July 10, 2006

... for just a moment

It was only a short trip to Thailand this time, but 2 weeks was still a huge blessing for many reasons.

I got to see my brother graduate from his DTS in ChiangRai.
I got to eat some of the foods I've been craving for the past few months.
... and I got to spend time with my beautiful girl friend. I haven't talked much about her on my blog before, so for those that I haven't had the chance to talk to here are some more details.

Her Thai nickname is Tuu, most foreigners call her Tuli, and normally I just call her "honey" ;) all of those are easier for me to pronounce than her full name (Rungtiwa Noonpolkrang). She turned 24 on June 28th. She's from Korat, Thailand. She studied the last DTS which I was a staff on, and we were on the same outreach where we had a good opportunity to get to know each other, the thing that seemed to draw us together was our love for photography. However it still wasn't until "after DTS" that God led us together. Little did either of us know that we'd been praying to God about each other during the DTS, but didn't want a relationship to take away from what God was doing in our lives, so both of us had committed it to God and didn't actually think anything would come of it, but God had other ideas. It was so good, it was like we were both staring at God and asking what he wanted for us, looking to Him, and then we kind of bumped into each other... just love the way God works.

Its been 5 months now since we had the "chat"... and once again I was glad I didnt have to try to make anything happen, God just led our conversation ... and I just bumbled my way through ;)
Of the 5 months we've only been together in the same place for less than 3 weeks, but thats cool.

Wasn't sure what a long distance relationship would be like, but I can honestly say the 5 months have been awesome, rewarding, and callenging ... and it makes the time spent together even that much greater... goodbyes are the worst, but thats fine because there will always be another new "Hello" around the corner. Don't always know how long those corners are ... but we're just keeping on eyes on God and before we know it we'll bump each into each other again.

Praying that one day there won't be so many goodbyes...

3 comments:

Hilde said...

Hey, she is gorgeous! Don't worry, there is an end to the goodbyes, trust me.

Scott Parker said...

Ah, so that's why you havent blogged for a while; you've been away. Hope to read some more soon.

bek said...

i know exactly how you feel tom. russ and i didnt see each other for a year, (except for 1 week in the middle) and we survived! God was faithful the entire time. it was the most testing time of my life, but we pulled through, and now we have the best communication skills and have been happily married for just over a year. we still cant believe we are together, and we never take each other for granted.
you guys look really happy, and russ and i will pray for you both!