Love & Hate

One of the aspects I love most about my job is the incredible people I get to share life with.  I have had the privilege of learning, living, and working alongside some of the most brilliant, beautiful, and inspiring people.  One of the aspects I hate most about my job is the fact that there is a somewhat high turnover rate in people.  Each year close friends, friends that in a perfect world I would gladly live out the rest of my days with, move thousands of miles away at the call of the Father.  As I’ve returned to Thailand this year for the fifth time for our company’s annual meeting it’s been great to catch up with dear friends who teach around Asia.  However, there are also noticeable holes left by friends who have been called to a different road.

Yesterday was a day of fellowship with old and new friends.  My friend Kirsten (who teaches in Vietnam), her friend Victor (visiting from the states), and I rented motorbikes and headed up to the mountains around Chiang Mai.  Let me clarify.  Kirsten and Victor rented motorbikes and obligingly let me ride on the back.  For some reason I think learning how to drive a motorbike in a country that drives on the opposite side of the road is not the best idea for me.

We had a wonderful day of soaking in the scenery around the waterfall, obligingly posing for lots of pictures…I can’t pass up photographing a beautiful face like this…

(I even posed for a picture…a very rare occurrence for me…)

Visiting a temple…

And drinking coffee by the river at sunset…

A day that reminds me it really is all about the people. And that I am incredibly blessed by the companions I’ve been given.