Same Friends, Different Country

There is nothing quite like seeing old friends; especially when the reason you haven’t seen each other recently is the price of a plane ticket. About a week ago we bid farewell to the Fullers, a family with whom we share not only an organization, but also two previous neighbourhoods. The last we saw of them before this year was the summer of 2005, at their new house in Singapore.

The Fullers were our co-workers in the Philippines, and among one of the first families we met. We lived roughly two streets away from them in Davao, which is a far cry from the present country (Malaysia) that now separates us. They then left for Canada a year before we did, and were actually responsible for setting us up with the house we lived in for two years. At that time they were living in a complex of townhouses, and they upon hearing about our need for a place to stay, notified us of a townhouse one unit over from where they lived. They moved to Singapore a year after we moved to Thailand.

For their vacation this year they came to Thailand to, among other things, visit us. They arrived in Chiang Mai on the first of August, along with Anna-Claire McMahon, whose family we also knew from the Philippines and whom we were also very happy to see. Unfortunately we were unable to see them for the first six days due to the fact that they were at a conference. So once we knew they were in Thailand we were forced to sit around in our excitement and wait for them to be finished.

One thing I’m sure they will attest to doing is shopping. We first met up with them to drive them over to the night bazaar, a must-visit tourist area in downtown Chiang Mai. Anna-Claire personally made up for about fifty percent of all purchases made that day, with five or six shirts and a purse. It was a new and exciting experience for them to barter the prices as opposed to just paying a fixed price. Unfortunately we were unable to do many things as a full family due to my father’s work at the office and my mother’s in her grade one classroom. We (the kids) were, however, able to join the Fullers on their trip to the elephant farm.

On the night before they left we were able to get together and play family games over at our house. They were able to teach us a few games we didn’t know and we all had a lot of fun. The last thing we did with them was to pray for them and see them off with God’s blessing. They were such a blessing to us and we look forward to seeing them again in the future, though we don’t know how long it’ll be until the next time.

The picture to the right is as follows:

Clockwise- Evan, Emily, Eric, Eli, Bethany, Ethan on Katie's lap, and Anna-Claire on Emily's lap.