And it was only to be a "Travel Day".....

On our agenda, today was planned to JUST be a travel day. That is like saying the color was blue, without telling the shade, richness or vibrance. Imagine Cousin Judy and me in the back seat of a pick-up truck finding new and regional experiences as we 'traveled'. We decided to each write about parts of the day, so after you read this, check out Judy's blog to see her stories. It was a day of vibrant colors!

Mike was such a good driver (from his right side of the truck and wrong side of the road)! He pulled over or made u-turns to let us see whatever, when we hollered "Ohhh, Mike, we have to see that"! We stopped to see pineapple fields that spread for thousands of acres.

We stopped in coconut harvesting yards.

Here's a little lady spinning sugar cane and showing us how to eat it in coconut based 'crepe's.

You have to watch this video of the 3 baby elephants rocking this truck from side to side as it lumbered down the highway. What a fun day of laughing and making memories.

It was such a highlight to see Somsak and Uan, a couple who have raised their own two children, welcome their 10 new orphans home after school. Over a couple years, they kept hearing God say to take children from the islands and provide an orphanage for them. Their orphange equipped hom was recently constructed by Mike's tsunami relief leadership and ministry teams. They are so proud of it. All 10 kids came in and sat with us and thanked us for providing school uniforms for them. They thank by folding their hands and bowing to us. So precious. We then went to the uniform store to purchase uniforms for the children, with the money our Sunday School class sent. It was very exciting, We wished our whole class could have been there. The children in these photos are not the only ones who will receive the clothes. Children from several schools and families will receive them. I will update you more on that later. Here we are with the ten precious children.

We leave in the morning at 5:00 a.m. by boat to go out to the islands for two days. Heavy rains are forecast, so we are leaving early to beat the storm. I will be sure to blog on that in a couple days!

I must add, that watching Mike and Judy interact, fluently speak the language and connect with these people, is very exciting for us. They are certainly where God has called them. More on that later, too! I have to get to bed, the boat will pull up bright and early tomorrow, and I can't miss it.