Welcome to PlaaPlaaPlaa!

So you may be wondering why PlaaPlaaPlaa? What are those strange fish symbols above? What is ปลา and what does it mean? In short, this is a blog site, so surely there's going to be plenty of rambling. Unfortunately BlahBlahBlah was already taken, so I had to settle for the 'Plaa'. But there's actually more to it then just ramblings. The first fish symbol is actually a Christian symbol meaning ICTHUS - a greek acronymn which means "Jesus Christ is God's Son, the Saviour". The other strange letters you see in the last fish is actually the thai word for fish which funnily enough is pronounced "Plaa". So when you put it all together, this site is going to be my ramblings in telling people about how Jesus Christ is God's Son, the Saviour in Thailand (with plenty of good stories about food in between). Happy reading.

Friday, May 30, 2008

It's hard to say Goodbye


I knew that the time was coming when i was going to have to say goodbye to Oum. The selfish part of me doesn't want her to go, cos i'm really going to miss her as she heads off to the US, but the other part of me is really happy for her so that she can finally go and be with her husband. The quick summary of Oum is that she's a girl who's been living at Cana House orphanage for the past 6 months after she got back from being an Au Pair in the US for 19months (she's not an orphan, but they took her in as she had no where else to stay at the time). The past year in particular has been pretty tough for her after her father died and her mother pretty much cut her off from the inheritance of the family and in some ways didn't want anything to do with her. So i guess in some ways, she kinda was a bit of an orphan. Anyway, some of you might remember the 'beautiful' wedding cake i decorated - it was something rather 'special'. Well that wedding cake was for her. So 3 weeks after the wedding (in March) her husband went back to the states while she tried to finish off her Thesis and wait for her visa to go through so she could follow him.

There are so many things to praise God for the way he works in Oum's life.
- She's got a huge heart to be serving God and even though she knew she was heading back to the states, she still wanted to come along to all the Sunday School (kids church) training that we were running and wanted to help teach SS to the kids as well.
- For me on a personal note, she was one of the first people here who became one of my really good friend. She's always so willing and generous to be helping me understand and speak more thai. She's one of the key people who really helped me feel at home from the moment i met her!
- Despite a bit of uncertainty at one stage of whether or not she'd be able to finish her thesis, it's finally all gone through (that's another fun story of me trying to help her with her science thesis on 'Adsorption' (no, not absorption) - like i know anything about Adsorption and can help write the thesis on it! :) hehe).
- God is also really good in his generosity to her. She applied for a 1 year visa and was going to sort out a spouse or long term visa after she got to the states, but in God's goodness, she was issued with a 5 year visa! Which means there won't be the stress that could be associated with trying to extend a visa

There's going to be lots of us who miss her back here. I'd describe Oum as a a quiet, humble and faithful servant. I know that God's got great things in store for her in the US and i hope one day to be able to go visit her over there (and in that trip go check out the Musical Angels that my friend Marcus is currently launching on Broadway - that's a whole other story)

If you can be praying for Oum as she heads to the states, that God will be helping her to settle into her new life there with her husband Keir, and for her studies there as well (she's going to be studying at Uni there). Pray that she'll continue to grow in her love and knowledge of God and that God will continue to keep her safe. Pray that i'll be able to keep in touch with Oum and that we'll be able to keep on encouraging each other over the miles as well.



With Oum & Gun at Oum's farewell lunch

I also discovered just how much it can rain in not very much time. Here are couple quick picks of my street as it turned into a river in about 15minutes of rain here - and rainy season hasn't even officially started yet either! hmmm, i think rainy season's going to be interesting..... :)