Tsunami victims in Thailand learn "Roll Tide Roll"?

Above, it the beach at Ban Nam Khem. It was the site were the tsunami hit the hardest in Thailand. Thousand of people in this fishing village were killed as the wall of water surrounded the point were the city was located.

Broken and beached boats like this one still litter the area. Below is group of fishermen that had just come in to turn in their catch. I love the pensive expression on this guy's face.

I talked about boats being scattered about... this fishing boat was one of several larger boats that wear carried into town... well into town. It was so odd to see a house, a fishing boat, a road and another house.

Below is another reminder of the tsunami- the memorial errected at Ban Nam Khem. The wall to the left is curve like a wave; the wall to the right (in the sun) is filled with the names of the 5000+ people who died from the tsunami in Thailand. Back in the distance is the Indian Ocean/Andaman Sea.

While we were there, we followed several volunteer teams that were fixing up houses. This is the one I called "Joe's Crab Shack"; it was in a place where the tide went in and out. All around were little crabs scurrying around the muck. It was nasty, because there was a lot of trash in the water and one family had a pig pin above the water and it stunk!

But these volunteers fought through the heat and the smell to show Jesus' love in action. Most of them were from Alabama and the others were from Tennessee. It was funny because they were trying to teach the Thais Southern slang. It was funny and refreshing to hear Thais saying "Roll Tide!"

Thanks to the more than 500 volunteers who gave up vacation time, savings, time with their family, air-conditioning, fears and pride to serve God and serve others. Thanks to all who gave so willingly to help others in need.

I love this shot above, leaning out of one home to paint the one next door. Below, Will soldiers through the mire to get video of the paint crew. Just don't drop the camera.

One of the translators shares with a older gentleman. Sadly enough, it took a major tragedy to open the ears and hearts of the Thais to listen to the Gospel. Pray that the Holy Spirit would move in their hearts to soften them to the love of Christ. Pray that more witnesses would be available to share with them.

Check out this cute guy! How can we deny him from having the opportunity to knowing the Unconditional Love of Jesus?

Sun sets on Khaw Lak beach.

A great promise and a great prayer

Today, while reading I found a great promise and then right under it was a great section of Scripture that I had memorized.

"I will listen to what God the LORD will say;
he promises peace to his people, his saints-
but let then not return to folly.
Surely his salvation is near those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness spring forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The LORD will indedd give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
Righteousness goes before him
and prepares the way for his steps."
-Psalm 85:8-13



"Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear you name.
I will praise you, O LORD my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify you name forever.
For great is you love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave."
-Psalm 86:11-13

You know you're in Asia when...

...you have a Karaoke party!

Above: Co-host, Jiap singing. Below: Me singing "Oye Como Va" (not pictured, suffering listeners).

Above: Sonny & Cher, Captain & Tenille, Huey Lewis & Gwyneth Paltrow... forget 'em all, 'cause Muay & Oh were a great karaoke duet! Below" Aey enjoying the show.

Above: The Gang. Below: A table full of delicious Thai food.

Above: Craig and Jiap sing a Thai song- yes, Craig was singing in Thai! The song's title translates to: She Comes with the Rain. Below: Jerod and his 'groupies'.

It the next big boyband! Jerod & Craig. Look at the ladies swoon.

Thanks to everyone who came out and made it such a fun night. I hope you had a fun time too. Special thanks to Jiap for helping plan the party and take care of details for securing the room and helping with the menu. We will have to do it again.

Today's thought

"I worship a God that is not far off... and when the LORD draws near, He does not taunt and plague me like other spirits, but He draws near to show me His amazing love."

Dumb and Dumber

1. Willie Nelson releases a gay cowboy song. Sellout?

2. Australian TV releases more pictures from the Iraqi prison where inmates were harassed and tortured. Um, do the Aussies realize that the Muslims are ticked off? Apparently, Denmark hit the hornets nest with a stick and Australia decided to throw rocks at it.

Please, make it go away!

For the past 5 days, Yahoo! Sports has featured this unflattering photo (removed so as not to inflict further pain on the subject or the viewer) of Coach Dennis Erickson. The story is about how after 21 years Coach Erickson is now back coaching at his alma mater, Idaho.

I have a couple of issues about this:
1) Is the Vandals new head coach really that important that they need to keep it their top story for 5 days? I mean, they could run some more crap about Southern Cal being the best team of all time... oops, wrong website.
2) I know their had to be at least one photo that was more flattering than this one. I would hate to have such a crappy photo of me posted on a major site. And if I am the photographer, I would have wanted a better representation of my work displayed.

Odds and ends from abroad

I found this article on the web. It tells about how the horrible earthquake in Pakistan last fall is actually opening doors for girls to get an education. Just another way that God can take a horrible event and make some good from it.

Check out these photos. I have been in the city where the winning photo was taken. Also, it's kinda sad that there is 1 or 2 pictures from the famine in West Africa, but about 11 of the guy that won the contest. Which is more important? Finally, if you go to picture 24, you will see something that looks familiar if you check my blog regularly.
Actually, one of our photogs took some pictures at that event that were just as good if not better.

Bye Courtney & Wendy! See you later. (BTW gals, you can grab those balls of poo to the left and make some more elephant dung paper.)

Going down the bank to cross the river.

Thai work detail. If the SC DOT had these guys they would have had I-385 done in less than 6 months.

Birthday Loot

A little late, but the packages start rolling in...

An autographed set of my favorite trilogy (Flabbergasted!, A Delirious Summer and Lost in Rooville) - Thanks Ginny!

"Mai phud phasah Angrit"

That's what the shirt below says; it means "I don't speak English."

Now I'm practically a local - Thanks Jiap!

Check out this cool hat! It's official World Wide Lens Report Gear... and it even has the my logo!
Supplies are limited, order now! - Thanks Rose!

And a big thanks to Kisha and my Mom for also pitching in with CDs, Amazing Race tapes, cereal, clothes and sweets. Thanks for making my birthday-away-from-home a good one!

Thai of the Wee: Eak

Khun Eak is the Thai of the Week for taking Wendy, Courtney and I on such an wonderful outing on Monday.
I don't have a full list of info on Eak, but if you need a tour guide, I have his info and can pass that along to you. Just shoot me an email or posting.

(BTW, you say it kind of like "egg", not "eek").

On the biggest night for football, I called an option...

You've heard of Breakfast at Wimbleton, right? Well, over here in Thailand, it would have been breakfast in Detroit... hmm, just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? I didn't think so either, so instead of watching the Super Bowl at 6am, I went on an excursion with my friends that are visiting from the US.
Wendy, Courtney and I took a trip to an elephant camp at Mae Taeng (just north of Chiang Mai). On the way up, we stopped at a place where they turn elephant dung into paper and then into cards, frames, photo albums, etc. It was pretty neat and not as smelly as you might think (plus the owners are believers!).
Then we got to the elephant camp and got to feed the elephants bananas (gluay) and sugar cane (aoy).

After feeding time, the elephants went to a river for a bath... whether it was their bath or ours is still a mystery as they came up spraying.

Next it was time for the elephant show. They had about 7 elephants that did various tricks: dragging and moving logs (like they were originally used in Thailand), playing instruments, painting and playing soccer...

So even thought I missed the Super Bowl, I got to see this guy play soccer and dunk a basketball. It was pretty amazing. I think he scored on his first kick. Next we took an elephant ride. It was great (albeit, very bumpy and shaky)! We started off by descending a steep bank and crossing a river. That's Wendy and Courtney on the first elephant.

After the elephant ride we saw a Hill Tribe souvenir shop (Lisu people) and then took and ox cart ride back to the camp. There we had a buffet lunch that was pretty darn good. We finished up with a bamboo raft ride on the river. It was a trip- literally and figuratively. One of our guides, Jai (means "heart"), was serenading the girls. He was dancing around and acting all goofy. He was trying to teach me to sing and woo in Thai. It was pretty funny. He even let me steer the raft for a while. He we are at the finish line; I can't remember the first guy's name, but the guy next to me on the right is Jai. The planks that we are standing on are our raft and the ones next to it, closest to the bottom of the picture are the dock.

So it wasn't a Super Bowl Sunday for me? ...No, it was Super Monday for me and the gals.

Oh, Pittsburg won their 5th Super Bowl 21-10.

Would you like fishsauce with your bluegrass?

Last night, 5 friends and I went out to dinner in Chiang Mai (L-R: Wendy, Jerod, me, Jiap, Rose, Courtney). It was a blast!
Wendy and Courtney came here for vacation, so I wanted to make sure they had a good time. Jiap told us about this great restaurant on Doi Suthep (the big mtn next to the city); it's called Palaad Tawanron. It's hard to explain the atmosphere of the place. It is an indoor-outdoor restaurant with decks overlooking the city, waterfalls running right by table, trees growing through the roof and simple, yet elegant decor. The food was good and reasonably priced, but one of the most amazing things was the Thai bluegrass quartet. Yes! Real bluegrass music played by Thais that looked more like Indians from SW America in their cowboy hats, long hair, plaid shirts and big belt buckles.

Another thing that didn't quite fit at the restaurant, but that was a pleasant surprise was a clown/balloon artist. He made the girls flowers and a teddybear. Here's a picture of the girls showing of his handywork. (I accidentally left the shutter open to long, so it made the background a little out of focus, but brighter- kind of a neat effect).

It was a great night and if you come visit, I have another great place to take you for dinner, so book your flight NOW!

Escape from Reality

Last week, I went down to Pattaya to meet up with some friends for a week. It was an interesting time to catch up with some friends that I haven't seen in a while and to meet many new people. One night, a bunch of my friends took me out for my birthday. We found a great Mexican restaurant called the Blue Parrot. Here we are enjoying some delicious food.

Mmm... fresh salsa, tacos and enchiladas!

Another night, we went to Bob's BBQ. I ordered the large pulled pork sandwich and boy was it! Large, that is. Look at that thing... it must have been 7 inches in diameter and 2 inches thick. It wasn't quite back-home barbeque, but it was good.

Speaking of pigs... these guys below are partaking in what Pattaya is probably best known for- prostitution and sex trade. The "entertainment district" is filled with dirty-old-white men, young Thai girls, young Thai boys and transvestites. Here you can see one of the girls with a guy old enought to be her grandfather (but dumb enough not to realize she is someone's daughter). It's really a sad scene: dozens of girls hanging out on the strip near the beach waiting for some pathetic guy to buy her for the night. Or, large open air bars filled where a guy sits with 2-3 girls as they chuckle, rub up on him and get drunk (if these guys looked like Brad Pitt maybe, but most of them look more like Danny DeVito). The guys think that the girls will make them feel better and the girls think they have to do this to make a living, but really they just make themselves more empty inside.

Another common site in Pattaya are Russians and Chinese. I think the Russian underworld runs most of Pattaya, so it's a big tourist destination for anyone from Russia that comes to Thailand. I've heard the Chinese men like the transvestite cabarets and since there is a woman shortage in China, many come for a wife or fling.

One night I met Mikael and his friend. They had come from Moscow to get drunk with their buddies and hire prostitutes. I tried to share with Mikael about Jesus. It was kind of hard since I know about 7 words in Russian and his English wasn't that good and he was drunk- a point that was all too clear when he forgot one of his son's names. To make matters worse, he could quote the prices that he and his friends paid Thai hookers to have sex the night before, but stammered for almost 5 minutes to try and remember his other son's name... he never did. I prayed for him and then rejoined my friends.

Please pray for Mikael and all the lost men of Pattaya and especially the women entangled in the sex trade there.

It's good to be back in Chiang Mai.

Four-knowledge of me

Four jobs you've had in your life:
1. TV News Videographer/Editor
2. Inventory worker at Macy's
3. Promotions Assistant at a radio station
4. Football Manager at UGA

Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
2. Star Wars (any of the original 3)
3. Shawshank Redemption
4. Fletch

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. Seinfeld
2. Baseball Tonight (ESPN)
3. the Amazing Race
4. SportsCenter

Four places you have been on vacation (ranked according to preference):
(If they have to be considered "vacation", then...)
1. Puerto Rico
2. Black Mountain, NC
3. Charleston, SC
4. Elk River, AL

Four websites you visit daily:
1. Little Lost Robot. Not always PG, but usually hysterical.
2. Quoting Gin. A crazy girl in a crazy world.
3. Bloglines. I don't know if this is considered a blog, but it's how I keep up with everyone else's blogs.
4. BoyneBlog. He is usually good at blogging regularly, so I check his more often, especially when I'm traveling to find out what's going on back "home." And it's funny too.

Four of your favorite foods:
1. Mellow Mushroom Pizza (pepperoni and mushroom is the usual)
2. Tacos
3. Banana Pudding
4. Lemon-Icebox Pie

Four bloggers you are tagging:
1. Shannon
2. Elise
3. Jerod
4. Craig