Taking time to smell the roses

Sometimes I forgot to notice how beautiful it is here! We live in the Northern region of Thailand and often travel even further North for many of our projects.
And the more North you go, the prettier it gets!

The other day we headed out for our weekly visit to some villages where we're doing jewelry training for World Vision. And I decided to take photos all along the ways because I feel like sometimes I forget to be thankful for how beautiful it is here and how lucky I am to be part of such an amazing church here and all the work they do.

So here are some photos from Aug 27th, one of our weekly day trips :)
Mai and Dee stopping to pose for a photo. This was a little lookout spot along the way. I can't believe how clear it was this day!


The mountains are just so beautiful and breathtaking. Of course you can't see the depth in a photograph, so you'll have to take my word! ;)


Here is the "crew" ! These women are amazing and it's a privilege to work with them! They are such humble servants of God. They have all been with the church for years. Mai, P Moo and Dee.


Me and Mai thuggin' it!


We stopped along the side of the road to buy some local produce. It's like 10x cheaper here than in the city!


This is bamboo!!


They are all hilltribe people that live in the mountains and set up stands all along the roads to sell their goods.


They had beautiful roses, pumpkins, bamboo, corn, avocados, peppers . . . all kinds of yummy stuff!


She's weighing out the goods


I want to do this SO bad for my bday next year. Rent 4-wheelers in the mountains! That would be so awesome!


There is a coffee shop along the way that is super cheap and is owned by a friends' friend. So it has now become our little habit to stop there along the way :)


P Moo is our driver. She didn't tell me till after our first trip that this was her first time driving in the mountains! We all get a little dizzy from P Moo's driving from time to time ;)


I think it is so funny how they hold umbrella's while they drive their bikes! They do this all the time and it cracks me up!


This is a very traditional Thai House. They are really beautiful and very simple inside. Most of them don't really have furniture and do everything on the floor w/ a mat.


I can't get enough of the rice fields here! That and buffalo are my favorite thing to look at!


This is my favorite spot along the drive. It's just so beautiful. This was taken out of the window as we were driving by, but you can still see how pretty it is.


Now we're pulling up into a temple in the handicap village where we meet for our jewelry project.


This little boy cant walk so P Moo was praying for him. The boy next to him is Tommy. He has down-syndrome and we love him so much! He's looking at pictures I brought him from when they came to church a few weeks ago. We were there for about 2 hours and he looked at those pictures the WHOLE time! :)


Here is a group shot of everyone that we employ with the jewelry at this village. They are all handicap in different ways. A few it's their sight, one women is mute, a few can't walk or have missing limbs, one man hardly has any fingers or toes (he makes beautiful jewelry though!) . . . It's been a huge blessing to us to get to know these people and we love coming each week to spend time with them!



So that's a typical workday for me right now as we are in full swing with this order. It really is a huge privilege and I'm so thankful to be here and be part of it!