So, here’s a whole bunch of great posts!  There are stories of real people (ie Raising Witnesses, A Look Into a Thai Person Coming to Christ), general glimpses into missionary life (ie First Quarter Highlights), lots of culture (ie Ordaining a tree, Thai alphabet song), news about the recent upheaval in the country (ie Crisis in Thailand : Update, Prayer for Thailand), and thought-provoking personal glimpses (ie Depression, It’s about time…).

Some incredible posts here, and some interesting pictures and video.  Don’t miss this 2010 tour of Thailand!

• Raising Witnesses
• Crisis in Thailand : Update
• A Look Into a Thai Person Coming to Christ
• Thai alphabet song
• Translating Scripture with Lung Seri
• Ordaining a tree
• First Quarter Highlights
• Soccer Evangelism in Thailand
• Depression
• Litter-picking in a Bangkok slum
• Prayer for Thailand
• It’s about time…

A market in Thailand

• What happens when a 4 year old finds a tarantula on the wall… (Ecuador)
• A birthday party in South Africa
• An upcoming women’s conference, Being a Mother, a challenging reward (Mexico)
• Working with pastors and their kids – no fighting over the toys, please… (Guatemala)
• It’s not easy going to school that isn’t in your mother tongue – read about Eliza’s first day (Thailand)
• Travelling in your "home country" as a kid can be hard – just ask Micah. (Kenya)
• You never know what some missionaries are in need of until you ask.  How about cloth diapers (Russia)?
• Pray for what’s-his-name and his Mom… (Rwanda)
• And what better note to end on — Daughters are a Gift of Love (Chile)

Boy in Rwanda

In the past I’ve posted about posts based on cool pictures – ones that caught my attention.

This time I ignored content altogether – at least to start with – and just looked for titles that caught my attention.

You know, other than "Our May Newsletter".  Or "Even more photos of our trip".  Or my favourite, "(no title)" (that’s what shows up in my rss feed reader when you don’t bother to put a title).

No, these titles caught my attention – and it turns out that people who write good titles tend to write good posts too!

For example, who could resist a missionary blog post about Tap Dancing (Kenya)?  Or how about the tantalizing Catching Creatures on Camera! (Columbia).

New Bible Study and Peter Pan! (Indonesia) brings us even more creatures among other things.  Mixing together topics that don’t usually go together makes an interesting title – though it’s not great blogging practice!

Everyone loves to share an opinion, right?  So that’s why I clicked on Input Requested (Indonesia).

And of course there’s always the finish-the-sentence posts, like A Garbage Can Full (of what?!) (Rwanda), and Take this hot chocolate and (and what?!) from France.

How about a shocker like Before Wii (Venezuela).  There was something before Wii??

All right, I’d better get this post done – here are a few more that caught my eye…

• Become Nothing (Niger)
• I miss being sick… (Japan)
• Battling bats, and Romantic Roaches (Uganda)
• "Gossip" …or perhaps ~ (Niger)
• The "God-Father" (Peru)
• 3 lines, 5 guys, 17 syllables, and a billion diapers (Tanzania)
• In Which I Prove We Will Acheive [sic] FTL Speeds by 2050 (Thailand)
• The Biggest Holiday of the Year (Peru)
• Note to self: remember to appreciate these things (for more than a day!) when I get back to the UK… (Thailand)

Which is your favourite title?

• And how is your string?  If you don’t know how to answer, click here (Mali).
• Why the violence?  And why are leaders so silent about it? (Nigeria)
• I don’t know, how often do you ask for a cat at a gas station? (Hungary)
• Here’s a chance to give input at a blog – what kinds of posts would you like to see here? (Taiwan)
• Can I be content without – all this stuff?  Good question. (Brazil)
• "Could you tell me About Jesus, just briefly?"  Wow, where would you start? (Thailand)
• Why not just teach them all English?  Really?  People actually ask you that? (United Kingdom)
• This is certainly a favourite question for missionaries – what is your schedule like? (Chile)  Of course, it’s different for everyone – and changes once a week…
• What are you doing to support healthy family life?  This is kind of neat. (Bolivia)

But it looks like South Africa is dominating our new blogs this time…

• The Chapple Family (Mexico)
• Welcome to Africa Ya’ll (South Africa)
• JUNGLE NEWS (Venezuela)
• Zach Attack (South Africa)
• Siedling Stories (South Africa)
• Scott & Ruth Yingling (Mexico)
• McClean Family News (Thailand)
• Rachel’s Romania (Romania)

I hope I didn’t say something bad in some language or another, but these two terms are from the posts below.  Enjoy these recent posts from around the world!  And find out what sa fou and shoo foo are all about…

• Extremely useful information – what to do if you call yourself a mushroom. (Russia)
• i don’t believe in love (especially not love and marriage…). (Taiwan)
• Learning to Type in Thai – another of those missionary skills you might not think about. (Thailand)
• A boy called Lucky – hope in the midst of heartbreak. (Mozambique)
• Well Well – a major step forward in helping the community. (Kenya)
• Han Solo gets a little help from local missionaries.  You just never know who you’re going to meet. (regarding Haiti)
• Dominoes & Evangelism???  You bet. (Mali)
• Sa fou (This is crazy!)  Exciting new partnerships. (Haiti)

• Let’s get practical – How Can You Pray for Missionaries?  Some great ideas here.
• Getting ready for hot season… just how do you do that in Niger?
• What’s it like going to a women’s conference in Sudan?  Read all about it and see some pictures in “He makes winds His messengers…” Psalm 104:4
• Hope – how do you hang on to it in such difficult circumstances?  Read about a pregnant woman searching for hope in Swaziland.
• Just plain beautiful!  See it here – Doi Tung, Thailand.
• Some news from Haiti – Sherry’s update – Feb 2, 2010
• A glimpse into a few people’s lives – Guess who was waiting for me during a trip to Columbia.

It’s time to congratulate those who have completed 5 years of blogging!  5 years is still a good old age for a blog – in fact, these blogs are still older than this site (which started in 2005).

I’ve done this in the past, but I’m not sure if I’ll do it again – the more time goes by the more blogs are celebrating!  But here it is, at least one more time – Happy Blogoversary!

• Adventures With God serving in South Africa
• Musings of a Missionary serving in Thailand
• The Boyds to Columbia serving in Columbia (their former blog is here)
• The Kautz Family serving in Columbia
• Itsara serving in Thailand
• Always an Adventure… serving in Taiwan
• Coxes Quarterly serving in Germany
• les Davey de France serving in France
• Simplicity serving in Taiwan
• Under the acacias serving in Burkina Faso
• Life of a Steward serving in the United Kingdom
• The Ramblings of Norm and Debra Copeland serving in Guinea/Senegal
• Kingsley Clan serving in Ireland
• Into Rwanda serving in Rwanda
• Ramble Zone serving in Guatemala (AAAHHH!  They’re having a baby right now!)
• Kurt, Johanna, Kassia and Luke Metzger serving in Papua New Guinea
• Reflections of Refinement serving in Japan
• garcias2chile serving in Chile
• The Roe’s Garden serving in Germany
• Nanana serving in Mexico
• The Journey serving in the Netherlands
• The Naine’s Cameroon Adventure serving in Cameroon

• Delivery time – in hopes of A Warmer Night for the Neighbors (Paraguay)
• It all started when this woman shared with our women’s group that she had a vision to share Jesus… find out what happened in MISSION: Kingdom Building (Paraguay)
• The title says it all – Free wheelchairs (Nepal)
• When can we be a church? (ummm … you don’t need our permission!) (Ecuador)
• Sometimes a few photos really give you a feel for a place – check out this A Mother-Daughter Photo Adventure (Thailand)
• A Tribute to the Living Sermons preached by My Husband – pictures of a guy out there doing stuff (Venezuela)
• Porcupines and Pot Lucks in Sudan – ever wonder why they call it porcupine? (Sudan)
• One challenge of working in teams – The Breaking of the Fellowship (Middle Earth)

And how about some thoughts from Nigeria … who could resist reading a post entitled May Erin always be fat?

And a post from Paraguay.  What would you do if this happened to you (by the way, a warning in advance – this is a spider related post)?  Enough is Enough!

And some familiar challenges are alluded to in this brief update from Peru.

Oh, let’s end where we began, in Thailand – A few fun facts you might not know about Thailand!  Yep, there was a lot I didn’t know!