I hit a bit of a wall this evening. Gabe asked me if I was looking forward to our last week here in Cambodia, and I glanced down at the mess all around me from unpacking from Thailand and trying to figure out where the rest of the stuff we brought with us is going to go, and I just sighed and said, “I’m done.”

“What do you mean, done?”

“I mean, I’m done. Stick a fork in me. I’m all out of steam. I think I’m ready to go home. I’ve got nothing left.”

“Do you think we should have done four weeks instead of five?” he asked.

“Goodness, no! Do you realize how much we have to cram into these next six days??”

And we laid down on our bed, closed the door (okay, other way around), and tried to process some stuff. Like the rest of our week. And all the days and weeks after that. We didn’t come to any conclusions. But, praise the Lord, we’re refreshingly on the same page (total answer to prayer), and ready to face whatever God has in store for us.

And I got a little wind back in my sails.

Our almost-four days in Chiang Mai were nuts. Not sure we could’ve packed another thing into our schedule, and I’m missing the sleep I didn’t get.

Monday: Landed at 1pm, our friend Faa surprised us at the airport, swam at guest house while waiting for our room to be ready, walked for 30+ minutes to a restaurant that was closed, ate at another one, walked around the city, hit the sack.

Tuesday: took a songthaew (pick-up truck with benches in the back) to a temple at the top of a mountain (Doi Suthep), bought some fun scarves as gifts, ate lunch at the place that was closed the day before, Faa and her kiddos picked us up and took us to their house for games and playing and dinner and worship, two hours at the Night Market with Faa.

And I really need a whole post (or four) for our time with Faa, because it was amazing. And before we left, one of her precious girls had a message for us. She spoke in Thai, and Faa translated, and I could have wept. It’s too special to share in a quick little bullet post like this one, but soon.

Wednesday: RIDING ELEPHANTS at one of the coolest places I’ve ever been to in my ENTIRE LIFE. Then lunch, a little rest, an interview/photo shoot with Faa (Gabe’s got a fun little project up his sleeve), the Chiang Mai Night Safari, Night Market again.

Thursday: Nina turned SIX! Chiang Mai Zoo & Aquarium, lunch at PIZZA HUT, Royal Flora (holy cow at the crazy flowers!) where we got to let go of a floating lantern(!), last time at the Night Market.

Friday: Chiang Mai to Bangkok to Phnom Penh, unpacking, tired tears from 2/3 of my girls, collapsing, writing a blog post.

Tomorrow is another zoo! With lots of friends! Then the orphanage. Then Sunday is church and something special with the kids at the orphanage. Then we’ve got a boatload of goodness to pack into four little days. Whew!

I really, really hope to have some more pictures for you soon. I know those are way more exciting than my words (they are to me anyway!). It’s just been hard to find a spare minute.

Will you pray that we’ll finish strong? That we’ll bring glory to God and make his name famous in the tiny bit of time we have left? Thank you, friends!

After spending the past six hours with our beautiful friend, Faa, here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I think it’s appropriate to borrow her fabulous phrase–”my heart is so busy.”

So, so busy.

And if you haven’t read the story of the evening Faa spent in our home last August, I implore you to clicky-clicky right here. She’s one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. So completely dependent on God’s protection and provision and wisdom, and he just radiates from her like nothing I’ve ever seen.

Tonight I learned even more about her. And hung on her every word. I wish you could hear even one-tenth of her story. Man alive. And my prayer is that you will. Because while Gabe has been gently hounding me to help people tell their stories for a long time, I’ve always shrugged him off. Too busy, I’d say. I’ve got too much I want to write myself. Maybe when I’m old and bored, I’ll write biographies (yeah right).

But I’ll tell you what. Faa’s story is powerful. Powerful. And it’s begging to be told. And my heart is burning with the desire to tell it.

So that’s that.

Much more about our time with her and her eight kiddos when I have some pictures ready to share. It. Was. Amazing.

So, today was our 14th anniversary. Gabe put his hand on my leg as we were barreling down a mountain today in the back of a pick-up truck in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and said, “Happy anniversary. Fourteen years of bliss.” I chuckled, because I knew he was joking. Bliss is a strong word for some of the stuff we’ve been through.

But goodness, I sure do love him a billion times more now than I did when were 22- and 21-year-old babies standing in front of God and our homies and pledging to love and honor each other for all of forever.

Happy Anniversary, Gabe the Babe!

Tomorrow we have big plans to RIDE AN ELEPHANT. I know. I can hardly handle the excitement.

Shoot. I almost forgot that I titled this post something that makes little sense out of context. So, we’ve been so busy that I’ve been neglecting to read my Bible as much as I usually do (like hardly at all). I pulled it out tonight and just started flipping through Psalms, reading verses I’ve underlined in the past. And one popped out at me. Psalm 115:1:

Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!

We’ve been getting a lot a lot of compliments for this thing we’ve been doing over here the past few weeks in Southeast Asia, and I so desperately want to make sure that God is getting every last ounce of the glory for it. We’re nothing without him, couldn’t do this without him. He is our everything.

Not to us, O Lord, but to you be the glory!

I’d love it if you’d give him some glory with me today. What is something God has done recently in your life that proved his steadfast love and faithfulness?

I love Asian t-shirts. When I was student teaching in Japan, my friend Rachel and I would walk through stores and markets and look at all the t-shirts written in funny English and laugh. Lest you think I’m poking fun at people for whom English is a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th language, I’m not. Nothing but admiration here. As a words girl, I just love the unexpected delight of things getting lost in translation.

We’ve seen some zingers here in Cambodia too. Stinks that I can’t remember any of them at the moment.

I did see one at a temple the other day (a Japanese girl was wearing it) that said, “grip this loving moment.” And I pulled a pen and paper out of my backpack and jotted it down, not because it was funny, but because it just hit a nerve.

I want to do that. I want to grip this loving moment. This is the day that the Lord has made, and I want to soak it all up and suck it all in. I want to be about his kingdom work. And I don’t want to waste a minute on things that don’t matter.

And as my heart breaks for my friend Sherry back home, who lost her 22yo son, Derek, in a car accident a couple days ago, I don’t want to take a single second with my loved ones for granted.

It’s 30 minutes away from 2012 here in Cambodia, and I was planning on being in bed well before midnight. Up early, six-hour bus ride from Siem Reap, dinner and ice cream with friends. But I want to include some “grip these loving moments” pics in this post which may take me until 2012 to write.

This is Sophan. I certainly don’t play favorites when it comes to our sweet kiddos at the orphanage, but this dude has me wrapped around his little finger. I don’t know what our future plans are concerning Cambodia, but I know one thing: I need to learn Khmer. And one of the biggest reasons is my intense desire to have a big ol’ heart-to-heart conversation with this teenager. His English is pretty good, but I want to talk to him in his own language.

These five kiddos put on a beautiful rendition of the Christmas story for their parents on Christmas morning. Loved every minute of it. They took their roles so seriously, and it was adorable to watch. Keri and I are scheming up ways to get at least two (if not four) of our kiddos married off to each other. I’m pretty sure the Nathan/Ava combo wouldn’t work though. Those two are eerily similar–completely delightful, except when they’re not. Then, hoo baby, watch out.

No, the blue tint is not a Photoshop touch. It’s a blue mesh canopy stretched over the courtyard of our guesthouse. Here are Scot and Keri with the banner we gave them for Christmas (made by my talented sister, Bethany). They also received peanut butter m&m’s, and a Spot It game. It’s not all that often that I get someone what I’d deem the perfect gift. But that combo fit the bill. So much fun.

Ava and Longdich. This beauty is another reason I need to learn Khmer. I can see in her eyes that she has so much to say to me, and I so wish I could hear and understand her say it. Someday. Anyone know a way I can learn Khmer in Columbus, Ohio?

We had a little after-Christmas party on Monday at Yvonne and Steph’s. We went swimming and then gave Panha and Veasna some cool Christmas gifts. Like mini-legos and two-packs of deodorant. Not because we’re hinting at something but because those boys go gaga over American deodorant.

We’ve ridden in a tuk-tuk about 98% of our time here in Cambodia. And we love, love, love it. We were all lamenting tonight how stinky it’s going to be going back to a land where you have to ride in a vehicle with windows rolled up and seatbelts fastened. Tuk-tuks rock. And after some super-duper uncomfortable, bumpy tuk-tuk rides around Angkor Wat, we were so happy to be back with our fearless driver, Pu Sovanna, in Phnom Penh tonight.

This is our beautiful friend, Steph. She hails from West Virginia and has spent time in 14 different countries. She and Yvonne room together in a fun little apartment and work at the Boys’ Center together. On the way to work one morning on her moto, Jesus told her she’s supposed to blog more often. Go, Jesus! She’s an amazing woman, and I’ll be linking to her blog every time she posts (and acting as Blog Nazi to make sure she posts on a semi-regular basis).

Here’s a loving moment to grip: dinner at Mike’s Burgers. We love this guy and his delicious American food. As much as we love Khmer/Thai/Any-kind-of-Asian food, it’s amazing how good some cheese fries can taste.

Well, would you look at that? It’s midnight! There are fireworks going off that sound like the city is under attack and are shaking our entire guesthouse. Every dog in Phnom Penh is howling like he’s been shot. And my family is somehow sleeping right through it.

Happy New Year, friends! I’d love to hear one wish/prayer/dream you have for 2012. Here’s one of mine: that God would give me the time/energy/platform (blog posts, e-books, speaking, whatever) to share the many, many things he’s laid on my heart in the past few weeks (months, year).

I waffle back and forth between wanting to blog about stuff the minute it happens and waiting for things to simmer and stew a little before I tackle them. We just said good-bye to some dear friends less than fifteen minutes ago, and I would love to compile a beautiful tribute to them, complete with pictures from our amazing week together.

And I will.

But for now, I’m just going to let the raw emotions flow, and most probably through tears.

I can’t even remember right now the first time Keri and I connected online. I know that I loved her immediately. I loved her honesty and humility and her encouragement and sense of humor. I loved that she was living in Singapore and doing mini-missions trips with friends from church. I loved her excitement for our trip to Cambodia.

And somehow, somewhere in the midst of all our getting to know each other online, we decided to do something crazy.

Meet in Cambodia and spend Christmas together. With our husbands and all our children.

And somehow, some way, God worked out every last detail.

Keri and I chatted online quite a bit (mostly via Facebook) and then talked on the phone once. Then skyped twice right before our trip. We (the Tavianos) arrived in Phnom Penh on December 12, and spent a week+ getting acclimated to Cambodia, meeting awesome people, and getting involved in any way we could.

On Wednesday, December 21, we headed to the PP airport with two tuk-tuks (+ one we picked up while we were there) and waited a really, really long time for their plane to land. The girls were asking me all kinds of questions about them, and I had very few answers. Like, “I know Keri’s tall. I think she’s taller than me even. But that’s all I know.”

We met, we hugged, we climbed in tuk-tuks, then we had a little moment that kind of instantly bonded us together (a story for another day–I do promise to tell it). We stayed at the same guest house. Well, in adjoining guest houses. We got up each morning and met informally in the courtyard for blogging and chatting. We had a semi-agenda and went with the flow the rest of the time.

It was so, so good to have some other newbies there with us, seeing Cambodia through fresh eyes, sharing our love for the people in need, brainstorming ways God might use us to make a difference together.

On an un-missions-related note, we commiserated over parenting failures and shared in great detail about our families and history and how we met and all that. And it didn’t take long to figure out how/when to best poke fun at each other.

Keri and I loved each other from the get-go, since we had already communicated so much in every way but in person. And we were thrilled when our husbands seemed to hit it off pretty quickly and then kept finding more and more to talk (and laugh about). It was also fun to see Keri and Gabe bond over their love of photography. And I honestly didn’t expect to have so much fun with Scot. Not that I didn’t think he’d be great, but I really enjoyed our friendly banter (and insults) and getting to see his softer side.

And our kids. Oh my word. I can’t even tell you. Two boys ages 13 and 11. Three girls ages 11, 9, and 5 (or “almost 6″ as Nina would say). What are the chances that they would get along AMAZINGLY? Seriously. I don’t even know what to say. Laughing, joking, playing, teasing. So much stinking fun together. And not a hint of boy/girl drama. Just innocent brotherly/sisterly fun. We all got to know each other’s strengths/weaknesses/issues, and yet it just made us all love each other more.

Garrett and Nathan are amazing. Such sweet, loving, awesome kids. We sure are going to miss them.

We had to say good-bye tonight, and it wasn’t really very much fun. The crazy part is that they’re just downstairs in their own hotel rooms, but it was time for bed, and we’re getting up early tomorrow to visit more temples, and they’re sleeping in a little before heading to the airport, so we won’t see them.

We all hugged and stayed pretty strong, but then I hugged Keri and just held her and cried. Whew. I don’t know what to do with this. We got back up to our room and Nina looked at me funny. “Are we leaving tomorrow?” No, I told her, but Scot and Keri are. She just burst into tears. And then I held her while she bawled.

“I don’t want to leave Cambodia!” she cried. I reminded her that Scot and Keri don’t even live in Cambodia. Then she just started wailing about leaving the kids at the orphanage and on and on.

Sigh.

I don’t know what God has in store for our future, but I know that anytime you open up your heart (especially to people on opposite sides of the globe), you’re setting yourself up for the pain of good-byes.

But our hearts are overflowing, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

We love you, Keri, Scot, Garrett, and Nathan! We don’t know when/where/how we’ll see you again, but we’re trusting God to make it happen.