Back in the USA

Just a quick post to let you all know we have arrived back in the USA safe and sound!  We got in to Harrisburg last night around 10:15 or so.  It's great to be home!!

Thanks for all of your prayers!

Day at the Fish Farm

We had an early morning start today.  We stopped for our breakfast “on-the-go” – pork on a stick, some sticky rice, some donuts and then a stop at 7-11 (yes…they actually have these 7-11’s everywhere here!)  Thankfully, it was cloudy today so it wasn’t so hot while we were at the fish farm.  We were there from about 6:30-1 or so.  What an awesome day and so fascinating!  Unfortunately, my camera died today…not sure what happened to it, but only got a few pictures and then it didn’t work at all!  What a disappointment on a day I wanted to capture the whole fish farming process!   

Randy has two guys working at the fish farm for him; so, today, we helped them.  They are raising tilapia.  Basically, for the harvesting of the fish, a pond is drained, nets are dragged to catch most fish, fish are carried by basketfuls to another pond and dumped into another net in that pond.  Once all of the fish are out of the pond and in the new one, the old one needs to be “cleaned out.”  We walked around the bottom of the pond, in all of the mud, to get rid of any of the fish predators (snakefish, eels, and climbing perch).  We used an electric prod to shock these things out of the mud.  And, yes…I was in the mud helping with this process.  I guess you can take a girl away from the farm but can’t take the farm out of the girl!  Who needs a spa when you have a free mud bath at the fish farm!?  J

Once the pond was cleaned out, they sectioned off the net full of fish in the new pond and got it set up to grade the fish.  This is sorting the fish out by size.  They use a 3-piece “sieve” that has various hole sizes to sort the fish—small, medium and large.  Today, we were sorting for more medium size fish to fulfill an order for 10,000 fish. 

Randy and Jodi’s goal with having this fish farm is really to build relationships with people and provide training to them to help them earn an income and even take what they learn back to their village.  And, in the process, sharing the gospel!  Please pray for “Jem” and “Dau” (I have no idea how these are to be spelled!).  These are the two workers at Randy’s fish farm.  Please pray for their salvation and pray for Randy as he works with them and is a friend to them.   

We grabbed a quick lunch on the way back.  Alan, Emily and I went to the Goshorn’s to help watch their children while Amy and Jodi went out for some time together.  Jon picked the three of us up around 4:30 or so to go to meet a Christian group of students that meet for a Bible study at the University.  We spent time with them worshiping, reading scripture and praying.  Most of it was in Thai, but they also spoke English pretty well.  After the Bible study, we stopped for supper at the food court at the mall.  We all tried another new thing…quail eggs (hardboiled) deep-fried?  It’s sort of hard to describe.  We do have pictures, but I can upload them yet.  So, you’ll have to wait for those!

It’s hard to believe that tomorrow is our last day here!  I have so many things to process.  All in all, everyone has held out pretty well.  There was a day when Abby and Anna were sick—it was over quickly.  Another day with Emily not feeling well—it was over quickly.  Amy is dealing with a cold and I’ve got myself a very sore throat.  Kris had an incident today, but she’s all fixed up now, too.  Thank you for your prayers!  Since my camera is out of commission, not sure how many more pictures I’ll be able to share for our last day.  Hopefully, I can get a couple pictures from others on the team.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post another time on Friday before we leave or not, so in case I don’t, thanks so much for following along!  Please continue to pray for Thailand and our team serving here!