Sawadee Ka!!

Here I am, finally getting a chance to blog-- in the familiar internet cafe from last year :) It's hard to even know where to start with what all's been happening and going to happen soon! We arrived in Bangkok around 11pm Monday night (thai time), then Tuesday morning flew to the town of Udon Thani for orientation at the local church there. I loved being able to see that ministry there, where they have such strong Christian leadership from the local people. The pastor and associate pastor were involved in orientation as well, helping us learn more about Thai culture and religion. It was a lot of information, but definitely all really helpful as we learn to relate to the Thais we'll be teaching and ministering to.

There were 2 girls, Jessi and Stephanie, from Tennessee that met us in Bangkok and will be working in Udon Thani for this summer, which is about 3 hours from here (Mahasarakham), so hopefully we'll be able to work with them a couple times during these 2 months. Please be in prayer for them as they partner with the church there and serve in a variety of ministry opportunities.

Overview of what we've done and what we'll do the next few days:

• ate supper at KFC yesterday :)
• met 2 friendly girls in an Udon Thani grocery store who are teaching an elementary school there--did I mention one was from England and one from Australia?? how cool is that! It's quite exciting meeting other "farangs" (foreigners) here :)
• slept in this morning...til 8:30. Jet lag hasn't been too bad...well, maybe for some worse than others, haha ;)
• went downtown this morning just to look around-- saying we stuck out like a sore thumb would be a pretty accurate description I'd say. 7 white people walking together (one being 6'5") stands out just a little bit.
• ate lunchat my favorite restaurant around the corner-- love seeing familiar faces :)
• had dinner with Rich and Vicki Casebolt, who are missionaries here in Mahasarakham also (moved here in the last year or so)...they have 2 little boys, 3 yrs old and 1 year old-- so cute!
• had a Thai language lesson with Pat and Nui, some friends from last summer, which was so fun! they'll be back in the morning to teach us more...Thai is quite a fun language :)
• we'll be meeting with a few Thai professors we'll be partnering with for teaching ESL...starting to teach next week!

I guess that's about it for now (or at least what's on my mind at the moment!)...thanks for reading!

Sawadee Ka!