Update

Upate on my ear:
I wish i could say that I'm recovering thanks to my massive bag of antibiotics, but it doesn't appear to be doing the trick. After tow pain-free days I had some pain on Easter. I've had a little bit of pain every day since then and today it increased in intensity and frequency. So back to the doctor. This time I think they may add steroids on the advice of my Stateside ENT. It seems that it's pretty hard to get the bone infection to go away. Please pray that the infection will go away completely, but if not, that I can keep it under control until I get back to the States. If surgery is necessary I'd much rather have it there. Also, I feel like my body is taking a beating with all this medication, and I'm still pretty tired. Thanks so much for your prayers.

My 100th post

This isn't very personal for such a milestone post, but I have to say: this shocked me. Even though Gabe walks, talks and thinks like Eric, I always secretly thought that he looked a little more like me than his papa. I guess not-by a lot.

My Ear

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for me. Since we get lots of e-mails asking how I am, I thought I'd take some time to write a post for you. Here's the story:
Last June I got an ear infection after swimming in a not-too-clean pool. I went to the doctor and got antibiotics and I thought I was all better. However, from that time til now, my ear didn't feel quite right. It sounded like something was dripping inside my ear. Anyway, 7 weeks ago, my ear became pretty painful. I went to the doctor and they said there was nothing wrong with it. I'll spare you the details, but I went to three different doctors at the same practice for a couple of weeks and they thought it was an abscess. They prescribed antibiotics and eventually said I was better, but I still couldn't hear very well. I knew it wasn't better, but wasn't sure what to do as doctors here tend to dislike following up vague symptoms aggressively. Anyway, I continued to take antibiotics and that seemed to help, especially when my family was here in Thailand, for which I'm very thankful. The day after they left, I was having problems again with lots of pain. This went on until last week it was unbearable and I asked for help from the only American doctor I know who is legally able to practice in Thailand. Eric had taught his son in a previous year. He referred me to a friend of his and after two days of futile treatment they put me in the hospital. They still thought it was an abscess, but after a CT-scan they found that it was just a very bad infection that was in the skin, the soft tissue, the cartilage and in the mastoid bone around the ear. Apparently, such an involved infection is quite rare. Apparently, it will take some time to get rid of the infection, so even though I was released on Saturday I have slept most of that time til now. I'm still pretty weak, but I feel much better and the pain is gone. Please pray that the infection will clear up entirely as they would have to surgically remove any cartilage or bone that does not heal.

I just want to say thanks again for your prayers for me and the encouraging e-mails. I'm sorry that I haven't been great with e-mails in the past little while. I'm really looking forward to seeing you all soon.

The Film

Many of you have heard that Eric & I were involved in shooting a movie about the life of J.O. Fraser. J.O. Fraser was a missionary to the Lisu in China. Another organization (not ours) is making this film and they decided to make the movie in Thailand for obvious reasons. Calls for extras were made at our church. They especially wanted women with long hair, so I volunteered.

When they called me to back to ask me to be in the movie they asked if Eric would consider taking a part. Eric hadn't volunteered, but they couldn't find anyone in the right age range with the right look. Apparently, Eric had the right look. After much negotiating of the schedule, Eric accepted the part. It was time consuming for Eric between costume fittings, actual shooting and travel, but he had a real part. What especially amazed me was the amount of time I had to spend for my 5 seconds (maybe) in the film. Here's what I had to do:

Costume fittings: I went to two fittings at a tailor shop down town. They not only made the skirt & shirt, but also underwear.
Shoes: I had to go to a second hand store to buy old-looking shoes. Thankfully, they cost almost nothing. I am sure that no one saw my shoes in the film.

Make-up: I arrived hours before filming began to have my make-up done. They had a special make-up tray for us so that they could touch up our faces during filming.

Hair: I was singled out to pass
through the foreground. Either my costume was made in warm colors because they wanted me in the front of the shot or they wanted me in the front of the shot because my costume was in warm colors. I don't know which. Whatever the reason, I had to have an elaborate hair style because I was going to be so close to the camera. The sylist modeled the hair style on a picture of a woman from Fraser's team. This style took at least 45 minutes to do. With my hair as long as it is, they still had to stick wig pieces in my hair to give it body. The style looked beautiful when she was done (the picture shows lots of hairs sticking out here and there, but you couldn't see that in real life). After we were all made up we had to gather on the set for the director to set up the shot. It seemed a little haphazard, but the crew had clearly spent a lot of time setting things up before we even got there. The scene was supposed to be a graduation party at the Chinese language school. The director wanted to create the impression that hundreds of people were at the party but in fact, we only had about a dozen extras, so we had to help make the shot look busy by walking through the shot. My job was to walk in front of Fraser with another man. Halfway through the shot I had to turn and smile at this guy. Unfortunately, he was much taller than I am (he is standing behind me in the cast shot) so they had built a raised plank for me to walk on. It was quite tricky to walk on the plank in my very high heels, but I managed. So when it was all said and done I spent hours and hours in preparation for maybe 5 seconds on screen. I actually felt pretty lucky because I was in the foreground. Some other people spent just as much time as I did to be way in the background turned away from the camera for five seconds. Anyway, we got a free lunch out of it:) I wanted to post some pics of Eric in costume but the only pictures I have aren't pictures that Eric wants posted, so you'll just have to wait for the film release this summer to see Eric as Carl Gowman, sidekick of J.O. Fraser.

One side note: I noticed that the costumes mess with your mind. When someone is wearing old-fashioned clothing it changes your perception of them. For example, I looked over at these ladies and thought "They're sewing something." Then I thought, "Of course they're not sewing something. I don't know any ladies that sit around and sew in public." They were actually working on conference badges, but their old-fashioned clothes make them look like they're sewing.