Catching Up

Awright! Long post, here we go. 5 days worth of stuff. Gonna keep it as un-wordy as I can. =P Was gonna blog on Friday when we got back but was too tired, and ytd was busy helping dad with some stuff (see further down).

On Wed, we went to Dolphin Bay at Hua Hin, not Pattaya. Beach was really nice, quiet, peaceful, my kinda thing. Not tourist-saturated. At the hotel there was free wireless internet so I could've blogged and stuff but I decided to stay unplugged. The first morning we got up real early, drove up along the beach and then walked all the way back (dad drove). We saw a lotta interesting stuff cuz the tide was way out.

Saw cuttlefish eggs, anemones, a dead stingray, fishermen bringing in their night's catch, we rescued beached jellyfish, etc etc. Would've taken pictures if mom had brought her camera (but alas, her camera is never around when there actually ARE intesting things to photograph). Dad had his, but I don't dare touch his camera.
Later I'll post wtv photos he did take. That afternoon we used the hotel's free bicycles and went the other way down the beach. Got caught in the rain, super fun! ^^ Stopped at a little drink hut and waited there until the rain slowed. There, we chatted and made friends with the Thai guy and his family. That evening he helped set us up for a fishing trip. :D

Hired one of the local fishermen and his boat, went out and dropped anchor near Monkey Island. There's this comparison that goes: The part of the universe that we can see with the naked eye is like one drop of water in the ocean, compared to all that's out there; and God holds the universe in His hand. So when I was sitting on the boat heading out to the island, in the dark, but with a full moon overhead, I suddenly felt very very small. To think that God personally cares for one, who is one of 6 billion other people in a drop of water in the ocean. Yeah, wow.

Anyway, back to the fishing. We didn't catch much by the usual fishing line way, but got some good stuff using the net. Mostly pike fish, and then some other fish, a prawn, a cuttlefish (which squirted a lot of ink and made the water in the bucket go black), an octopus which was so cool that mom made us let it go instead of taking it back to eat... hahaha. [~Dad got pics of that, will get them later.] I wanted to get the jellyfish that kept floating by but the fisherman said no. Hehe. :P

Next day, mom and Jana and I went clamming. :D I nearly got sunburnt during then. A lot of clams ah! Brought them home to eat. It all reminds me of Sarah and Rach somehow. Did we ever go clamming tgt??? Lol.






The people at the drink hut from the previous day helped us fry the stuff we'd caught at night. After a super shiok lunch, by a peaceful beach, under the trees with just the right balance of shade and sunlight, we drove home. Well, made a stop by the factory outlet on the way back. RACHEE, when you come I bring you go there! All discount super a lot. XD See if mb lidat you'll buy anything or not.

Okay, so that's our Hua Hin trip, in short. ^^ Now I have like a stained glass kind of pattern on my back, from tanning in diff spots at diff times, depending on what I was wearing. XD Got like, 5 shades of skin.

Yesterday I was gonna blog, but then dad asked me to illustrate a bit for his sermon, which I was very happy to do. Fun stuff! The story of Gideon. The Midianites were oppressing the Israelites, and Gideon tried to summon an army. He got 32 thousand men to assemble, but God said "You have too many men." And Gideon would've been like "uh, God? Too many? ... Have you even seen the quality of these 'soldiers', compared to the Midianites?" So yeah, that was what I had to draw.

Midianite

Israelites

Drawn by hand, scanned, converted to vectors in Illustrator, and then colored using live paint/Photoshop.

Today was church. The lesson from the story of Gideon is that God can use you even if you're doubt-filled, weak, and don't see yourself as much. Because when He looks at us, He doesn't see us as what we think we are-- He sees the potential that He placed in us even before we were born. And also, if you think you're the most unlikely person that God would ever want to choose to do His work, then, well... that makes you a prime candidate to be chosen. ;) Like Moses, who tried making all sorts of excuses. Like Abraham, who was waaay old and didn't have kids. Like Joseph, the youngest brother who got sold into slavery. Like David, who couldn't even carry the battle armor.

So gambatte, people. =] It's not about "how" you can do something God's set before you. It's about "whether" you will or not. Leave the -how- up to God, because He is everything. If He has a task for you to do, be assured that He won't send you in without backup.