now that my computer's plugged in...

ok, so laura peters showed up (weird) and this team from california also showed up, and these three guys from abbotsford also showed up, and they know a bunch of cbc people, like adam nash (also weird). they all showed up on the same day, and so everyone assumed that everyone else was a permanent part of the team. it was mental mayhem for a lot of people.

it was fun to have laura here, we went on an adventure to this market…it’s always a party when you don’t know where you’re going and it’s dark and you finally get off the songthaew so you can ask someone where you are, and then you ask this guy which way the market is and he points, and then you ask him if it’s faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar (holding your hands far apart) or close (bringing them close together). can you walk (mime walking) or should you take a motorcycle taxi (point to his motorcycle)? he stares at you blankly for a minute, and then says ‘no thai?’ of course no thai. it turns out that the market was less than a block away.

dao got sick the other day, and was running a fever, which is always scary, but he’s ok now. he went to vbs tonight (the california team is running it) so i’d say he’s fine.

we (the california team and i) went to lorenso house on monday, where the boys used to live before the came here. it’s a tidy little orphanage with about twenty children, and four full-time nuns. we did a mini-vbs for them, and they had a riot. it shocked me when i first met our boys, and again yesterday, to see how healthy these kids are. i mean, externally speaking. the sisters said that when they first come to lorenso, they are usually sickly and frail, but that with proper care and God’s grace, most of them plump out. the others die. she said that if they are faithful with their medicines, they can live to be twenty or thirty years old. this is a long life with HIV by thailand standards, but so short…i want my boys to have girlfriends and go to college and get married and have children and grandchildren…i wasn’t really prepared for it to be this hard. at their last check-up, the boys were all pronounced healthy as horses, and they certainly eat like baby wolverines. the team is all fairly optimistic about their chances. when gunniga disciplines them, i know that she does so believing that they will live forever, and wanting them to grow up to be men of God. still, we have no idea what His plan is, and it’s not always the one we would have chosen.