Wow, over 50 hours of traveling and just landed now in Chiang Mai.  Not feeling the best back hurts and stomach is queezy but hopefully walking around the city and a swim in the pool will solve this ... the view on the train ride was gorgeous.  Kids are doing remarkably well!

Listened to worship tunes and read the Circle Maker for lots of the train ride.  (thanks Andy for the book!)  Began to pray circles (risk takers who pray miracle prayers) for these people of Thailand.  You can't miss the brokenness and reality of human suffering through the sex trade and exploitation of men, women and children.  I was introduced to this reality the minute we stepped into the cab at Bangkok airport and the driver turned on videos displaying the sex trade as a part of Thai culture and tourism almost as if it were a provincial flower or symbol.  Thankfully all 3 kids were sleeping so I didn't have to process this with them as we were all exhausted.

I didn't have enough cash for the woman selling food on the train.  She kept inferring that I could trade Samuel in for the lunch.  Hmmm  I was not enjoying this interaction and didn't really want to keep my eyes off him but I think she zoned in on Samuel as he's our youngest and maybe that was a way to interact with us.   Realized how culturally that's not how women exchange pleasantries at the park...joke about kidnapping each others children is not something we do!

Made a huge mistake on the train!  We had ordered food from the kitchen on the train for breakfast.   A woman came by for lunch and before I knew it, she had placed chicken in front of the kids.  Thinking this food was from the train, I bought it only to realized too late that this was a street vendor and the kids said it was cold.  Pray this chicken was not contaminated.

Off to get some Thai bhat and explore Chiang Mai...soon I'm sure I'll figure out how to post some pics....