Two pictures from the day! New braid and waiting for a sungtao in the rain.
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Today was lice picking day! If you think this is gross just move past this paragraph and pictures. We used conditioner and saran wrap to suffocate the little boogers. We have been walking around for 2 hours looking like this.
We came to the conclusion that with this look, we all resemble our fathers. So here we are in all of our glory. David, David, Ren, and Kurt!
Now for the photo shoot. (By the way, most girls would NOT post such horrific pictures of themselves.)
HOTTIES.
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In Thailand, you can’t wake up slowly. You can’t mope around for 20 minutes until you wake up completely. Why you might ask? Because you are immediately put in head to head battle with a variety of creatures. Some mornings it is lizards on your kitchen table. Other mornings it might be a cockroach that looks like it could eat you for breakfast. For Breanne the other morning it was a lice crawling on her shoulder. It might be 200 ants that are crawling on your pillow, computer, or backpack. Or it could be the creature from one of the first blogs that we thought was a leach. We later figured out it was a dried up snail. Well yesterday morning, it was something a little different for Taylor. As I walked downstairs, I immediately popped into defense mode when I saw the look on Taylor’s face. She pointed to the ceiling and I looked up and found this guy.
An asian giant hornet. This hornet was the length of my index finger and its wings spanned even further. Then it began chasing Taylor throughout the living room. When I say chasing, I mean that I could practically see the evil in it’s eyes as it was zooming towards her head. I got brave and grabbed a towel. Hm smart choice, a soft towel. It landed on the door and I smacked it with the limp towel. To my surprise it did not kill it. It fell stunned to the ground. I immediately ran and grabbed a yoga mat. Maybe a little smarter, but not much. Then Taylor got brave and opened the door and the dizzy hornet flew out the window. I think we can say we won this battle. Maybe.
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We have been so blessed with this incredible house to live in! We have awesome neighbors, the house is beautiful, and rent is so cheap. One of the best thing about this house is the banana tree that is on the side of the house! We had only glanced at it until a few days ago. We went to look for bananas, and we had a bunch! Get it?
We are getting so excited to chop those suckers down and eat bananas for days and days. The fruit in Thailand is absolutely amazing. It makes me cringe thinking about the fruit section at Walmart.
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We are trying to get used to the rain here. It was a quick switch into rainy season. This means being hit in the face by rain on the ride home in a Tuk Tuk or Sungtao. Or being caught in a down pour on our run. Or trying to figure out how to get out clothes to completely dry. The mildew smell is becoming a day to day smell that we might never get used to. Our shoes...towels...or clean clothes that won’t dry. Somehow the rain is always refreshing and exciting to us though! We are the ones outside slipping around and laughing while the neighbors look at us like we are crazy. Our excitement might come from the fact that we are from a drought infested land!
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There is something here that we have been talking about recently. We love the work we get to do here. It is the biggest blessing to all of us. And we have already mentioned that sometimes the language barrier makes it really difficult for us to interact. We are thankful for the lesson that God is teaching us about our actions. But there is another lesson that might be bigger in all of this. We have come here to love on some Agape kids. This kind of work is really really important, and we are here because the Lord made it very clear that it is where we are supposed to be. But it teaches us something about our lives at home. There is work that God has for us every day. Not just the 10 weeks that He told us to go to Thailand. Not just the other weeks we have spent in other countries following his calling. Not just the week that carries the title as “mission trip”. No. Yesterday He had work for you to do. Today He does as well. Taking the stuff we have learned about the power of love, we see that there is a lot of hurting and searching people at home. Sadly, sometimes it takes a step out of the business and hustle of our lives at home to see this. There are people right in front of you that just need love.
We talked about this verse that we pass over so nonchalantly sometimes.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12: 30-31
Loving the kids at Agape is easy. We are certain that if each one of you came here, your heart would explode from the outrageous love you would have for these kids. We are not doing anything extraordinary here. We just simply did what the Lord told us to do. And through that he has said, “ Hey girls, your neighbors at home need some love too. I could have slapped you in the face with this lesson at home, but I wanted to teach you by showing you love that is saving lives.”
In the documentary Furious Love a guy phrases it so perfectly. He talks about what the Lord has said to him, “Stop trying to change people. Just love them and let me change them.” Here is something that Tyler sent me the other day. I’m not sure of where it came from, but it is perfect. “Let us preach you without preaching, not by words but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do.” This is not the hardest calling we have received from the Lord. And the Lord is saying that to all of us. Do the work that he is calling you to do today.
With so much lice love to you all!
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