h.michelle's blog

one thing i love about my dad is that every phone conversation i have with him, he’ll share what he’s recently learned in the bible. this past week, he was sharing with me his new insights into the purpose of the Law. he had always found the purpose of the Law confusing – was it [...]

i’ve heard that when you reach certain stages of your life, people feel that it is free reign to give unsolicited advice. like, you have a baby – perfect strangers will now give you advice on how to parent your child. whether you want it or not, it’s given. i think dating is one of [...]

i just want to set the record straight. people ask me all the time how i can sacrifice so much to be a missionary in thailand. well, it’s probably because i’m a better person than you. i just give and give and give and never receive anything. my whole life here is one giant sacrifice [...]

i just read an article reviewing kathryn schulz’s new book “being wrong: adventures in the margin of error.” dr. fred borst, the reviewer, writes: “Twelve hundred years before Rene’ Descartes penned his famous ‘I think, therefore I am,’ the philosopher and theologian (and eventual saint) Augustine wrote ‘fallor ergo sum.’”This pun-addicted reviewer only wishes that [...]

nothing like drinking an ice cold soda from a bag. da’s wedding. how sad that it poured on her wedding day. blast you, rainy season! the trash ghost from our skit on global warming. conserve! save! recycle! walking through the store, i saw this. is this weird? since i never look at cat food in [...]

dr. phil kao! boo ya! cause i got me a smart bruva! congrats on your successful Ph.D-fense (woot woot!) on “mechanical behavior of arteries blah blah decoupled anisotropy blah blah blah pulmonary hypertension.” (i kid you not; actual title.) this is phil’s too-cool-for-school indie PhD album cover.

this week, a friend from venezuela came to stay with us. and as many visitors we’ve had to our home in the community, it was striking to host someone who loved our neighbors so affectionately. regardless of the fact that she knew just 2 words of thai and had never met them before, she treated [...]

i hate cats. if i could kick cats and not be shunned from society, i would. i won’t go into why for the sake of you cat-people out there, but i pray that one day you will come to the light. my friend just sent me this blog post of this email exchange between a [...]

you can’t beat thai nicknames. golf, beer, earth, cream, ball. they love using english words as nicknames because their real names are so auspiciously stinking long. the superstition is that if you call someone by a nickname, you can trick spirits so they won’t be able to know the real names of people. hey, it’s [...]

our team started having a monthly day of fasting and prayer that ends with breaking the fast in one of our communities and sharing time with neighbors. yesterday, we met in photong, christy and suzy’s slum and as they were showing us around, christy pointed out the swamp water level and the ubiquitous trash. one [...]