Vaughan & Cathy, our team-mates here in Pak Phanang were both admitted to hospital yesterday with dengue fever. Today as I was visiting them, the old lady who wanders around selling fruit stopped for a chat. It turns out that her son studied chemical engineering in Australia, and worked there for a while. As she was telling me how much money engineers earn in Australia I remarked that, yes, I used to work as an engineer in Australia and earn that amount of money also.

Intrigued, she asked me how much money I make now. When I told her that my monthly allowance was roughly one tenth of what I used to earn, plus benefits, she said, "You're lying! No one would give up a wage like that to come a live here on such a fraction of their previous salary."  As I tried to explain that it was because of my love of God that led me here, she continued to insist that I must be lying. Only when she finally understood that I came as a "teacher of religion" and I offered to show her my bank book that she finally realised that I was telling the truth.

"He's a very devout man," she said to Vaughan's neighbour as she walked off to continue to selling her little bags of fruit. Quickly I grabbed a tract from my bag to give her before she left. It turned out that title of the tract that I had grabbed for her was "Money can't buy everything" (though in Thai language of course). How appropriate!