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!