Doubly thwarted by Covid — by the pandemic in general and an infection in March — I’ve failed to visit this country for three years.

And boy, does that seem like a long time. For almost two decades, I’ve traveled to Thailand at least once a year to spend time with the staff and kids of Asia’s Hope, so this extended, involuntary absence has been a royal pain.

So it’s really good to be back. Benjamin and I arrived in Bangkok, the capital city, earlier this week and spent a couple of days exploring and eating. Okay, mostly eating. For cooks and foodies alike, Bangkok is a wonderland, on many a chef’s bucket list. But tonight we experienced a taste of what we’re really here for — two weeks of intensive photography and video production, highlighting the stories and the smiles of kids and staff of Asia’s Hope Thailand in the northern Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces.

And, of course, the food up here is great. Our staff prepared a meal for us that was equal to anything we ate on our two-day culinary extravaganza in Bangkok. Before dinner we laughed and played with kids from the four homes on our Doi Saket 1 campus, eventually having to shelter from a monsoonal downpour under the covered patio in front of our on-site church building. We then enjoyed the aforementioned feast, which starred gigantic prawns caught earlier that day by the Home 1A dad, John.

Tomorrow morning, we’re getting up early to walk off some of the calories with Tutu, our national director, and then we’ll sit down with her and map out the production calendar. And then the work begins! Sure, we’ll have lots of time for fun and games, but we really have a lot of shooting to do in preparation for some major storytelling projects we have in the works.

I’ll try to keep this blog updated, and we’ll be sure to post as often as we can on social media. Keep us in your prayers — we sure want to the kind of injuries and sickness that derailed our last attempt to visit these wonderful people in this beautiful country.