Pancakes, Pictures and a Packed Saturday

                                

Saturday morning began the way it has for Grandenny many Saturdays over the decades...stirring up pancakes for breakfast with the kids. Just like the old days, Dennis had a  host of helpers cracking the eggs, pouring in milk and flying flour around the kitchen with the whisk. He tripled the recipe, then whipped up  another batch, and, of course, his signature piece de resistance is the baby pancake made especially for YOU to taste before the crowd is called to eat. Mounds of little cakes drenched in butter and honey devoured by these kiddos make that legendary Little Black Sambo look like a picky-eater.

                                   

On our way to the site for the family Christmas picture, we accompanied Chad and Tristan on the walking route, since there would not be enough room for all of us to fit in a tuk-tuk. This gave us the opportunity to experience the densely populated area on the street behind their apartment where Chad and his colleagues regularly hang out, pass tracts and seek to develop relationships with the primarily Muslim community. Vendors and store fronts, with primitive living quarters behind, line the main street running through to the river. The river flows with the run-off from all the streets and home use as well as being the thoroughfare to and from jobs along its route. Alleyways that house multiple families literally stacked two and three deep run off in circuitous directions, making it difficult to map the area and form a strategy for reaching the lost. Sowing is very slow in this culturally diverse Muslim/Buddhist/pagan mix. But this is one of the paths of patient plodding Chad has been called to pursue.

                              

                 

                 

On to the adventure of the family Christmas picture. Mandy determined that the shoot this year should be staged around their common modus operandi being the tuk-tuk, so she had long been on the look-out for one to fit her color pallette. Not only did she apprehend  an aesthetically correct vehicle but it came with a driver that was totally into our project. The cooperative Thai gentleman courageously  parked his  tuk-tuk in the middle of the street as requested, directed traffic and together with Chad pushed it on and off the set as traffic infringed on our little photoshoot. We even found him snapping his own pics to remember the moment and was quite pleased when we asked him to pose with the children for the grande finale. We really should have taken a video of our hilarious antics, but the stills will have to do  while the Smith family selection is being edited for Christmas. However, Grandenny and Grandmoni got to claim our own picture on site.

                       

        

The park was the next stop for the children needing to cut loose after prolonged posing for the camera. How about the  lady with the umbrella? She was a bit of contrast to those of us who were sitting on the benches soaking up the sun-kissed warm rays of December! And Tristan wanted Great Granpa to see that he found a tree to climb!!!

                                   

 

                                   

                                   

The family spent a delightful evening attending a community concert of Handle's Messiah. Abi had studied the composer at school so briefed us all ahead with her enthusiasm. It was indeed awe- inspiring to experience the music that has been heard many times before, but in this different place and time. With the strains of the Hallelujah Chorus echoing in my head during the late-night taxi ride home through the glittering city, it was encouraging to be reminded that He, indeed, shall reign forever and ever. King of  kings and Lord of lords. Forever.