Then the bugs came...

If you know me you know I don't do bugs. If a stink bug comes within 10ft of me I am immediately immobilized. Well let me tell you about the last 24hrs. OK so its 12:30am and we find out from the other team that McDanald's delivers...You have to realize that all we do is sweat out salt and never eat it, so naturally the sound of horribly salted french fries was like crack to an addict. We get them and I'm just sitting there not trying to taste the staleness (b/c the driver got lost and we don't speak Thai and our address is in Thai...you can't "sound out" Thai...its symbols), but instead relish the first american fattiness I have tasted in weeks. At some point I must have dropped a drop of plum sauce (they don't carry honey) on the arm of the chair. I put my arm down and when I brought it up I scratched my forearm. I realized I missed getting the rest of my paint off my arm from face painting earlier. OH wait, nope, gotcha...not paint, MINIATURE ANTS!!!!! I put my arm in a colony of ants that had come to the plum sauce...it wasn't paint in my nails, but squished ants!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OMG OMG OMG....I had an entire nation of ants all over my arms and in my nails and about 10% were still living and crawling around!! then I look down and the arm rest is just covered in Ants!!!. And this is why we aren't allowed to eat inside...now I follow that rule. I thought it was the most horrifying moment of my life until....

We are getting ready to leave to go to dinner and Boy (my newest BFF and our translator) motions me over to show me something. He says, "Look, I killed a scorpion." In case you didn't read that last word right, let me repeat it...a SCORPION!!! I asked him where he found it and he said in our shoes! There was a scorpion in our shoes! (Let's just say I quadruple check when I put shoes on now.) He said he coaxed it out and away from them and then took his flip flop and smashed it and then stepped on it (just to make sure). OK When I say flip flop, I mean $2 Old Navy Flip Flops (but Thai version, bc I don't think they have old Navy here). And they weren't new sturdy ones, nope, they were about July ones...you know when they are perfectly broken in and in a few weeks rocks will split through... All I can say is, is that boy is brave (no pun intended). Did I mention it was the size of my hand? So it would have fit nicely in one of my shoes.

Ok so a few minutes later after all the scorpion drama has died down, we finally leave. We are 10ft out of the gate when someone throws out there hand to stop us. There are GIANT snails in the middle of the road. GIANT...the size of a small apple. Just chilling in our driveway. Eating a piece of corn (who knew snails liked to hang out with corn on the cob?). Julie touched the shell of one and we got to watch it sneak back inside.

OK so after all the snail drama has calmed down, we continue off to our favorite restaurant for dinner. (They know us so well, that they now always have a table set up for us with extra stools). We get to the restaurant and Brynn options for the stool. I grabbed her arm and said don't sit! There was the biggest Daddy Long Leg I have ever seen, just sitting on her seat like he owned the place. Of course we are girls so we freaked out and the owner came over and brushed it off and laughed "with" us. It was pretty funny, but seriously its legs were at least three inches long fully extended.

Then we went on a prayer walk around the bars and no joke about 10 cockroaches ran across my path. Not to mention the one we found in our room the week before that hid in Brynn's suitcase. Don't worry we have video of Noah killing it.

Gecko's don't really count as bugs per-say (no clue how to spell that) but there are at least 10 who find their home in our house and in our bathroom. At the end of our prayer walk Rachel was trying to catch a baby gecko (she is determined to catch one before we leave Thailand). Noah and I walked up behind her and I said, " Rachel. I wouldn't reach any higher..." There was a giant butted spider (probably deadly) inches from her hand. She did a freak out dance and ran away. Wehoo 2 saves from spiders in one night, I'm worn out.

OK that's all the bug drama for now. I'll try to write more ministry based stuff soon. It's hard to put it all in words, b/c I can't really explain it all/ haven't processed all we are doing. When we are in the slums it seems so normal and natural to play with the kids and laugh with the moms. At the bars it just seems natural to paint watercolor pictures and joke and play pool with prostitutes. God has taught me to not be afraid. They are all his children and all people. They are funny and sweet. I was so afraid they wouldn't want to be my friend or talk to me, but God has changed my views entirely. It is wonderful. So to write about them as ministry is hard, because they just seem like my friends. I think it will hit me really hard when we are back home, and all of a sudden all the poverty isn't the norm anymore. Until then I'll tell you what I can!

Love you all! I need to go night night b/c I'm leading devotion in 7 hours :(. Feel free to leave comments. I love reading them and it helps me not miss home as much :)

xx
Lil Bug whisperer.

P.S. a gecko just ran across the wall I'm sitting in front of. OH and I've eaten more rice in the last three weeks than in my entire life combined. Oh and I forgot...The count is in...I have 34 mosquitoe love bites on my left leg and 41 on my right...and that's only from the knee down. They ate me through my clothes!!! OK good night for real this time.