Songkran Festival

This week was the biggest holiday of the year; Songkran, which is originally a Buddhist holiday meant for spiritual cleansing and a sort of "spring cleaning" for the traditional new year; has now become a huge excuse to take to the streets and enjoy cooling each other off. Everyone is fair game, (farang = bonus points), and regardless of if you're on foot, in the back of a truck or on a scooter just going to work; you're a target of this good-natured (albeit otherwise extremely rude) festival.

I went downtown on Thursday with some friends; here's some photos of what I saw during the 7 hours of water craziness:




Middle of the crowd of "Songkraners"







 
It's absolutely impossible to stay dry.







This holiday spans all social class separations; poor, rich, young, old, Thai, farang; everybody just enjoys a great deal of fun thoroughly drenching each other.

Location:Old City, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Over the hump?

According to most expats and missionaries in Thailand, the first 6-9 months are the hardest to get past. The initial honeymoon stage followed by the roller coaster of emotions that follow.
I just made it to my 7 month benchmark and things are looking like they might be smoothing out from the rocky first 6 month climb.

This last month I moved into a house on the Southern side of the city. Although the location of the house is farther away than I wished to be from BHJ, it's been working out despite the longer commute (especially on rainy days). The move allowed me to set up a home base and live with 2 awesome Christian roommates, both guys similar in age. Although I miss being so close to all the smiling, cute faces out in Doi Saket, it was never the long-term plan to live out there 24/7; and not exactly healthy on the whole. Now having a steady community of fellow believers close by and guys my age is a nice breath of fresh air and a major booster shot to help get through the disgustingly hot and sticky "Hot Season."

Also this month I've been helping out with a church planting and college-age ministry called The Light every weekend, improving my Thai with anyone and everyone I can and building better community through our meetings, and our new bi-weekly soccer games. Reminds me of the gang ministry we used to do in Lima, Peru but with less Spanish.

Breanna's girls have mostly all been back in the villages these last few weeks, staying with remaining relatives or family friends while the major bathhouse project has been underway. Giving the 6 Thai staff the opportunity to take some vacation, which they deserve more than anyone has ever needed it. And thanks to the relationships we've been making with the village pastors and elders we've been able to keep much better accountability with the girls while they're home compared to previous years. It's only been a few weeks but I'm very excited to see all my "little sisters" again next week when they come back right before the biggest holiday of the year - Songkran. (Basically a 3 day country-wide water fight!)

Guess who's excited?!
THIS GUY!

Location:Mu Ban Kunlaphan Village,Mae Hia,Thailand