Goodbyes

Well, my roommate, Katy McBroom, has officially returned to the states. She loves Thailand, but missed her boyfriend whom she met a few weeks before moving here. They had fun doing skype dates, but somehow I think seeing each other in person will be much better haha. She also had some other opportunities in America she was excited about and her contract was finished at the school she was teaching at, so she felt it was time for her to return to the states. Here are some pictures of things we did in Thailand together :D.
Dream World was SO much fun. Even the cotton candy is the same as the states, but I don't know how you can mess up cotton candy.
Christmas in Bangkok is so much fun!
We ventured to the far north for my old roommate's graduation :D
She had a little too much fun entertaining my neice. The first time Autumn saw her, she cried, however Katy's sweet smile and chocolate won her over haha.
Finally can Christmas Eve get any better than this? Paddle boating in a swan paddle boat while it's about 90 degrees outside and being surrounded by palm trees and green everywhere!

Currently, I am in the process of moving to a new studio apartment across the street from the university I'm teaching at and it is a 5 minute walk from my church. Also, a lot of people who go to my church live in this area. It will be a great way to spend more time with students (as before I had to travel for about 45 minutes to an hour to get home), get to know people at my church better, and SLEEP more!!!! 5:45 am is a horrible hour and the time I had to wake up last term. 7 am sounds MUCH better.

Prayer requests:
- Katy as she is readjusting back to the states. Sometimes reverse culture shock (feelings when you get back home) are worse than culture shock because it is less expected.
- Katy as she finds a job.
- Me moving to my new apartment.
- Me studying Thai and using my time wisely as I have LOTS of free time right now since I'm not teaching.

Thank you all for everything!!!!

English Camp

These are pictures from the English camp I went on a few weeks ago. The first one are some students coming to my station. I had a tongue twister relay. It was fun, but the weather was hot, so the students got tired. However, we had water for them and the tongue twisters were funny, so they were okay. haha

We also had a game that is kind of like water balloon volleyball. The teachers had fun and threw a few water balloons into the crowd of students. Then, at the very end, the teachers each grabbed some left over water balloons and threw them at the students. They ran away so quick like ants scattering. It's great to be a teacher :D
I was able to get to know a lot of the teachers while I was on this camp and a few of the students too. It was a great camp and a wonderful opportunity. :D Thank you for your prayers.

More pictures from the beach :D

Ting and I are in the back and her friends are still a little scared of me at this point because we were on our way to the island. No worries, I won them over ;). haha.









This was our first day snorkeling. I'm a little white. haha. I have pictures of me in the water, but it was so bright that I look like a bike reflector haha. The Thais looked as white as I normally am and then I just reflected all the sun's rays haha.








I decided to relive my childhood. Ting and I were going to build a sand castle, but the sand wasn't very wet, so we decided to make a turtle. Why a turtle? Why not? haha. She helped me with most of it, but I ended up finishing it haha. It was fun :D








Here's the whole crew. You can kind of see how white I am in the bright sun in this picture. This is at the end of our trip on our way back to the mainland. See . . . the guys are more comfortable around me haha. I taught them to play spades and they loved it and it broke the ice. Such an amazing game!!!







This is on Day 1. I was so amazed at the view we had and I LOVE swings, so this was the first place I went after dropping my things off in the room. YEAH!!!!!

The Meaning of Friends

Hello! One of my students wrote this essay for thier final exam. The title was "The Meaning of Friends". This is just one example of how differently we think. Enjoy :D.


I was a student in Wat Nuan Noradit School where there are 2700 students. When I had a final examination, my friends were pleased with me when I helped them with their final examinations. I did not like to help them, but finally I would help them everytime. For example, while I was letting some friends look at my answer sheet, my teacher saw it. Then, she complained to me and told me not to do it again. Would I believe her or not? Well, I got the answer. I would help my friends and do it when my teacher was not paying attention.

For another example, at the last final examination, I had an English test. My friend told me to do it again. I did not want to do it, but I did it again while the teacher was monitoring someone else who was cheating on the examination. I could not let them look at my answer sheet. Just a moment later, the teacher was not paying attention and my friends looked at my answer sheet carefully. Finally, I felt proud that I helped my friends pass the final examination. I knew it was not good, but I thought it was not really bad to do it either.

Gaw Talu

I have returned from my trip to Gaw Talu with Ting and some of her friends and it was fabulous. I had no idea where we would be staying or what we would be doing, but it was a wonderful surprise! This picture was taken near our beach.

We took a hike up to the look out point on the island and it was amazing. We could see as far as our eyes could see and it was a little hard to tell the difference between the water and the sky at some points because they were both so blue! This is a picture of the cliffs. Absolutely amazing.





This is the view we had walking out of our little bungalos. It was a very nice change from the city and it took my breath away as I thought of God creating all of this with words!







We definitely had fun. We went snorkeling, hiking, walking along all the beaches, they played American football (yes, with a pigskin haha), and we had fun on these swings. It was so nice to relax after the craziness of the semester and grading. It was nice because there were no shops to look at or movie theaters to go to. We only had one chanel on tv. haha. We played card games, explored the island, and just had old fashioned fun :D.

This sunset was taken on the final night we had on the island. Both nights were breath-taking, but I rushed back to get my camera to capture this sunset. I love the beach and I have always loved water. It's so calming to hear the waves.

What is amazing to me is this probably isn't one of the most beautiful places in the world and it still took my breath away. Not only was it beautiful above, but it was fascinating while I was snorkeling because everything was beautiful underwater as well, and I know there are more amazing places to go snorkeling or diving. God is so creative. He could've made the world so boring, but instead He made it a work of art for us to stand in awe of and praise Him.

Please pray for discipline: Now that the semester is over, I will have a good amount of free time. I want to use this time to strengthen relationships with my friends from the church as well as study Thai more so that I will be able to communicate better with my friends and students. It is easy for me to say "Oh, I'll do it tomorrow" or get busy with other things and then turn around and wonder where the time went. Please pray I will schedule my time and be wise in my decisions.

Thank you all for your prayers and support! Please drop me a note or an e-mail and let me know how you're doing!

Photo blog

Some friends and I went to Dream World this past weekend. One reason I didn't blog until now is because I was waiting for pictures. :D It's like a mini-Six Flags. It has all kinds of scenes of different American fantasy stories. This room is the giant's house in Jack and the Beanstalk.


Joel and Andrew always said I had big feet :D.
But my feet aren't THIS big. haha
Katy rode a water ride and got wet, so she was trying to dry off her dress. This reminds me of a little kid. haha.
Yes, a roller coaster. Doesn't hold a candle to anything in the states, but it wasn't horrible.
And the group, plus one more person who was taking the picture. :D

These pictures below were from Nun's graduation that I wrote about a few weeks ago. It just took me a while to get the pictures from her. We knew all of her other pictures were going to be pretty serious, so Katy and I decided to give her some funny pictures. haha

She is a very special girl. She is like my sister and I wish she would move to Bangkok haha. But she is happy in Chiangrai and I'm glad for her.

My first term is officially over. I have averaged all of my grades and next week I have to complete the complicated task of putting the right information on the right sheets as well as entering my grades online. It seems we can never hand in only ONE piece of paper in Thailand, but there are always multiple ways to record the same information.

Pray for me on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday as I will be attending an English camp outside of the city. It will be at a nice resort and I am hoping to hang out with some of the students, however I'm not sure if any of my students from the past term will be there. I will also get to spend a lot of time with the teachers. Thank you for all of your prayers and support!!!!! May God bless you.