Ten Lessons Learned from my Hospital Bed:

(Yes, very early Saturday morning I was admitted to Srinakarin Samitivej Hospital for a bacterial infection in my stomach. More commonly known as food poisoning. I arrived home Monday evening, in time for supper with my family. )

1. It helps with your anxiety levels to already have made a in-the-middle-of the-night run to the same emergency room three months earlier (thanks, Isaac, for giving us that experience with your emergency appendectomy in June!!)

2. God is gracious and has perfect timing (please, please God let me make it to the emergency room before the next stomach-churning episode!)

3. The eleventh floor, corner room is a beautiful room to stay in, where you feel like you are in the sky, surrounded by clouds, and oh-so-very peaceful…except for the very loud drilling right overhead where they are obviously working to make the twelfth floor pretty, too!

4. That jello tastes great at first when it’s been awhile since you’ve eaten, but after several meals of it, the attraction starts to wan…

5. When you have gone several hours with the “chiller?” not working in your air-con, your room can get very hot, especially during the middle of the day.

6. That a family of five can have a lot of fun in a hospital room, especially when they come to visit equipped with a DVD player, a Wii console, games and great attitudes.

7. A husband who will hold your hand during IVs and bloodwork, buy you cheese bagels and 7ups when you are hungry, sleep on the couch in the room with you during the night, drive back and forth on busy Srinarkarin Rd so that the children can come visit, wash your face when your food will not stay down, and has a great sense of humor… even when date night takes an unexpected turn, and in addition is willing to take a day off work to spend with you so that you will not be alone is definitely a keeper!

8. That having a Beauty Salon in the hospital, where your head can be massaged, your hair washed and blow-dried is a wonderful idea when you have an IV in your arm and haven’t been able to wash your hair all weekend.

9. That friends and family who care and call, help with your family, send e-mails and messages, give beautiful roses and cook dinner for you are some of the greatest blessings in life!

10. That God uses those moments when our bodies are weaker than we would like to remind us that every breath comes from Him, and to remind us to pray for all of those who are undergoing so much more than we are…my Mother’s friend in the hospital having surgery, my friend’s mother dying of cancer, all those in Zimbabwe whom my Dad is visiting right now who are starving and all the people that live in the tin shanties who I could watch out the window, far below, whose daily lives every day are so much harder than mine. Yes, even in my weak moments when I am in pain, I still have so much…a loving family, a clean hospital room, insurance that pays for me to receive good medical care, medicines that fight the infections and heal my body, a husband that has a job, a toilet that flushes and oh, so much more. Most importantly, a relationship with the Creator God that nourishes and replenishes my soul. Oh, Father God, may I ever be mindful of those who are in need of so much physically and spiritually, and may I be an instrument of your love wherever you call me.

And to think that I saw it on market street

Sometimes I wish all we saw coming home from school was an old wagon and a horse, like in the Dr. Suess book. It sure would be a lot easier to ride my bike or drive the car! But, we don't need active imaginations to be excited about what we see coming home from school!

We only live a few minutes away from school, and we go down one long street that we call market street. Just yesterday on our way home, we saw:

three elephants!!!
more motorcycles than we could count, with more on them than you could ever imagine...one was transporting a table...yes, one man was driving, and the other was holding a table up over both of them!
tons of "soi" dogs...street dogs that are ugly and not very well kept...one was calmly eating a bone in the middle of the road, despite all the action around!
Vendors selling everything out of their carts, from hot grilled meat, to fruit, to brightly colored ballons,
bicycles, taxis, cars, motorcycles, carts, big garbage trucks,
lots and lots of people, most wearing yellow because it was a Monday, and with brightly colored umbrellas because it was raining,
monks in their flowing orange robes,
all kinds of shops...two Seven elevens, barber shops, internet shops, bicycle and motorcycle repair shops, frame shops, hardware shops, you name it, it's somewhere on that one street!

I wanted to write this down while I was thinking about...our rides to school and back are always so interesting...I need to take some pictures to show you that we really did see it all on market street!

pictures from the last month

here are some orchids in our yard...

Also, pictures of the kids on the first day of school...Aug 13th...

And, a couple of pictures of a rainbow from our terrace. We've seen three incredible rainbows in the last month--taking up the whole sky, sometimes with a double...wish cameras could do them justice.

I'm thankful for Shaina's help in posting pictures...hopefully, we are learning and one day I might even be able to do it by myself!

Normal we are Not

The kids started school three weeks ago yesterday, and even though the beginning of the semester is always a stressful time, I usually do better when things settle down and we get into a normal routine. I thought it would happen once we found out what each child would be involved in as they went through try-outs and auditions. I carefully wrote all the schedules down in my calendar when we finally found out the results.

But, nothing has gone according to plan. Today is Isaac's second school day to miss this semester, Shaina missed Monday and Tuesday...they've both had very bad sore throats and fevers. I think we will take them to the Dr's today and try to get them back to health!! And, the political unrest reached a point on Tuesday that school was closed on Wed and after school activities were postponed for the rest of the week. So, Rissa, Shaina and Philip went back to school today, but there will be no play practice or basketball practice after school.

I remember that I've experienced this feeling many times before...trying to get my life organized and scheduled and then things happen...kindof like the book title "Normal is just a setting on the hair dryer." There is no normal.

Yesterday, I discussed with the kids the Bible study that I am going through, NO OTHER GODS (by Kelly Minter) and talked about the idols that control us, motivate us, consume our time, and our thoughts. Later, (as I let my opinion be known about the many schedule changes!!) Rissa pointed out, "Maybe one of your idols, Mom, is having a schedule"--quite true, perhaps that would mean the actual idol is being in control, not liking surprises, wanting to manage my life in a predictable way???

Definitely things to think about!

So, I'll sign off for now, and enjoy my non-normal day--a gift of a day spent with my wonderful twelve year old son!

Long time, no post

I'm not sure what happened to all my good intentions about keeping up with my blog...anyway, I'll give it another try! We enjoyed a wonderful visit with my Mother, and then plunged into our school schedule. Rissa is now a 10th grader, Shaina is in 9th grade and Isaac is in 7th.


Rissa was happy to get the part of Amy in the Fall Play, Little Women, and Isaac and Shaina were both very pleased to make it on the Under15 Basketball teams. So, they should all be quite busy these next couple of months.

They continue to enjoy hosting the youth on Friday nights and participating at church by helping with the preschool class and leading worship on youth Sundays.

Today, our hearts are burdened for this country that we live in and love--Thailand. As the political unrest escalates, we continue to pray for peace--both for peace politically, and also for peace in the hearts of the Thai people whom we love.

Here are some links about the situation--the first one is our school and the updated information about school activities. Today, the after school activities are cancelled, but as of right now, school is still opened tomorrow.

http://www.icsbangkok.com

These links are to the two major newspapers here in Bangkok. They are updated pretty regularly with the latest information.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/
http://www.bangkokpost.com/

This is an article that does a good job explaining this political crisis--it is a few days old, but gives background on what is happening:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JH29Ae02.html

With the current situation on our hearts, I'll save updates and stories about our family for another time.

Trying to post a picture

Philip is helping me to try and learn how to post pictures on the blog. This picture was taken last year in September...a Baptism service at the beach. It brings back special memories of a day when Philip baptized our good friend, Mrs Gail, and several students and our own Isaac.

Today we are on vacation at the beach...when we arrived here, we discovered this little hotel that we love and have stayed in several times now has wireless access! Unbelievable...so, here we sit, looking at God's creation and trying to learn more about the blogging world!

The wind is blowing, the waves are crashing, and it's great to see this picture and be reminded of the baptism day last September,
Sheila

Five Harkins off to the beach

In about an hour, we are headed off to our favorite spot in Rayong, Thailand. A beautiful beach, where we love to go for family time. Our time in the car will be spent reading "Do Hard Things" by Brett and Alex Harris, and we are all looking forward to reading a book we've heard so much about. Thank you, Mother, for sending that to us.

We are still just "soaking up" (the kids really tease me about this, which they say I use in abundance every time we are enjoying a beautiful sunset, or a special family moment...) time with the girls and enjoying every minute of having girls in the house again...giggles, music, and meaningful conversation...what a blessing after four weeks of a much quieter house.

Philip and I will be working on the script for the fall play, and would appreciate your prayers that we will be able to work together well, as working together on something like this can often reveal all our differences!!

Thanks for your prayers as we take off for some family time...we will be back on Thursday,
Sheila