Manistry!! M.I.D. month!! Whatevs you soever would want to call the month of just us men!!!
There are things that have been happening over the last few months of my life that I would have never expected to happen. Period. There are definitely things that I have never imagined I would experience on Christmas Day. I live on a farm in rural Thailand with 12 other men and a beautiful Thai family(shout out to Arun, Pbeng, Ma, Pa, Big, and Aim the spy, shh about that last one). There are goats, chickens, ducks, a pit bull that chews on cinderblocks for breakfast (literally), and another dog that sleeps all day and runs around all night impregnating the female dogs in the area (also, literally). I sleep on a platform roughly ten feet off the ground overlooking sets of tapioca fields and surrounded by mountains in the distance on every side. Big, our translator, told me that my biggest threats in animal kingdom are king cobras (mainly, during the rainy season aka not this season, Thank You Jesus!) and wild elephants (big nuisances, apparently). It's pretty hot all year round (no snow fo sho).
These elements are different and something that I have really had to adjust to, but they made for a Christmas that I don't think I will forget easily. The whole day would be hard to explain in words. Hopefully a highlight reel will do for now… climbing trees to hang decorations for the Christmas party… fried banana flowers and orange Fanta….. Cameron playing his guitar and Tommy and I ad-libbing about the Big D (aka diarrhea) and all the states of America in alphabetical order to a group of Thai men that spoke no English whatsoever…. singing like 15 Christmas Carols in 7 minutes with all the guys…. giving away our favourite item of clothing to one of the locals… being able to share the love that God has placed within us with the people in this community.
It was a really awesome day! I'm proud that I was here and apart of it.
