Happy Birthday Sissy!

There are two very special little girls that I just love more than I know what to do with, and if you've known me for at least 5 seconds, you probably already know of them as Lou Lou and Sissy and have seen about 400 pictures/videos of them on my phone. And I am unapologetic about that :) But, on the off chance that you don't know who they are, let me introduce you.

This is Lou Lou.



And this is Sissy.



And this is just... more pictures of them because they're so darn precious.



























It all started with COMS 101. Everyone and their mom recommended that I take Amanda for coms since she's such a great teacher, and I did and they were right. She is a great teacher. But she's not just a great teacher. She's an amazing person and has become a really close friend. She's one of those people that I know I can call about the stupid things or the deep things and she'll not only listen while I let it all out, but she'll really care. And not even just because we're friends. I think mostly just because it's who she is. She cares about people. A lot. I love her!

Anyway! I was in her class when she was pregnant with Lou Lou. And one day after class I asked her if she was going to need a babysitter. And she said something along the lines of "are you serious?"... and the rest is history and now they wouldn't be able to keep me away if they wanted to (please don't ever want to!). I had no idea going into it how close I was going to get with their family. Really, if you don't know Nic and Amanda, you're missing out. If I had to describe them in one word, it would be genuine. They just really care about other people. They're awesome people and awesome parents to Lou Lou and Sissy! And on another note... Amanda also happens to have killer design skills. You should check out her website here.

One of the hard parts about deciding to stay in Thailand until December was knowing how much Lou Lou and Sissy would grow while I was gone. I won't lie... I was secretly praying that God would stunt their growth until December. Go ahead, judge me. But apparently He wasn't on board with that idea, and they are getting SO big! Lou Lou's a genius (I mean she always has been, but she's talking so much! She learned to say Thailand the other day!) and Sissy's like 4 feet tall now or something. It's ridiculous really. But thank goodness for technology because video chatting with them often has helped so much!

This is a picture of them in two of the dresses that I got for them and sent home with Lyndsey and Janette. Thailand looks good on them :)



Anyway, today is Sissy's birthday! I can't believe she's already a year old!

Happy Birthday Sweet Girl! I love you so much!

I art freedom

This is my best friend Ilana.



I wrote about her before when she had put her creativity to work by making and selling head bands to help raise money to get me to Thailand.

Well, she's at it again.

But first... I have exciting news!

Ilana is coming to Thailand in December!!! Beginnings has two big Christmas parties every year in which they are able to pay the bar fines for hundreds of girls and allow them to enjoy a night away from the bars where they will be treated as honored guests and are shown hope in the person of Jesus Christ and are shown the hope of a way out of the sex industry through The Home of New Beginnings. Ilana will be coming to help with the Christmas parties and to do outreach in the bars while she is here, and then we will be flying back home together on December 27th. I'm really just so so so excited to be able to share this experience with her and am so excited that she's going to get to meet all of the girls that I have grown to love so much.

But back to I art freedom. Ilana makes some beautiful art, and has decided to sell some of it to help raise money in order for her to be able to come. She's extremely talented. Check out her stuff! I'm sure you're going to love it.

fun post continued!

Badminton! There are two sides of the driveway with a gate between them and so the driveway has become the girls badminton court or field or whatever you call it. I've played with them a few times and we just usually end up laughing so hard that one or more of us is literally on the ground.







While Ann's mom was here we went to China town one night. We had a reason... but I can't remember what it was. Why did we go again? I know it wasn't for the shark fin or birds nest soup we ended up eating... what was it? I don't know. I can't remember. Oh by the way, birds nest soup is actually made out of swallow saliva. Wonderful! I asked Ann what it was before I ate it and she said "try it first" and then I took a bite and asked her again and she said "do you like it? finish it first". Oh come on! It really was actually kind of good. So I finished it. And then I asked again "so, what is it?". And she says, "its made from the saliva of a..." 'nough said. She couldn't think of the name of the bird at first, but really the saliva part was the weird part anyway. She knew what she was doing when she made me wait until after I'd eaten it to tell me. I still think it's weird that I ate bird spit.









That night we also went to the flower market. I loved the flower market!!! A lot! There's just something so happy about flowers! Normally when I'm at home and I feel sad or need to get my mind off something, I go to Target. It's very therapeutic for me. The flower market gave me a similar feeling. How can you not feel happy when you're surrounded by a gajillion flowers?





















We bought these flowers for 50 bt. That's about $1.50 for 50 roses. Nice, huh?









Don't you feel happy?

There's this cute little dessert place that Celeste took me to one night and then Ann took me with her again while her mom was here. It's called After You.



This is the Nutella toast. It was so good!

And last but not least... the ballet! If you don't know, I've done ballet since I was about 3 years old and just had to stop a year ago when I started having to take a few night classes and I couldn't fit it in. But! I'm going to say I'm probably not finished with dance just yet. Bonita and I were talking about how I've never been to a ballet, so for my "thank you" for staying here until December, she took me to see Cinderella! Bangkok has an annual festival of the arts type thing and there was a Russian dance group that was coming to do Cinderella. It was beautiful!

fun post!

I've decided it's time for a fun post. So here goes...

Basically, this is probably going to be a random list of things with about a bazillion pictures because I'm too indecisive to narrow it down to just a few and because I'm cramming about two months worth of "fun post" into one post, so bear with me.

I'll start with the dinner boat. I've been going church with Roy and Bonita for the last few months. One of the guys that goes to their church, Michael, is from China and was here for school but was leaving to go back to China, so for his going away shindig we went on a dinner boat!









This is Celeste. Let me tell you a little bit about Celeste. I met her through Roy and Bonita and first of all, she's great. But also, Celeste started dton naam ministries , a ministry for ladyboys involved in prostitution in Bangkok.There are at least 10,000 “ladyboy” working in the Bangkok sex industry.

I've heard several different stories of what causes these men to become ladyboys and what brings them to Bangkok. Just one of those stories is the story of a boy who became sick and cried constantly when he was a toddler. His mother had no idea what the problem was. In desperation, she took him to the Buddhist temple and the monk “prayed” over him, “sensed” he had a feminine spirit, and announced that the family should change his name to a girl’s name. He stopped crying and seemed fine. Since then, the family has simply believed he has a female heart and was really supposed to be female. Being the first-born child, he was given the responsibility of what a Thai girl would have. He cooked, cleaned, washed clothes and watched the younger siblings. He was always with his mother as his father traveled for business. His dad later took the younger brother with him, and he was left at home to do “women’s work.” He loves his dad but did not have the attention a son usually receives. He told stories about watching his mom being abused and the conversations held about how men are bad; and how he is not like them. Instead, of being raised to be a good man, he was raised to reject his masculinity.Thankfully, he was connected to dton namm through a younger female cousin and aunts. The cousin & aunts introduced him the same way, “He has a female heart.” Since then, he has given his heart to Christ and is beginning to pray and hear God’s voice consistently.

I admire Celeste for following the passion God's given her to reach out to these men and for her courage in starting the ministry to be able to do that.











This was our entertainment for the night. The choice of music she sang was impeccable. She sang everything from Backstreet Boys to K-Ci and JoJo to Celine Dion to Shakira... Perfect. The dinner boat would not have been complete without her :)

A few weeks ago Roy and Bonita took me to this really nice dinner buffet at this super fancy hotel, Plaza Athenee. I only took pictures of the dessert buffet because after I saw it, it was all I could think about. I thought about just skipping the dinner part and heading straight for dessert, but decided I should do the civilized thing and at least eat a little bit of dinner first or something. But back to the dessert. Holy deliciousness.















A chocolate fountain is just always a good idea. Yum.

Next up! This is actually really exciting! So, Ann's mom, Dolly (who lives in America) was here for a few weeks. While she was here, her mom decided she wanted to get baptized. So, Roy came to the house and baptized her. It was a really special time with their family and Roy and Bonita and all of the girls at Beginnings. We worshiped, read scripture and prayed together. I'm glad that I got to be here for it.











Four generations. So beautiful.







Gosh she's cute.

Ok... this is getting long so I'm going to split it into two "fun posts". To be continued :)