We spent last week in Chiang Mai. About now, you might be saying “so what”, but really you might want to hear about it, so keep reading! We took Roy to the hospital on Tuesday and had him checked out by many specialists. They all came to the same conclusion…. He is healthy! That was not the conclusion that we were expecting, but that is what they all said. They think that all his pain is coming from old injuries, and not from any disease process. All he needs is a stress free life, and more exercise….that should be easy enough…. I am pretty nice to him so he will have no stress, and he loves to play cane ball with the boys so he should feel better really soon.

When we received this great news, we decided that it was time to celebrate, and stop saving our shekels for unexciting things like doctor bills. Instead, we went to the “mall” and bought a camera for me. It is a really nice cannon and it takes pictures! So, maybe you will get to see more pictures from here on out.  (oh OK, for those who really want to know… it is a cannon power shot SX200 IS with 48 times zoom, and 12 mega pixels) I was told by the boss that this would be a valuable expenditure and that I should not feel bad about spending money on things that will help me with my job. Did I mention that it takes HD video also? I bet you can’t tell that I am really happy with it!

After making an exciting purchase like that, I need good reasons to take pictures, right? Well, as it turns out, my good reasons for taking pictures were waiting for me. I met one in the bus station on the way home, and the other one was sitting in my house when I got here…. Ben and Jason! I might add at this point, that neither one of them had the dream of being the object of my new camera’s attention. So, I have to set my camera on action, and shoot really fast!

The only problem with having most of my family together at one time is that we don’t get much sleep. We stay up and jabber half the night, and then get up early in the morning to jabber some more! After all this talk, we decided that we also needed our own motor bike. Ben would like for us to move to a new location that needs our help, so we really need our own transportation. When my family makes a decision like that, we don’t like to wait. So, we went right out and went shopping. We are now the proud owners of a metallic blue motor bike with a black seat and a shiny chrome muffler! ( if you need more info than that, ask the boys!) I am even considering learning to drive it. I just have to find an auspicious time to get hurt. ( they say that there are two kinds of motor bike drivers, those who have crashed, and those who will)

Since Ben is here, things have gotten really exciting! He can talk to everyone like he was born talking that way. He seems to know just about everybody, and all the patients are so excited that my “brother” can speak Karen so well! We have told the people that he is my son, but they have a hard time believing it.

Ben has all kinds of plans while he is here. He started by taking me to visit his friends in the refugee camp. We also have big plans for visiting several villages that are way out, plus deciding which project that we will move to.  Then, in the evenings, he is teaching a Karen class to all of us foreigners. It sure is helpful to have an American teach us Karen! We can actually understand what he tells us, and he explains sentence structure and all that kind of stuff.  He will be going up to Pastor Phamor’s place in a few weeks to work on his web site, so we will not have him for long. We will just have to enjoy the time that we have.