Halfway there...

Sorry it's been awhile since I've written...I didn't realize a week had passed by! We've reached the halfway point for the summer--1 month down, 1 to go...It makes me slightly sad that it's already reached halfway, but I'm glad for the time we've had and that we still have a whole month left :)

Some things from this week...
~you can definitely tell when rainy season is in full swing! The other day we went to the night market on campus and as we were finishing dinner, the bucket dropped...within like a 5-10 minute period, you could see the stark difference of color in the sky--as first just dark cause it's night, then unbelievable black as the winds came in and the Thais with their little booths started scurrying to take cover during the torrential downpour...So we waited for awhile, then left as it was sprinkling to catch a song-tao before it got to late and they stopped going around town. Then as we were on it, it poured and poured more and we saw lots of people that were drenched as they were riding their motorcycles...It's been raining pretty much every night now.

~Last week, we attempted to make pancakes at our apartment...somehow we didn't know how to read the ingredients or something cause the batter turned out REALLY watery. And it being about 7pm, we didn't have time to go to Big C, and none of the convenient stores have flour or some kind of other filling to make it thicker. So I figured hey, what would it hurt to put "Nesvita" in there, which is like a hot instant cereal mix that's powdery and sweet like malt. We put several packets of that in there, and just a little bit of oatmeal...Needless to say, the pancakes were slightly lumpy, but SO good! I think we've discovered a new pancake recipe haha ;)

~A friend of ours, Woot, took us to a vegetarian restaurant the other night...It was really good! And the lady that runs it, Pee-Ben, speaks fluent English and is so passionate about informing people about eating healthy, naturally grown foods to live a longer life. She is such a sweet lady, and I can't wait to go back...Please pray for her though because she told us she became a Christian (I think maybe when she was in Austria studying?), but now she is open to many religions since, according to her, they all teach people to be good...I pray that we'll continue to have more opportunities to speak to her and explain that we can never be good enough on our own, but desperately need the grace of God.

~The party last night went great...Most of the people that came last night were third year students and spoke great English (as opposed to last week, many were "Freshies"), so it was a good change to have a smaller crowd and talk more easily with them. Three of the girls watched Madagascar 2 with us (great movie by the way!) and they seemed to really enjoy that...them understanding most of the movie shows you just how much English they know :) Anyway, today we'll get to just hang out and rest...we may go to the night market--hopefully we won't get drenched ;)

Kop Khun Ka (thank you) for reading my blog!!

Teacher= Ajan

This week has been great (like the rest :) We've been teaching, and now that we're really in the groove of everything, we're getting to know the students and enjoying the time we spend with them so much! We have a set schedule for teaching, and we all get to teach with the others of our team different days, so it helps things not get boring or mundane...This week we did lot of fun games and taught the students mostly about occupations. On Monday, our group (Stu, Lydia, Sarah Beth, & me) finished about 10 or 15 minutes early,so we decided to let the kids (about 30) teach us the Thai names for the occupations we had taught them...now that was hilarious! The words seemed so hard to us and the students got quite a kick out out of us trying to say them, especially since here and there would would mess up the tones :)

I love me & Rachel's Wednesday class because they are 3rd year English majors and they can speak English really well...We played a word game called Blurt and Scrabble, which they seemed to thoroughly enjoy. We got to eat with 3 of the students as well after our class, so it was great to get to know them better.

Nothing much has happened out of the ordinary, except it was great because a student named Oui came to our class in the Hotel Managament Faculty, but she had been Wednesday so she already knew occupations...She asked us some interview questions that she had to have for another class, and somehow we got into why we had the names we had. Lydia proceeded to tell the story of Lydia in the Bible, and I got to explain about Hannah in the Bible...for the next 30 minutes or so, Lydia and I sat with Oui going through stories in the Bible to explain the gospel to her. I'm not sure she understand all of it because she's not fluent but she did seem to understand some of the major points Lydia was trying to get across, so please pray that we'll have more opportunities to further explain, and use a Thai Bible, to show her the truth and hope God gives to those who follow Him.

We held another party at our apartment last night, which we've decided to do every Friday because they are such a success...A total of about 30 or so students came, and it's lot of fun to get to hang out with them and have more one on one conversations than in the classroom. One of the 3rd year students from mine & Rachel's Wednesday class came (Tongz) and brought a couple of friends, so Aaron & I got to talk with them for a long time and play some Uno as well :) And oddly enough, another one of their friends came who was from the Philippines! His name is Jake and he lives with his parents right around the corner from our apartment...He's lived in Thailand for only a year now, and is originally from Manila (he speaks fluent English)...his parents are Christians, and he said he is, but as he stated he's "not the religious type" and hasn't been to church in about 6 months. Please pray for Jake and that God will break down those walls so he can experience the grace of God once more and live completely devoted to the Lord.

Today we get to rest and plan some, so it's a nice break from this a busy week...I'll probably head to Big C (like Walmart)sometime this afternoon, which is usually a pretty hap'nin place lol :)

*Random Facts for the day:
-a 1st year student, or freshman, are called "Freshy"...Our Monday class is all "Freshies" haha
-ALL students wear uniforms to school...including college students!

Watch out for the geckos!

What a fun-filled last 2 days we've had! After teaching on Friday, we prepared our apartment for a party we were hosting at 5:00 for whatever students wanted to come. When 5 rolled around, nobody had shown up, so all of us just enjoyed playing board games to pass the time. 30 minutes went by...and hour passed...then finally at about 6:00 some people came! As we've quickly learned, the Thai people aren't quite as time-oriented like we tend to be. So people came and went and at one point we probably had 15-20 people in the little downstairs of our apartment...we played Uno, talked, ate, played a game called signs, ate some more, then played badminton towards the end when the number of people started dwindling. Overall, we felt like the party was a success :)

And funny story...After everyone had left and we were about to hang out for a little bit, I went to grab a small table for us to play cards...I didn't even realize something had crawled up my arm and on my shirt until Sarah Beth said "it's,it's... on your back"... I was scared it might be a spider or something cause Rachel was tryin to swat it off and I didn't wanna spill my drink, but come to find out, it was a gecko! haha, those little things show up everywhere :D

On Saturday, since we had no plans for teaching or anything, we decided to take a trip to Khon Kaen, about an hour or so away from Mahasarakham & also the 4th largest city in Thailand. We went shopping some & went to a beautiful temple called Wat Nong Wang. It was 9 stories & looked kind of like a pyramid from the outside, so we got to walk on a balcony on each level. It was beautiful at the top, getting to look out over the city of Khon Kaen. When we first got to the temple, our Thai friends who had come with us on the trip offered flowers and incense to Buddha as they bowed down to pray. It was very eye-opening & saddening at the same time to see that they are putting hope in a false god. Please pray for Rinda, Lek, Fon, Nan, Tham, Got, and Noi...that they would clearly understand when we tell them about Christianity and the grace God has to offer them. It's difficult to tell if they understand because they don't speak fluent English...Especially pray for Rinda and Lek, who know the most English out of the group; Lydia, me, and possible Rachel are meeting with them Monday to show them more about the Bible & God. Pray that GOd will give us words to day...They are very open to learning about Christianity, so I pray that God will work in their hearts to show them the truth of the gospel.

I better go....until later, sawadee ka!

Pictures!

I uploaded lots of pictures from the past several weeks...Click here to view them :)sometime I'll get around to tagging them, but it's really time-consuming...you're welcome to ask questions about them though!

(the slideshow on the right is pictures from last year's trip to Thailand)

fun random facts for the day :)

I decided to think of some interesting cultural and random facts to blog about...

-even though it's like 100 degrees outside everyday, Thais STILL wear jackets...we still can't figure that one out.

-Around the town, poodles seem to be a popular pet...they're everywhere! who woulda thought??

-everybody you meet has a nickname (they're regular names are usually pretty long)...don't be surprised if they ask you what you're nickname is (mine's shompoo, which is a fruit that's called a rose apple, or it can mean pink). So far I've met several people with names like Pang, Ping, Lek, Noi, Aoy, Nan, Jeop, Fon, Tick (Tock), Yod, and the list goes on and on...it's fun to try to remember all them!!

-We went to dinner at a Korean BBQ place 2 nights ago...it's an upside down bowl lookin thing on your table, and you grill the meat ontop, and boil the vegetables & noodles in the water surrounding the mini mountain grill. Kinda hard to explain, but SO good! We got to try boiled squid :) didn't taste like much, but it was still pretty good if you could get past the bouncy texture.
And while we were eating, a couple of guys walked by with a baby elephant, so we got to feed it for 10 baht :)

-The past couple of days since the Paynes have been gone we've gotten to take care of their black & white guinea pig named Oreo :) he's lots of fun to play with, but it's not very fun when he pees on you...trust me.

Hope you enjoyed learning more about Thailand!

farang farang!

I decided to go ahead and write another post, so maybe they won't run quite as long if I do them more often :)

Sunday was a blessing, as usual...We had about 20 people there (at Thai church), so it was pretty much a full house. After singing Thai praise songs (which is always a blast ;), I enjoyed getting to teach Elliot about Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus.

Yesterday teaching went well...we just did a basic introduction of ourselves and allowed the students to introduce each other. It was tough to get them to speak at first because they were all really shy, even though they could all speak fairly good English. Since Sarah Beth, Stu. and I had the afternoon free we decided to check out the park a couple kilometers down from our apartment. So of course along the way, we heard several shouts of "Farang, farang!", which means foreigner, or white person...you gotta love standing out as the white person in the crowd, haha. The park was beautiful, and it was fun getting to play some badminton and frisbee :)

Today with teaching went even better because we played some great games that the students really seemed to enjoy. A couple of us taught the Hotel Management majors while the other four were in the English department. I can't wait to let ya know how the rest of the week goes!
The Paynes left for Bangkok today to pick up some of their family and will be back in a few days, so be in prayer that they'll have a safe trip...oh and also please be in prayer for our team member Lydia because yesterday she had the flu with a high fever. Today she helped teach some, but she's still trying to regain strength--and I hope that none of us get the flu either...

Sawadee ka!

pat? or pat?

It's been great getting to know the city, language, and people more this past week. One of the pharmacy professors at the university hosted a welcoming party for us at her house Friday night, so our team went with Scott & Valerie to Ajan Ben's house, where there were many other teachers we got to meet. She is so sweet and speaks fluent English, as do some of the others. And of course, the food was arroy mak (very delicious), as is almost all Thai food. We played a game as well, where everyone had to find a friend and spend ten minutes getting to know each other by asking questions like what's your favorite color, how old are you, how many people are in your family, etc. I enjoyed getting to know Cam, who just started working at the university a week ago. When time ran out, all the partners sat back to back and Ajan Pom read 5 questions that we had to answer about our friend. Cam & I both answered 4 out of 5 correctly, so we were pretty excited even though we didn't win :) One question that stumped most people was what's the weight of your friend, which tends to be a common question for Thais (so don't be offended if they ask you haha).

Last night, our friends Rinda, Lek, Nan, Nui, Jeop, and Fon came by to see if we wanted to got the night market, so after eating dinner we walked down the street to the talaat since we had never been there before. It was a blast getting to converse with the girls because they love to try to teach us Thai. We laugh alot though, since half the time we say words wrong because of the tone...for instance, I was trying to learn the word for a hand fan, which is pat...but pat can also mean fried if it's said in a low tone, so it's lots of fun trying to distinguish the sounds they make :)

Anyway, me, Sarah Beth, Stu, Fon, Nui, and Rinda (got those names straight? lol) were waiting on the others (who like to shop more than we do ;) and Rinda was telling us the Thai word for moon. She then started saying that some pray to the moon so they can have something good happen to them. So we asked her more questions about what Thais believe about spirits, and what she believes. She said she isn't sure exactly; she believes some of Buddhism, but she wants to learn more about other religions and understand them before she decides which one is best. After some frustration with not knowing how to say something in English she wanted to tell us, she asked why everyone has to speak a different language--why can't we all just speak the same language? We told her we actually had a story about that, so Sarah Beth got to tell her about the Tower of Babel :) Please pray that we'll have more opportunities to keep sharing about what we believe and what the Bible says because many Thais are open to it. Also, pray for Rinda that she'll have clarity and understanding about Christianity and the truth of the gospel so she can have the hope and joy that only Christ can give.

Church with our team of 6 was such a blessing for all of us. We enjoyed worshipping in song and discussing Colossians 1 with each other...tonight we'll have Thai church, which usually consists of the missionaries (Scott & Valerie) and about 7 or 8 Thais. I enjoy getting to teach Elliot, who is 8 years old, while Lydia meets with Charlotte, and Stu meets with Oliver. Pray that we'll be able to reach out and pour into the Payne kids so they can grow closer to the Lord.

Now that I've written a book, I'll end my post now :) We start teaching tomorrow, so I'll be excited to let y'all know later on in the week how everything goes!

Mahasarakham to Mukdahan!

Wow, what a great past week we've had! The university we'll be teaching English classes at doesn't start until Thursday, so we've basically just been getting to know the town of Mahasarakham better, as well as trying our best to pick up some of the Thai language and find some key restaurants we like around here...the food is amazing, although sometime spicy enough to clear your sinuses, that's for sure!

Our team is staying in a four-story apartment (don't worry, they're small levels, it's not a mansion or anything ;) We're all settled in and love it, although no air-conditioning can sometimes be inconvenient in this humid 90-100 degree weather...but we're enjoying it nonetheless! The town is fairly big, so we take song-theaws (like pickup trucks with a roof over the back and 2 long benches) around to different places in certain routes... and funny story, the other day we were downtown meeting an American teacher for lunch and we decided to be adventurous and try to get back to our apartment on our own using a song-thaew. We thought we knew which one to take (they're color coded according to routes) and where to get off, but apparently not one of us really knew good enough to find our way back. So we got off at what looked like the end of the route and just started walking back in what looked like the direction to downtown, even though all the roads looked pretty much the same to us haha. So we finally all voted on catching the next song-thaew back to downtown and calling Scott the missionary to come get us (none of us brought the cell phones we've been provided, of course...) so we finally got it all worked out to get back...but we all just took it in good humor and figured, hey, how many people do you know that could say "I got lost in Thailand one time, how bout you?"

Anyway, today we got to travel to Mukdahan, which is on the border of Laos. Apparently, when me and Lydia (another girl on the team) arrived at the airport, they didn't see that we had a 80-day visa already, so they stamped us to depart June 24--quite different that August 4th, the day we needed! There's an immigration bureau in Mukdahan, about 3 hours from Mahasarakham, so we had to spend the day there waiting to see if the problem could be fixed...After filling out forms, making copies, and waiting a few hours, they finally put a little red stamped date of August 23 on our passport and we were set! I'm glad that God worked that out so we could actually stay the whole summer :) and it was great to see over the river into Laos as well!

We've already met several Thai friends that hopefully we'll be able to hang out with some more this summer, and somehow share with them the gospel, although the language barrier gets frustrating at times. Our team will start teaching on Monday to the university students, so I want to ask that you'll pray that we'll be able to plan lessons and not be too anxious about it. This is the first time teaching ESL for most of us, so it can be intimidating. Also, please pray that we'll take advantage of every opportunity to spend time outside of the classroom with the students we meet, even if we may get tired or drained. I'm so grateful for your support!