Unlike, most road trips where people get up at an ungodly early hour to drive for hours on end, this trip starts in the late afternoon. First we went to church. There weren't very many people there because, it's between 2 holidays and most people travel home to the countryside. Before church started I got to hold baby Grace who was dressed in an adorable ladybug outfit! 
She is so cute! After church Robin and I got lunch and picked out a new camera for Robin. It was really cool and does all sorts of neat things. It was perfect just before a road trip. We met our traveling companions at 2 and after a quick prayer we headed for our first destination- Sikiu which is in Isan or Northeast Thailand. In front- our driver Pastor Sompong and his wife P Thongtip who was holding their grandson Dee-Dee. 
In back- the ladies, Robin, Jiit, and myself. Dee-Dee and I became friends as we walked around Tesco-Lotus. We stopped there for food and other things to bring to the Christmas party. Around 6pm we arrived in the village as they were getting things together. This is the same house church I went to when I first arrived in Thailand. This experience however, was MUCH different!
Where do I start. Ok, so at first just some family members and a few kids were there, so we hung out talked with Pastor Chan and his wife and helped them get ready as well as spent a bit of time taking pictures with my new fried Jiit. 
They had a big BBQ planned for the community complete with music, a gift exchange and a Christmas message from Pastor Sompong. The BBQ was delicious. I sat down with some ladies and introduced myself. Later on I found out I was sitting with the village leader's wife and we were soon joined by him also. 
It was just a blur of activity after that. People were coming and going, eating food, kids were playing, people were singing and then we were joined by a group of rowdy guys. The first thing the village leader tells me is that they are drunk! LOL. 
Which made the rest of the evening quite interesting, especially with foreigners there. They all hung out in a group shooting glances at me. Some where dancing to the music and every time a song finished they would present the singer with a piece of food. Quite funny to watch. They eventually got brave and one guy brought me sticky rice! Pastor Sompong gave a Christmas message and then invited Robin and I to sing Christmas songs. That was great. We both really enjoyed it and we got an applause afterwards. I was presented with more sticky rice and what I thought was water. After tasting the water, I thought it tasted strange, so Pastor Sompong and Robin tested it and confirmed my suspicions that it was spiked!!!! Ridiculous!! I joked with Pastor that he needed to be my bodyguard, and a poor one he turned out to be. Eventually a group of ladies got up to dance and I was pulled into dance with them and Robin 
and I was presented with flowers from one of the guys. Before we left the guys wanted my picture and my phone number and they presented me with more flowers. Instead of rescuing me Pastor and Robin helped the situation and made sure I posed for lots of pictures! 
Oh my! It was so much fun though. I got to hang out with a bunch of kids who took the camera to take pictures of the surroundings,
I got to chat with the village leader's wife who made sure to tell everyone that I spoke Thai which encouraged the boys, and I had an all around good time!
After that we rolled out mats and spent a little time chatting on the floor of this huge room and called it a night. 
We had 3 more days to go and needed all the rest we could get.
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