thailand super-sized

Is the week with the MKs really over? Seriously? Man, that was way too quick...

As of 11:00pm (Thai Time) on March 6th (today) in the year 2551 (that's right, it's not 2008 here in Thailand, but don't worry b/c you're not missing much - no flying cars - but I can tell you that the Cubs still haven't won a World Series) our time serving the missionary families of World Venture is officially over. And today was a great way to finish it off...

Sticking with a good routine, the kids showed up at around 8:30am in the Cave. We had some great youth led worship time, followed by a fun game with Kim where everyone got a chance to mention someone else in the group that had a positive influence on them this week. After we broke into our two age groups, Teresa taught the lesson to the younger MKs and Kim shared a her testimony and a great devotional with the older MKs about not being ineffective or unproductive in our knowledge of Christ. The TCK (Third Culture Kid) Coordinator also came and spoke to the kids and shared some great insight into the week and for their trip back home. Also, the staff of World Venture presented us with some gifts to thank us for serving this week. It has been such an honor to work with both World Venture and SAM, two organizations that have gone above and beyond to support us this week.

After lunch we headed out to the Elephant Camp where we watched the elephant show and then took elephant rides. The show was a lot better than most of us expected (the elephants danced, played soccer, painted, built a wall, played harmonicas... really, you just need to check out the pictures). After the show we loaded up onto about 20 elephants and took a 30 minute elephant ride around the camp (Kari got some great shots of everyone on the elephants). On the way back to the hotel we also stopped off at the Asia Craft Center and the Butterfly/Orchid Farm here in Chiang Mai. When we got back to the hotel we passed out goodie bags to the youth and kids with things their parents had emailed us that they liked.

Much to the non-delight of Peter (although he went along and was a great sport about it) the Team went to dinner tonight at McDonalds! That's right, McDonalds. What's so special about the McDonald's here? Well, not too much but they did have Double Big Macs and pineapple pies! So we scarfed down some healthy dinner and then headed on back to the hotel.

At 8pm we hosted our last event with the MKs - movie night in the Cave. We watched The Ultimate Gift and it went over very well. The movie was really good, but the kids also really liked that the hotel staff brought down mattresses and laid them out on the floor. The Team brought down the last of the goodies and we had a buffett of candy bars, dingdongs, smarties, oreos, and other assorted treats. Good times.

And of course we have more pictures...

The boys (Kevin and Storm) would also like to take this opportunity to apologize to the girls (Kari, Kim, and Teresa) for wrongly accusing them of resetting their alarm clock. When the boys returned to their hotel room last night they discovered that someone had changed their wake-up time to 7am, which would have made them late to breakfast the next morning. The boys, assuming it had been the girls since they were the only ones with access to their room key, went ahead and hooked the girls up with a 4am wake up call from the front desk. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the girls had nothing to do with the alarm clock...

Oops.

We're sorry.

The boys would like the girls to please read Collosians 3:13 and Matthew 6:15.