Sawadee kaa!

The title of this blog is what we say every time we greet someone. Creative...I know. So this blog is going to be absolutely crazy because I have to cram so much in in such a short time.

We arrived to Bangkok late Thursday night/Friday morning. Slept some. Then ventured around Bangkok for a little bit. Saturday we went to three Buddhist temples. On our adventure we took a sky train, a boat,  a 'tuk tuk', and a taxi. We saw a gigantic statue of the reclining Buddha. I hung around with my roomie, Mirjam, as much as possible. This girl has been an amazing blessing in my life during DTS. She has taught me a lot without even knowing it.  Our Thailand A team left for Chiang Mai at 600 pm on Saturday.  The other Thailand team came to say goodbye to us at the train station. Mirjam bought me a mocha frappe from Dunkin Donuts and then 20 short minutes later they left us. It was super depressing leaving people...again. Saying goodbye to her and Raphael was hard. I was a little heavy for a while. I'm still missing them like crazy. We took a train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. It ended up being a 17 hour ride on the train. It was super sweet because it was a sleeper train. They came around at 800 and set the beds up. At that point I was exhausted and ready for bed. I woke up at 545 the next morning, had a quiet time in my little bunk, and waited for them to take our bunks down.  We were picked up by Ya (Thai man who works for the Centre and translates a lot for us) and Cory who is originally from Michigan but works for The Centre as well.

We arrived to Wongen Kafe, which is where we are staying during our time in Chiang Mai, a little while after we left the train station. Emmie runs the cafe and is a DTS graduate as well. She is a local Thai. The coffee shop is awesome. It's on the first and second floor. We live on the 3rd floor and our bathroom is on the 4th floor. Megan, Emma, Maxine, and I are in one room. Synnove, Jenifer, Carrie, Jacqui, and Laura are in the other room. Then the boys are all together, of course.

Sunday evening we went to walking street. It was a fun time! We ate some delicious food, shopped (bargained...wahoo), and checked out the environment. During dinner the national anthem came on and we had to stand up during it. They play it every day at 8 am and 6 pm in public places. You have to stand up or else they'll draw attention to you by blowing a whistle at you until you stand up (happened to a French lady near us there). Walking street is sooooo long. We didn't realize how long it was until it was too late. :) We were suppose to be meet everyone at a certain time at the end of the street. We left with 10 minutes to get there and we ended up arriving 13 minutes late. Woops...but it'll happen. The street is filled with so many different things to buy....Maggie Lee I have seen a bajillion elephant items. I wish I had endless money to spend and endless space to take these objects home in because I would bring you soooo much elephant crap home!!!! You must visit Thailand seeeska.

Monday we had orientation for "The Centre", a mini lesson on teaching English as a second language, and a brief overview about living at Wongen. We split up into our teaching teams for the classes. There are 5 classes we're teaching and 10 of us so it worked out perfectly. Carrie (my cousin) and I ended up getting put together. We actually started teaching right away (Monday night). Our class starts at 500 and ends at 600. We are teaching the highest level The Centre currently has. They are a high elementary to intermediate level. This basically means they know their vocabulary, but are in need of practicing conversationally. We do a lot of tense practices and conversational speaking/asking of questions. We LOVE our class. We have 4 students. Ton is a 21 year old student at Chiang Mai university. Ong is a 24 year old graduate of Chiang Mai, but currently works in the agriculture department researching. Hai is 35, from Vietnam, and is in his masters at Chiang Mai. Kee is 30 and is in her PhD at Chiang Mai. There is so much joy in our class. Friday night we had the chance to tell them about Jesus in our class. So cool.

Tuesday we went to a huge temple in Chiang Mai. It overlooks the city and has a beautiful view. We prayed when we were up there. I was feeling ill before we even left. After the temple I came back here and took a 2.5 hour nap. My stomach has been getting these random pain. Pretty sure it's indigestion problems from the different food. We taught class again and beforehand I didn't really feel up to it, but Will and I prayed before class together for an overwhelming amount of joy and God showed up. It was an amazing time. I laughed like crazy!! After class I was back in a rut. I had a really bad day spiritually. I felt overwhelmed, heavy, and rejected by the Lord...which is absolutely ridiculous but that's how I was feeling.

Wednesday I woke up and God renewed my strength. He met me in my quiet time big time. It was amazing. We had Thai language lessons from Ya Wednesday morning. It was a lot of fun. I stink at it. It's so hard because it's a tonal language. So you could be saying the right word but could be saying something completely different than what you're trying to say because of your tone. Some of us went to Mae Jo university to help pass out fliers for the English classes that are going to be started at a local church by The Centre. I had a really hard time trying to speak the one line they taught us in Thai, but Will carried us. God gave us our team such an amazing group of guys. I'm so thankful for their love for our Lord and team. They're so encouraging. After the passing out of fliers we went to a Thai Bible study. I was so encouraged it was unreal. I thought I would get to encourage them in their walk, but if anything they encouraged me. Their love for our Lord was so evident. They are so in love with Jesus and you could see that on their faces during worship. We had 2 Thai people there that could speak some English so they translated some of it for us and then translated our testimonies for them because one of the students asked us to give our testimonies. This was probably one of my favorite moments of outreach so far.

Thursday we went to Techno university and participated in the international festival. We sang Christmas songs in front of a ton of poeple. Soooo funnn!!! We got to have family time with the team and just chill out for the afternoon. Had class Thursday night

Friday we planned and got ready for the Christmas party then taught class and then had the Christmas party. It was a blast. White elephant, Jenifer shared about Christmas, and then Opal shared, in Thai, about the Christmas story. So a ton of students heard about Jesus!!!! So awesome.

Today we had the day off. Slept in. Went to the internet cafe. Went to a market! So funn...have to go!

PS. Synnove is break dancing in my room right now. Keep us in your prayers! love you all soo sooo much!!!!

We are going to a village on Thrusday or Friday for 5 days!!!! ahhhh so fun.