven’t! We have families and friends that really have blessed us beyond measure–allowing us to be here and sending us treasures across very expensive oceans. Treasures that sometimes taste delicious or are really soft or just familiar, in the very best way possible.

I was looking through some photos for a blog while Lay Tah Oo, nearly four years old, played with magnets–and tried to play with everything else within reach. He came over to see what I was doing after I said no to everything but magnets.

“Kelli!” He shouted and pointed to me in a photo.

I switched over to the neighborhood photos, and he started pointing out his sister and friends. He was on a roll, but never pointed to himself, who is (admittedly) in a lot of (adorable) photos.

I pointed to him and asked, “Who is that?”
He looked back at me confused.
“Is that Kelli?”
“No.”
“Is that Yuh Meh Oo?” (That’s his sister, who was next to him in the photo.)
“Yes!”
“No, that’s not Yuh Meh Oo. Yuh Meh Oo is right here. Who is that?”
“Awh Awh Lay?”

He didn’t know what he looked like!  I tested it a few more times–we flipped through photo after photo, and he found all of his friends, saying all of their names clearly. He found a cell phone and other objects in the photos–but couldn’t identify even one photo of himself.

In some ways, it makes sense–mirrors aren’t common in their living situation, or even really in this country. When we have the Partners truck borrowed at our house, the kids like to look at themselves in the shiny bumpers.  We have just one mirror in our bathroom, and that’s it.  I never really see myself from shoulders down.

But he’s almost four!

Stephen decided to try to teach him.

He showed him what he looked like in the mirror, which he thoroughly enjoyed. And then we showed him the photos, and how they looked the same.

We’ll probably be teaching this a few more times, and perhaps adding a mirror to the community space!

Remember this post about gambling, arrests, and loaning money? It was probably one of the more complicated periods of time in our neighborhood, and it hasn’t really ended in some ways. Since loaning Mong Ey the money to avoid being jailed, we came home in the middle of the day to find her and a few friends gambling in our yard, where they felt they couldn’t be arrested behind our gate. We had to be quite forceful to say we don’t agree with her gambling illegally, and the key for our gate that we gave her for the garden & safety was not be used for gambling. If we found her gambling again, we would take away the key, and they wouldn’t be able to use the garden while we weren’t there or store their bicycles in their for safety.

It is really difficult to extend grace; it is really difficult to know how to be loving and how to not be walked on. It is really difficult to know what to do in controversial, cross-culture situations, and it’s even more difficult in a language you are learning. Every sentence becomes such a carefully and limitedly worded effort!

I have wondered if we did the right thing to give her the money, to be direct about the gambling, to be so forceful with the language I barely know. Would we still be friends? Has the relationship changed completely?

I still don’t know the answers to most of these questions or any of the other million questions I ask. But when we got back from our trip, we did receive payment back of the 1,000 baht (about $30) we loaned! It came in this little pink envelope.

It might not mean much to you, and maybe it shouldn’t mean that much to me, but I felt so thankful. It was like a symbol of friendship, of mutual respect. In some ways it has showed us that all the really difficult conversations have made the friendship deeper.

So we’re thankful!

This neighborhood gives some of the best welcomes I can fathom.

There is something really lovely about returning from a trip and struggling to get up to your front door amidst a crowd of people shouting your name, taking your bags, and helping you unlock your door.  There are the comments on haircuts and who has been sick.

And then we just settle in to all the familiar smells and sounds and faces, which we love.

It is just good to be here, in a home that God has really given us a grateful heart for.

We are still in the middle of many difficult decisions and choices, all of which we are praying through and attempting to share as we can. On this particular evening, I had been in tears praying through some things we just don’t know the answers to, and Stephen pulled out his guitar to sing some worship songs together. He played, we sang, and this little sweetheart came to the door to listen. We invited her in and she crawled on my lap to listen as we sang and sang and sang. I have never met an eight-year-old that wanted to be held and cuddled as much as this one.

We then played a few games of Memory, and she womped us every time because she has the bends and tears on the cards memorized. And then a few more joined, and we all headed to the kitchen.  Stephen worked on a couple household projects while four little girls sat and ate yogurt, playing Angry Birds, taking turns using the bathroom, and laughing their little hearts out.

And this, among many other little moments right outside our door, make this home so good to be welcomed back to.