Goodbye Trip with Stacy to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Our hotel was part of an old train station....beautiful, but we were a bit scared of the elevator, since the building was built in 1910.

We had a great few days in Malaysia, with a good mix of Malaysian cultural things....

Like visiting the national forest reserve in the middle of the city. Louisa came with us too, she recently moved to Udon and joined our team. It's great to have her!!


And eating authentic Indian food with our hands, on huge banana leaves instead of plates. It felt so authentic and no one spoke English except the manager, who came over about halfway through our meal (unfortunately too late to help us order!) Wanting to be cultural to the end, we asked if he had any Indian coffee or tea that we could try. He hesitated, so we asked what everyone around us was drinking....he smiled and said "Nescafe! This is an international restaurant!!"


Feeling a bit like part of the Lord of the Rings cast, but dressed culturally appropriate to visit the National Mosque...


We went to see the Petronis Towers (the tallest twin buildings in the world). We waited in line for free tickets but all 1800 were given out before we got there at 8:30am


Since KL is such an international city, we also enjoyed some western treats, like dinner at Chili's, English bookstores, a trip to IKEA, an English movie.....and of course breakfast at Starbucks!!



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Learning the Local Craft

Orathai taught Stacy and I how to weave reeds into a placemat or a large bowl shaped cover to go over food so that the flies don't get into it.



Here's a picture - to prove I really did it!

Now here's Orathai fixing all my mistakes.....


The finished products!



And best of all - we were all still friends at the end of the day....

Wandering around Nakhon Phanom

Stacy and I went out to Nakhon Phanom together one last time before she moved back to America. There are many lives that she has impacted deeply out in NP and it was good for her to say her goodbyes...we had some great food together! That's the best way to say goodbye in Thailand.
We visited Khun Ulai, who is raising pigs with Insom's help, can you tell that the pic below are pig snouts??





Eating on the Mekong River with one of the pastors and his family - beautiful kids!!

Water buffalo - hanging out and keeping cool!

Annual Field Forum

Once a year we get together with workers from all over the country for our annual meetings and retreat time. We had a great speaker and it was fun to catch up with each other, many of us only see each other once a year!

Trip to Cambodia

After a year of trying to plan a trip to Cambodia to visit CAMA's work, I finally made it! There are a couple of great projects I was able to learn from - above is a Moringa tree, which the leaves are dried and crushed into a powder that has lots of vitamins and is really helpful for those with HIV/AIDS or those with nutritional needs. The powder is being used by many in conjunction with the HIV/AIDS and community health ministry and people are very pleased with the results (google Moringa, it may be the latest natural health craze in the US!!).



This pastor has her own business roasting and seasoning soy beans, peanuts, etc. to support her work as a pastor.


This little guy wanted me to take his picture as he proudly posed in front of his elementary school! His parents died of AIDS but he's living with antoher relative. I was really impressed with the Church Based HIV/AIDS ministry that the CAMA staff is working with there. They are really working with the church to have ownership of the program and to lead and direct it in the future.