cHiAnG mAi =)

Since the students has Monday & Tuesday off as a result of the holiday Kaopansa, our team and 2 students left last Friday to take a short vacation to Chiang Mai. It's in the mountains of Northern Thailand, and I think it's the 2nd largest city in Thailand. It was about a 12 hour bus ride, which we did overnight and arrived at 9am Saturday.

Saturday: settled in, walked around exploring the city; went to the Night Safari!

Sunday: while the team rode elephants & bamboo rafts, I went to church & the Chiang Mai Zoo (huge!)...It took me about 3 hours to go through it all and see almost every animal you can imagine!
That evening we went to the Sunday market--incredible! We were there about 3 hours, and I'm sure we missed parts of it...mobs of people, good bargains, endless crafts/souvenirs/clothes...made for us being very tired shoppers with probably too much stuff at the end of the night!

Monday: the team went to zipline (I had done it, so decided to visit other things :) and white water rafting... All the while, I slept in, went on a mission to find a couple specific souvenirs, and visited the oldest temple in Chiang Mai. For dinner, we decided to take advantage of such a touristy city and go to a Mexican restaurant--so good! Then we went to the Night Bazaar, which seemed to go on forever! But it was definitely a fun experience :) Ginny and I even ran into a guy that eventually started talking to us all about Myanmar and the type of government they had, etc...He had volunteered in a village in Northern Thailand that has Burmese refugees...It was so interesting!

Tuesday: went to Wat Doi Suthep, a very famous temple outside of Chiang Mai, set beautifully in the mountains. It was incredible! It was also an eye opener for us as we saw many Thai people walking around the temple 3 times for Kaopansa (Buddhist Lent)...
Later we went to the mall for awile before leaving for our bus that night. Come to find out, as a result of some miscommunication, we had missed our bus (scheduled for the previous day)...long story short, we got it worked out where 3 of us left at 9pm and sat in the aisle of a bus for the ride there; and the other 5 left at 3:45am and got home around 5pm...We made it home and are so glad to be back in Mahasarakham!

Overall, it was an amazing trip...Even better that we got to have 2 of our Thai friends with us :) I had a great time and I know the rest of the team did as well!

What?!

It's hard to know where to start since my last post...so much is happening so fast that it's hard to remember the last couple weeks! (sorry it's been awhile...) Let's see, we had a pretty typical week of teaching last week, with a few nights of getting to hang out with students outside of class, at the market, etc. The English Department also had a "Tea Party and Poetry Night", where the students dressed up and had a presentation about poetry, and certain students got to share their poems with everyone on stage (pretty impressive!). We came in towards the end, but it was still really fun to see some of our students (& take lots of pictures) :)

It was lots of fun last week, because we taught about movie genres...the students talked about their favorite movies, then each small group presented a skit representing specific genres (and having the audience guess)--they were so funny to watch! I love getting to see the students' imagination and creativity during the roleplays.

Sadly, today is our last class...it's so crazy to think that we're finishing up the summer! We had lots of students over last night and cooked tacos for them, which I think they enjoyed (definitely different than what they're used to haha). We're having a couple parties before we leave next week, so be in prayer that we'll continue to be focused on spending time with students...and also that goodbyes won't be too hard :(

We've got another English camp this weekend (same theme as before) for the 3rd year students, so we're trying to get everything prepared for that...I'm praying that we have energy and motivation to do our best!

Now on to the next post...we had the chance to take 4 day trip to Chiang Mai!

Mahasarakham...to Ubon...to Sisaket...to KHU KHAN!

Well, I just got back from going on a road trip to Khu Khan, where I served my 1st summer (2 yrs. ago) with the Cobbs. Charlotte (the Payne's daughter), Nancy (another MK), and I left at 6:30am from Mahasarakham to start our journey south. We took a bus 4 hours down to Ubon Ratchathani, then hopped on another bus to Sisaket, which was about an hour away.

 Debbie, Moriah, and Titus Cobb met us in there, where we had lunch at Pizza Company and shopped around some. It was so great to see the Cobbs again after so long! We headed back to the Cobbs house in Khu Khan, about 45km south of Sisaket, where we got to see the rest of the family (David, Rachel, Dawson, and Lydia)…so cool to see how much the kids have grown! I think one of my favorite parts was being out in the country again, seeing the familiar small town I had once been for a couple months :)

We hung out for a little while at the house before I got to reunite with 2 Thai girls (twins) I had gotten to know while serving there…I've missed them and it was SO exciting to see them again! It's hard to believe they're seniors in high school now :) It seems like so long since I've been to Khu Khan, and yet it felt so familiar like it was just yesterday…

Anyway, we went to the market for a little while before dinner, which was fun to see around the apartment I had lived in…not much has changed :)

We went back to eat Debbie's delicious cooking--lasagna-- and I was glad that the twins got to stay fairly long through the evening. I was also impressed with Moriah, Charlotte, and Nancy's cooking skills when they made meringue shells after dinner for everyone--so good! They tasted kind of like roasted marshmallows :)

After having house church this morning, we headed back to Sisaket so we could make our way back to Sarakham. The trip went smoothly, and we managed to make it back around dinner time. I even met a couple Christians on the bus, one of which is going to seminary in Khon Kaen, so that was a really neat blessing!

I'm so thankful God opened up this opportunity for me to go visit the Cobbs and see Khu Khan again, even if only for a weekend. This is definitely one of the highlights of my summer :)

Please be praying for the Cobbs as they continue to serve in Khu Khan. Also, pray for the twins, one of which recently became a believer :) I pray she stands strong in the Lord amidst such a spiritually dark place with few Christians to encourage her. Pray that her sister would see the joy God gives, and that He would work in her heart and draw her towards Him.

One more full week of teaching, then we leave for a 4-day trip to Chiang Mai--so exciting! Even better that we have 2 Thai friends joining us :)

"Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." {1 Corinthians 15:58} 

Roi Et!

This past weekend, Stephanie and I had the privilege of staying with a good friend (also student) of ours and her family. She lives in Roi Et, which is about 50km from Mahasarakham. We had an INCREDIBLE time! Friday night we just left after the party at our apartment and got to her house fairly late. The next morning we left for Wat Pha Nam Yoi, a huge famous temple about an hour and a half from the main city. We stayed there for several hours, taking TONS of pictures; it was one of the most beautiful temples I've seen yet! It was only built about 4 years ago (has 6 floors, 2 of which aren't completed), and it's surrounded by some mountains. I can't wait to post pictures of it :) It's always a good reminder for me when I visit temples to remember our purpose for being here...This country is a spiritually dark place filled with people seeking to find truth and do "good" things. Please pray that we will strive to be reflections of Christ as we live and work here so that those who don't know Him will see that God is the one who gives everlasting hope. He the only one to whom praise and worship should be given!

We had lunch in the same area as well, in a little hut with mats that you sit on--so fun! We enjoyed doing some shopping in the souvenir markets also, which made us pretty tired walking around in the heat...We headed back and went to a nice restaurant for dinner with her family--we were eam mak (so full)! We definitely stayed up late having fun together and enjoying the air conditioning :) The next day we dropped by the small aquarium they have in Roi Et, which was cool :)...outside the aquarium there were 2 ladies that had lots of small birds in cages that you could pay a small amount to release--of course we decided to do it, so that was another little fun thing to add to our list of things done in Roi Et ;) Overall, the weekend was amazing getting to spend time with our friend, along with having great conversations with her :)

This week is off to a great start...God has been so good, and I pray we would continue to persevere and be strong in Him :)
Thanks for reading!

4th of July and Other Holidays :)

We had a great 4th of July party at our apartment last Sunday...About 7 students came, but with all of us, Scott, and Rich's family there, we had quite a full place! We had some decorations, LOTS of snacks (don't worry, we had plenty of watermelon!) and played some games. Also, we sang a few traditional American songs, including "My Country Tis of Thee" and "America the Beautiful" for our friends to hear. It was fun celebrating Independence Day in Thailand and the students seemed to enjoy it :)

We decided to continue the theme of holidays by teaching them in our classes this past week. We learned all about the main holidays in Thailand and taught them about several of ours. The students came up with some very creative skits for the different holidays, and it was cool for us to hear about how they celebrate :)

5 main holidays we learned about:

• Songkran: Basically a 3 day water festival during the hot (or rather hottest season, haha)...Many people will throw water on your throughout these days all around town...I'd love to be here for that one!
• Mother's Day: Celebrated on the queen's birthday, and many people go to the temple in the morning to make merit. Also, the students said if they're able to, they like to spend time all day with their mothers :)
• Kaopansa: The Buddhist Lent holiday (towards the end of this month) celebrated for a couple days.
• Roy Ga Tong: Sort of a light festival they celebrate by making little boats out of banana leaves. They put candles and sometimes incense then put the boats in the river to watch them float away (to represent the bad things in their lives going away). In Ubon Ratchatani there's a big celebration that the students said was beautiful at night watching the candles floating on the water.
• Father's Day: Celebrated on the king's birthday in honor of fathers...Similar to Mother's Day, but there also may possibly be fireworks in Bangkok and other big cities :)

This week Becca and I also had the chance to go to the Freshman Welcome party at the English Department on campus...quite an experience! It's a big deal to students to be able to dress up (this year's theme was boys dress in white and girls in black) and eat and have different performances throughout the night. There was a short play, some dances, a few songs...all of which were fun to enjoy with friends!

I'll be posting another update possibly tomorrow about me and Stephanie's trip to stay at a friend's home in Roi Et...can't wait to tell all about it! Until then, fon dee na ka (goodnight)!--at least from this side of the world ;)

English Camp Pictures!

I've finally put up some pictures from English Camp! It's not all of them, but here's the link to the ones I put up so far: Click Here :)

Enjoy!

Ice cream, Elephants, and the World Cup :)

We've had another great week of teaching, and even more time spent hanging out with students outside of class. Here are some things from the week (or just random thoughts :)...

• I had an awesome ice cream "sandwich"--literally. It included gelatin squares, rice, coconut & strawberry ice cream topped with syrup..all put right on top of a roll of white bread--tasty!
• A couple of our friends have been gracious enough to cook for us a couple times this week. We had sookee Tuesday night--a soup with lots of meat & vegetables (squid, crab, chicken, cabbage, seaweed, etc.) with some other yummy flavorings :) Thursday evening they came over to our apartment and cooked geng keaw wan gai (green curry) and kai jeow (omelette) with rice...it was arroy mak! (very delicious!) Afterwards we had a fun time trying to sing some Thai songs :) We're pretty excited because we're hopefully going to cook for them next week (maybe spaghetti or breakfast for dinner :)
• It's become a pretty common occurrence to see an elephant walk by our apartment at least 3 nights a week (you can pay to feed them)...Pretty cool to be able to say we see elephants randomly walking down the street. I love Thailand!
• It's awesome to be in another country during the World Cup...seeing every restaurant playing the games on their TVs, World Cup apparel at the 7/11 convenience stores, country flags decorating the post office...and even better, some of the adevertisement trucks (which have loud speakers and drive through the city saying ads) playing the World Cup song...I find myself subconsciously singing it in my head basically every day, haha.
• Our team enjoyed going to the Mahasarakham museum with Pat and Yui yesterday. It was fun as they acted like tour guides meeting tourists and showing us around :) They're lots of fun to be with! At the museum, there are neat traditional Thai houses to see and a mini zoo--which includes deer! A special sight for Thais to see ;)

Today we'll be heading to Roi Et with a couple students, one of which is from there. We'll possibly be seeing a temple and just spending time looking around the city...I'm looking forward to it!

{Colossians 4:2-6}