Bible study

The other intens and I live in the "Payap Christian Zone". Its 3 stories. The first floor is where anybody can come and hang out. We have ping pong tables down there, guitars, games, etc. The second floor is where there are some rooms we the other interns and I are staying, an office, and another open room for meetings. The third floor is where the church meets. Well, this morning we started our schedule for the summer (well part of it). We wake up at meet with our missionary and some of the Thai students at 8:45 in the open room on the second floor. Robert was gone today so it was just the interns and some of the Thais. It was a great experience. We read through John 1, discussed it, watched "The Gospel through the life of John" as it went through the first chapter, and broke off for our hour of quiet time.
Its great that they have set aside this hour for us every day for quiet time. A lot of people have the desire to do quiet time, but themselves too busy, too tired, or just lazy (including me). We have no exuses for this set aside time, and it will be really beneficial by the end of the summer to have done this every day.
I also loved having our bible study with the other Thais here. Pii Pui led our discussion and did a great job. They are so open, insightful, and ready to learn. I look forward to doing this every day during the week. Usually we would then go to the Payap University next door, but they don't start school again until June 16th.
Pii Pui and Pii Ma took us to lunch and some shopping today. I really wanted a break for Thai food (not that its bad, I've just had a lot of rice lately), so I ate at McDonalds. It was delicious! I also bought a thai shirt, because we are actually going to a funeral this afternoon. At funerals, they only wear black and white, and I didn't have any black or white nice shirts. Their funerals usually last about a week long, much different from American funerals, where it is you come for a few hours and then leave. They are much more personal here.
I love how the Thais are so welcoming. You walk into a room and immediately they want to talk to you! Again, much different from America where we like to stick to our own crowd.
I continue to learn things everyday and continue to be excited about sharing these experiences with you!

First few days

Well, our schedule here has been pretty busy so far, but I finally got a few hours before my next activity to write about my experiences so far.
Yesterday (Wednesday) we had to wake up pretty early to leave at 8:00. We drove to another missionary's house for the best french toast breakfast I've had. He also had fresh mango, pineapple, and bananas. There were 3 of the missionaries that we will be working with there, and about 8 Thai students (some are thai interns working with us this summer). We had a bible study and David Allen spoke to us some encouraging words about our work this summer. Afterwards, we all went to a coffee shop called Wawee and had some question and answer time with the missionaries. They are putting a lot of time and effort into us interns and care a lot about our work here.
We had a short orientation retreat last night that we got back from today. It was the coolest place I've been in Thailand so far. It was the 5 girl interns, Robert Reagan our missionary, 3 Thai girls, and 1 Thai guy. We had to drive about 45 minutes away where we would take a boat ride down a lake where we stayed on a house boat. I've never heard of these before, but its like a small house on a lot of bamboo sticks in the lake. Well this house has about 5 extra rooms for visitors to come and stay in. They were very small, with screen windows so you could hear everything that went on outside.
Side note- I don't think I've mentioned the bathrooms yet here in Thailand. Unless you're in a nice place, the bathrooms are usually the same. Instead of flushing a toilet, they have buckets of water that you have to pour down the toilet instead. Next to the toilet is a spray nozzel where you can take showers. Its very cramped, but its their way of life.
Anyways, the houseboat was really neat, we jumped in the lake last night and had some fun swimming, ate dinner and went to bed around 8:30 (most of us are still jet-lagged). Unfortunately, since I am still not completely on this time, I woke up at 3:30 AM and couldn't go back to sleep. Around 5:30 I decided to change into what I was going to wear today, so I reach out for my shorts and a huge cockroach jumped out of them. I screamed and "accidentally" woke everyone else up. I'm sure they forgave me.
We had an hour of quiet time this morning. It was great, because our rooms overlooked a mountain range and it was beautiful. We also had another equipping time this morning and learned that we will be heading up an English camp on Monday for a small village on one of the mountains. That should be fun.
We came back today and ate lunch next to where I'm staying. It was 25 baht, about 85 cents for the meal- VERY cheap, but not cheap to them. Tonight we have "cell group", like a lifegroup or devotional group with the Thai students.
As you can tell, it's been quite an experience so far. A lot of new cultural things to get used to. For example, we take our shoes off anytime we are about to go inside. You cannot pick your teeth without covering your mouth. They drive on the left side of the road.
I love all of these differences from America. I love being in this new place. I love how the Thai people accept us and want to learn more about what we believe. I know God is going to bless this summer and do some great things through us.
Until next time!!!

safe and sound

After a 2 1/2 day journey, I have finally arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand. A lot of new, fun, upsetting, and embarrasing things have already happened!
The travel was long, taking about 22-23 hours of air time to get there. 5 1/2 hours to San Francisco, 14 hours to Hong Kong, 2 1/2 hours to Bangkok, and 1 1/2 hours to Chiang Mai.
I arrived in Bangkok June 2nd around 11:45 p.m. My group ended up staying there in a church facility overnight. The morning was really fun, it was my first time to see Thailand during the day. We walked down the streets looking for some breakfast. Well, the streets are covered with vendors selling food, coffee, tea, and other nonfood items. I bought some cut up pineapple and watermelon for breakfast, and also a special type of tea (in Thai, called chai yen), its a tea mixed with sweet condensed milk. First of all, the fruit here is amazing. They had fruit stands full of so many types of fruit i've never SEEN in my life. Some of them looked like sea urchins, but they are all delicious! Whenever you buy drinks on the street, like the tea, they fill up a plastic bag with ice and the drink, and give you a straw to drink out of it. It's a very interested way to drink something.
The money conversion is definitely to our advantage. Their money is called Bahts. 30 baht equals 1 dollar, so everything seems really cheap to us.
We left at 1 this afternoon and flew into Chiang Mai. WHAT a difference in scenery. Chiang Mai is much more beautiful, probably because its not a big city like Bangkok. It's a lot cleaner and has many mountains covered with canopies of trees. We were picked up by our missionary and some other christian Thai students. We got to explore a little bit today, went to a place similar to a Walmart and did some shopping of things we needed for our dorm rooms. During check out, the Kings song played. Well of course, I didn't know what this was, so I wasn't really paying attention. What happens is, at 8 AM and 6 PM the King's song is played on the radio/in stores, etc, and you stand still with your hands by your side while it's playing, out of respect for the King I suppose. I will definitely remember that for next time.
We ate out in a Thai restaurant tonight. Thank goodness for translaters because the Thai language is pretty tough to understand. We had some great food though, except at one point I accidently ate something that made my mouth burn for the rest of the meal. Thailand has some VERY spicy food.
I was a little down today because my laptop was lost from my luggage in my travel here. I absolutely do not know what happened to it, but I do know that I no longer have one. I was very sad, but won't let that ruin my trip.
I'm going to try to catch up on some sleep tonight, since I haven't got much sleep in the past 2 days. My body still needs to get used to the time change. Tomorrow night we're spending the night out on a house boat in a river, so I'll make sure to update you the next day how that went. Farewell for now!