Drew in Missions

Well, with all the catch-up I’ve been trying to do with the English Camp Weekend, I’ve neglected a few day to day activities that bear mentioning. One of them is our “English on Tour” work from last weekend.

We were invited to spend Saturday with a group of judges and their staff from a nearby providence whose name escapes my mind right now. Lamlang, maybe? Anyway, we accepted their invitation. Our job for the day was to disperse throughout their group, and give them a chance to speak and be spoken to in English, thus improving their vocabulary and increasing their confidence in verbalizing.

The cool part of the trip was that it wasn’t us sitting around, trying to make small talk. We toured a botanical garden/hotel/resort area, which was fantastic. It had all the amenities, from trees and bushes clipped into cool shapes, to a paddle-boating pond. It even had a hedge-maze and a zoo!

We spent the morning touring their facilities and playing Get-To-Know-You games, like Take A Hike, Catch Your Eye, and others of that sort. The Thais were very open to hanging out with us, and really got into the games. They let themselves have fun, and soon enough everyone was having a blast.

Next we headed to an Orchid Nursery, where we got to walk amongst the rows and rows of hanging baskets and beautiful flowers. The owners even presented each of us with our own tiny orchid to take home.

Finally, we booked it to an amazing restaurant for dinner. The building was built right into a hill that was chock-a-block full of waterfalls and streams. It made for an incredible atmosphere. Our tables were on a pier-type area, and we ended up sitting with our new friends. They helped us know what foods to order, what to try, what was ridiculously spicy, and how to get more food. They even made suggestions on dessert.

The one dish that I thought was coolest was a plate filled with a huge freshwater fish that looked like it was fried. But this wasn’t just the fillets, it was the whole shebang. Not only that but it was covered in spices, including a generous portion of chili peppers. It was so spicy it hurt, but had great flavor. Our Thai friends even showed us how to get the best meat off of it without getting many bones.

After dinner, we got to sing for them, but we didn’t have any songbooks, so we had to go by memory. That wasn’t a problem for the English ones, but the Thai versions were super tough. We still got it done, though, and I think they enjoyed it.

As we said our goodbyes, they told us that they wanted to get together again next month. They not only paid for everything, but invited us to their providence, so they could show us around. It was quite a day.

In other English news, we’ve really begun our English classes at the Zone in earnest. We’re having to limit the number of times people can come per week, because demand is so high. I’ll go deeper into what goes down in our classes later, but for now I want to share a quick story.

Yesterday John and I were waiting on students. Five Chinese students who were studying English at Payap University came by in hopes of getting better at speaking English. Kaz and I took them into a room to study and talk, but before much time had passed, someone popped their head in and told us we had four more students to teach.

Kaz took the new four as I kept going with the five Chinese students. When the time came for them to work on conversation by asking questions of people around the C.Z., I realized that nobody else was here. Instead, we sat around and I asked them questions about themselves, which they had to answer in English, and gave them a chance to ask me questions. It was fun, and eventually more people came around, so they got a chance to practice asking questions. They decided to come twice a week, since we can’t handle them everyday.

Finally in my language-packed post is an update on Thai lessons. For Julie, Kaz, and myself, it’s a time for the teachers to become the students. Our teacher is a Thai Christian from the Cheung Doi Church, the other church we send interns to. She is very patient and quite good at teaching her subject. Unfortunately, her subject is crazy difficult. The two most difficult parts of the language are the sentence structure and the tonal nature of Thai.

The sentences aren’t anything like what I’ve studied in English or Spanish. Noun, verb, and adjective placement seems to be contrary to everything my writer of a father and editor of a mother ever taught me. It’s one thing to memorize new vocabulary, but it’s a whole different monster to figure out where to place these new words to make them intelligible.

In Thai, there are five different tones. Mid tone is just a normal tone, like we would use in everyday speech. Rising tone is similar to the way we raise our voice at the end of a sentence. Low tone is, as you may have guessed, lower than regular speech. In the same way the High Tone is higher than normal. The final tone is the Falling Tone, which is the opposite of a Rising Tone.

Here’s the kicker: tone completely changes the meaning of a word. For example, say the word “Oi” to yourself. Now try to say it in each of the five tones. Each tone is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WORD! Dah! So confusing.

That being said, I’m making progress. I’ve been through three lessons thus far, and I’ve made dramatic improvements. I think it will help that the more I learn in class, the more I understand in the real world.

Okay, that’s all you get for now. Thanks for dropping by and reading. I’ll end with an interesting piece of trivia…

Since starting this blog less than two months ago, it’s been viewed over a thousand times. That makes me smile, because it means that lots of people are interested in what God is doing in me and in Thailand. Blessings.

First off, thanks to Sherri Roberts for coming up with a great idea for a post. At her request, I’d like to fill y’all in on the changes in me Spiritually in these first few weeks.

One thing I knew about myself before I arrived was that I was awful at making decisions. If absolutely necessary, I could step up and be decisive, but I really didn’t like to. Given the chance, I would almost always push making decisions onto someone else.

Early on in my time here, apparently Robert noticed this quality in me, and took me to the side and talked to me about it. He said that many times in this ministry, decisions wouldn’t be made if he didn’t step up and answer the call. He encouraged me not to be shy if there was a problem that needed solving.

Since then, I’ve done a much better job about not being afraid to stand up and say, “Hey, let’s go do this…” Instead of sitting in the background waiting for someone else, I’ve been stepping up and leading others more. Funny thing is, even though I still feel inadequate sometimes, I’ve found that people for the most part want someone to take a leadership position.

Another thing God has been showing me is a new perspective on missions. Before coming into th mission field, I thought a missionary just walked up to random people and started a conversation, then tried to steer it towards Jesus. The more I think about that method, the less effective I think it is. All the ministries I have the most love and respect for are based on relationships.

For instance, Camp of the Hills is geared totally towards the kids learning from the counselors examples, and the only way they’ll take the counselors seriously is if they have respect for them. In the same way, HYPE only works when the kids have a relationship with their Aggies. They don’t listen to what we teach because they love to learn, or because we capture their attention with great lessons, or even because they want snack at the end of class. They listen because we’ve invested time and effort into relationships with them. My experiences with the iHouse seem to attest to the same idea. I doubt Traci goes on campus and tells international students, “Hey you! You need Jesus! Come with me!” Instead, the iHouse functions on relationships. Friendships are formed, and from that, friends are interested in each others lives. That’s when they start asking about Christianity.

Even though I’m on the other side of the planet, those ideas still hold true. Instead of spending my time desperately trying to find a way to bring up Jesus in a conversation with someone who speaks less than fifty words of English, I’m pursuing relationships. I do that through my demeanor, by being kind and friendly, by being the word “sanook” embodied in the flesh, and just by trying to be myself. People can tell when you’re being genuine, no matter what language you’re speaking. If I can be genuinely interested in being someone’s friend, I can go from some random guy to a trusted and respected friend. If I can get to that point, my hope is that the way I live my life will point straight to Christ.

I’ve also had to spend a lot of time outside of my comfort zone, which is ultimately enlarging my personal bubble. I’ve had to strike up conversations with complete strangers, attempt to communicate in another language, and teach others everything about English from the simplest spellings to subtle nuances of grammar. I’ve been called on to lead prayers in front of people interested in learning more about Christianity, asked to lead praise time in a foreign language, and been required to prepare a devotional talk that is helpful for those with a young faith and those who’ve been Christians for years. It’s been my job to reach out to the shy, the boisterous, the popular, those on the fringe, Christians and people still searching for the Truth. When you’re called to do so much, you can’t help but grow.

I’ve also noticed a difference in the way I look at people. For instance, when I was walking around Blinn last semester, my thoughts rarely wandered to the question, “Do the people around me know about Jesus?” Most Americans have heard the story of who He is, and the question is whether or not they have come to a point where they choose Him. But here is completely different. Many, if not most, of the people I see at Payap University, talk to at the mall, or order food from haven’t heard the Good News.

It makes me think of how fortunate we are to have known Him for so long. I realize just a little of how much I owe to where God formed me. It raises questions in my mind, like “Would I have come to know Jesus if I’d been born in Thailand?” Questions like that weigh on my mind a while, but I don’t think “What If?”ing myself into a state of guilt will accomplish anything. I was born to a loving, God fearing family. I was given much. From me, much will be expected. Blessings have been poured out upon my head, and I need to use them to glorify God. He’s been the One who set me up to be who I am right now, so I need to give it all back to Him through humble service.

Where do I go from here? Well, literally, I go study for the devotional I’m teaching tonight, then teach English class with Kaz, eat, attend Cell Group, and show my slide-shows to the congregation on the new projector we got yesterday. But more than that, now I step out into a lost world with the knowledge that God has given me the Way, and it’s my job to pass these beautiful directions on. Blessings.

Just when you thought I couldn’t post anything else today, I’ve got a new feature for my Blog that I need your help on. You see, right now I’m just doing my best to write about the major things that happen, my favorite stories, and the things that interest me. But as readers, you are probably interested in different aspects of my time here. I realized this when my parent’s asked me to write a couple of posts that center around Kaz and Julie, chronicling what they’re doing, what life is like for them, how their gifts are being used.

I never would have thought of that post, but it seems really cool. I’m hoping to write them soon. But the idea got me thinking, “I wonder what else people want to know about Thailand…” With that as my guide, I’m opening up the floor. If you have an idea for a post or a specific question you want answered, leave me a message as a comment on this post, or any post down the line.

Depending on the volume of requests, I might be able to do them all, or I might have to pick and choose, but each request does give me a better idea of what you want from my blog. The more y’all enjoy reading it, the more I’ll enjoy writing it. Also, I really like getting comments, so maybe this will pad my stats a little. Gonna stop typing for a little while now, because my wrists are killing me. Hope to hear some great ideas soon!

Is it possible to get to the end of this weekend? Technically, I could take all day to post it, and you’d get it all in the morning anyway. I doubt any of you are reading this at 3 AM your time. That being said, I need to get the rest of this down today, or else I’m going to fall hopelessly behind and end up missing some good stories.

We traipsed back from the waterfall and prepared for a meal. It was fresh fish and all kinds of spicy dishes. Then we headed to the courtyard area outside of the school for our skit show/singing. We got up on stage for the first skit, called “Fire! Fire!” Kaz made the stage his new house, turning children into furniture that talks. For instance, the door said “Open! Open!” and the couch said “Soft! Soft!”

He then recruited Marvin to be the fire. He had to yell, “Fire! Fire!” whenever anyone got near him. Kaz then brought Julie up to tour his house. When she heard Marvin yell his line, she tossed water all over him. A cheap laugh, yes, but when there’s a language barrier, physical comedy works best.

Next, some of the young girls got on stage to perform a traditional song and dance. It was clear that they wanted to show us their talent just as much as they wanted to be entertained by ours.

The second skit we played for them is my all-time favorite, known as, “The Princess Skit.” It revolves around two actors, in this case Kaz and myself. We portrayed five different roles between the two of us, each with a different costume. The first character was the Knight, standing at the doorway of the castle after traveling many miles to ask for the Princess’s hand in marriage. The Butler sat in the first chair, and was a servant to the King, seated in chair 2. His Queen occupied the next seat over, and to her left was their daughter, the Princess, in the final chair.

Each conversation was between two characters next to each other. The key to making this skit funny, both for English speaking audiences and those who had no clue what we were saying, save for occasional translations from Ying, was the use of ridiculously over the top hand motions and physical comedy. Luckily, that’s right up our alley.

The skit began after Ying introduced each character in turn, and relayed the plot in Thai to the audience. I assumed the role of the debonair Knight, and knocked on the invisible door. Kaz as the Butler answered the door, and I proceeded to tell him of my quest for a wife. He promptly slammed the door in my face. Again I knocked, and this time lowered my cool shades to tell the Butler that he must pass my message on to the King. With that, he closed the door, and I darted around whie he knocked on the King’s door.

I changed out of my sunglasses and donned Kaz’s black bandana as a crown, but it wouldn’t sty on, so I just held it with one hand as I opened an invisible door with the other. Kaz bowed low before telling the King of the Knight at the door. The King dismissed the Butler with the wave of a hand, then turned to the left and knocked on his wife’s door.

Kaz did his high-pitched voice and said, “Just a minute my King, I’m dressing!” He had soon switched from the Butler’s shirt into a tight hooded sweatshirt with a towel wrapped around his head like a veil. The King was growing impatient, (”Are you serious? We’re married, it’s okay…”) but she eventually opened the door. I complimented Kaz on his/her great beauty, then attempted to pass along the message of the Knight. Unfortunately, the King had married for looks instead of brains, so attempting to give her instructions was full of comical mishaps.

Eventually, the Queen agreed to pass along the message. She knocked on her daughters door, while I tossed aside the makeshift crown in favor for a bikini top, which I put on over my shirt. Instead of answering the door immediately, I posed and played to the crowd, who were in stitches at this point. Ying had given up translating because she was laughing too hard, but we kept going.

When I sat and heard the news from my mother, I was all aflutter. She thought that I was going to give a positive response for sure, until I replied, “No… No… No… A thousand times no!” At this point I blew a huge raspberry in Kaz’s face. Our conversation ended with, “I’ll tell your father…”

I pocketed the top and recrowned myself in time to open the door. The Queen relayed the message word for word, raspberry included. With that, I turned to tell the Butler. When he was delayed in coming at my beckon, presumably because he was changing costumes, punishment was in order.

“Why didn’t you come when called?”

“I’m sorry my liege.”

“Slap the face!”

At this, Kaz audibly slapped his own face, a la one of our favorite episodes of Scrubs.

“Slap the face again!”

As he slapped himself again, the crowd that had been rolling with hilarity hit a new high. As the raspberry and message was passed on, there was nothing left but to inform the Knight.

The Butler called for the Knight to come in very close, as I pushed my shades to the end of my nose. Each successive “No,” was met with the most melodramatic histrionics I could muster. The final blow was as struck as I was mourning on my knees, the Butler blew one of the longest raspberries in the history of the cinema directly into my face. With that, we stood, bowed, and exited the stage to tumultuous applause.

Another interlude of girls singing and dancing provided some good cool down time, because my adrenaline always gets flowing when I make a fool of myself on stage. Jeff came up behind me and pointed out one woman who apparently almost fell over in her chair. We were not only a hit with the kids, it seemed like even the adults were enjoying our antics.

Our final skit was “The Contagious Office.” I walked on stage towards Julie, a receptionist at a doctor’s office. One lady in the audience was already laughing heartily just at the sight of me. Our friend Ying translated for us as I said that I needed a routine check-up and she asked me to sit in the waiting room. Next up, Lina came in with a bad case of itchiness. The funny thing was, as she sat down to wait for the doctor, her itchiness slowly transfered to me, leaving her free to leave. Next, Mit came in dancing uncontrollably. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop dancing. Badly. Couldn’t stop until he transferred it to an already scratching uncontrollably Drew. As he left the stage cured, I was stuck scratching all over while doing the worst dancing imaginable.

Then Kaz entered, yawning and rubbing his eyes. He suffered from narcolepsy, and needed a doctor. But even as he slunk into his chair next to me, his sleepiness was leaving, entering a new host. Soon, his random dozing had completely gone away, and he was able to exit, a new man.

Now, picture is you will me scratching all over while discoing, shaking it, and doing the worm, only interrupted by moments of passing out cold onto the floor. It was even funnier than you’re imagining. After what seemed like an eternity, Hun walked on stage with a jacket stuffed in her shirt over her belly. I looked at her, then shouted to the audience, “Pregnant?!” then jumped off the stage and ran off into the night.

It’s very tiring to be dancing and scratching and fainting continuously for five minutes, so I as quite out of breath when I reached my seat. Next up was a welcome break for me as some of our musically talented friends took their guitars up and played and sang for the group. Marvin (the Aussie), Eddie, and Thum were jamming out on their second or third song, when word reached me that the older ladies had a request.

They couldn’t get enough of me making an idiot of myself. they started by requesting for me to sing, but when I countered that I didn’t sing very well, they down-right demanded that I gt back on stage. On one hand, I hate to let fans down. Then again, there’ only o much embarrassment one man can handle.

When it became apparent that I was going to have to appease them or else, I started brainstorming with Kaz, who agreed to help out. Our minds raced as we tried to think of anything to satiate the crowd. Songs flashed through our heads, but nothing seemed to fit. All of a sudden, it came to us.

We walked up the stairs to the stage, and I whispered to Marvin, “They demanded that we do something, so y’all just play something. We’re going to do an interpretive dance…”

I dunno if there’s ever been two guys meant not to dance as much as Kaz and myself, but we gave it our best shot. And by this point, everything we did was gold to the audience. When we stepped down a few minutes later, red-faced and feeling ridiculous, it was to a stirring round of applause.

Soon enough, we moved on to singing as a group. We grabbed song books and belted out a couple of our favorites in Thai and English. After the singing, the interns got to present donated blankets to some of the villagers.

The laughing lady, who was the ring-leader in demanding more of my shenanigans, was amongst the villagers lined up to receive blankets. I quickly shifted my position in line so that I’d be the one presenting to her. She was laughing before we even got to our turn. I decided to up the ante and go for ridiculous, so as I went to give her the blankets, I got down on one knee and held the blankets above my head.

She simply lost it. Once Robert gets out of the hospital I’ll post a picture of this, with me on one knee and her covering her face with both hands. After that, we dismissed everyone for the night.

Sunday morning we woke up early and had a quick church service before we drove out of the village with memories that would last a lifetime.

Robert was hurting pretty bad by the time we got to the city, so he went to the doctor, and P Pui and Jenny stayed with him while we got on the bus. This bus was much more roomy, but it was overcrowded. People were leaning up against for half of the trip, both uncomfortably and awkwardly. Eventually we made it back to Chiang Mai, tired, hungry, and very ready for a day off.

It was an excellent weekend.

Well, I guess there’s nothing left to do but finish up the story of my weekend. As you probably recall, we left our hero standing with the other interns, Thai Christians, and kids from the village. We were looking down from a hill at the river which was pouring over boulders in a beautiful waterfall. We descended down a steep path, and soon found ourselves at the water’s edge, the roar of the waterfall beckoning us.

My first inclination was to avoid getting too wet, since I had been sick the last couple of days. Instead of jumping from the rocks into the cool, deep water, I opted to dam up some of the streams with the kids. Robert told me that they caught small fish by cutting off the flow of water to small streams, then scooping fish out of the little pools left after the water drained away.

As I was doing this, some of the others had found a more adventuresome means of spending their time. Instead of jumping from the low rocks, Kaz, Marvin the Aussie, and several other guys climbed to the top of the waterfall and made their jumps from further up.

Now this caught my attention, because I pride myself as an expert Stuff-Jumper-Offer. I was trained by some of the best, including Chris Fikes, taught that as long as the water was deep enough, no cliff was too high to conquer.

The waterfall was only about twenty feet high or so, not nearly a high as other places I’d been, but it was the first opportunity to cliff-jump in more than a year. I couldn’t help myself.

My initial point of entry was going to be off a higher bluff to the side of the waterfall, but when my depth-finder (Kaz) told me there was a submerged boulder that would probably kill me, I let reason have a victory and clambered back to the waterfall. I laid my glasses and hat down for safe-keeping, posed for a quick picture, then leapt into the air.

For a few brief moments, the world stood still. The cool wind in my hair. The adrenaline fueling my increased heart-rate. The green of the surrounding vegetation and the blue of the water.

Splash!

The water wasn’t as cold as I had expected, but it was still a shock. I kicked back towards the surface, and gasped a breath of clean mountain air before my trademark head-shake. (Hint: This will come into play later.)

For the next few minutes, we built dams and hung out, just enjoying the view, good friends, and a sense a peace. After completing a dam up at the top of the waterfall, we began dismantling it. (A good Construction Science major knows that the only reason to build something is the joy of tearing it down.) I tossed a stone down the gentle slope of the lower waterfall, but it refused to roll all the way down like I had wanted.

I climbed down a few yards to where it had come to rest, and gave it another throw. Again, it resisted my will of it reaching the pool with a large sploosh. This happened once more, and one last time, I followed it down the falls, white water rushing about me. Instead of attempting the now easy task of hitting the water, I heaved it a a nearby rock outcropping, and it split right down the middle.

I looked back up the waterfall, and saw that Kaz was also making his way to where I was. But before he made it to the dry spot I had claimed, he lost his grip, and slid down the waterfall on his rear. Luckily, it was maybe a five foot drop into deep water, so no harm was done, but I knew there was little hope of climbing up the waterfall to safety. I was going to have to jump.

Before jumping, I secured my hat in my left hand, leaving my right free for swimming once I hit the water. I was about to grab my glasses, when I noticed lots of small creatures on my arms and legs. Black and squirming, they had apparently grabbed onto me during my descent.

I consider myself to be a friend of nature. I wanted to be a zoo-keeper early on in life, and for years dreamed of following in Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter’s footsteps. That being said, I absolutely hate leeches. No, hate isn’t a strong enough word for my feelings for those blood-sucking little demons. I abhor leeches.

When I saw dozens of them on me, I freaked right out. I decided to take the jump then make a B-line for the shore, where I could get rid of them as fast as possible. I flung my body into the water, instantly realizing that my glasses were still perched precariously on my nose. I had made this mistake many times before, but never so far from home, where eye car is so easy to come by. I instinctively slapped my free hand to my face, barely keeping them from sinking into the cold, dark depths. Relieved, I kicked my way to the surface, and shook my head to clear the water and hair from my eyes.

I haven’t swum that fast in a long time, but I was highly motivated by the invertebrates that were still clinging to me. I hurriedly ripped them off my skin, but soon two things dawned on me. One thing was that the creatures didn’t seem to be leeches after all, just some sort of small, aquatic insect larvae. The second was that everything looked very blurry.

Julie yelled, “Hey Drew, where’d your glasses go?”

When I shook my head whilst emerging from the depths, my glasses had taken an unexpected leave of absence. Despite my best efforts at diving and groping around blindly, the water was just too deep to effectively search. I would never see my glasses again.

The trek back to the village was complicated by my lack of vision, but it takes more than a combination of stupidity and misfortune to dampen my spirits.

I’m past 1,000 words, again! With lunchtime looming, I’m going to have to finish the story this afternoon. Until then, blessings!

It’s been a good week in some ways and a tough week in others. I had my first English conversation with Rit this week, and he seems to be really enjoying hanging out with us at the C.Z. We also got to play soccer with him and some other Thais today, and I performed well.

Unfortunately, Robert is in the hospital right now, dealing with a chronic illness, so we’ve been pretty worried around here. But he seems to be getting better, and should be back with us in another few days.

Julie, John, and I were in charge of cooking for cell Group this week, and we concocted a stellar Italian feast, or at least that’s what the Thais thought. Really it was mainly Julie’s famous pasta sauce on some spaghetti noodles with a salad and homemade garlic bread. But we felt like it hit the spot well, and everybody seemed to enjoy it.

Now where was I? Ah yes, we were arriving at the first village.

Most of us weren’t too sure of what we would be doing as far as working with the kids, but that didn’t deter Robert. As soon as he got there, he started connecting with the kids outside of the school. After sizing them up, he told us that instead of doing English with them, we’d just play some games with them. They were too young to really pick up much English, so our task was just to have fun.

We played lots of fun games with the kiddos. My favorites were “Steal the Bacon,” which pitted the girls against the boys. They lined up with the volleyball net equidistant between them, and Thum called out a number. If he called out “Sam,” the Thai word for three, the third boy and third girl would race forward and try to grab the cloth from the net and run back to the safety of their own line without being tagged. At least, that was the theory.

The girls were mostly older than the guys, and those poor boys just couldn’t get the concept, or remember their number. It was hilarious to watch Thum and others trying to explain who was what number. The boys were trounced, but fun was had by all.

We also played follow the leader. One of the older Thai girls lead the ladies, and she did a few interesting motions, but the real fun was with the boys. Kaz took the lead as I commanded the caboose, and we marched around the field with our troops of mimickers. We hopped on one foot, bear-crawled, bounced, and flapped our arms wildly.

Another game we played was similar to Color Tag, a Camp of the Hills institution, except everyone ran every time. If you’ve checked out the newest slide-show, you probably remember some of the pictures of kids running rampant. It was basically a huge Freeze-Tag game. Awesome.

Later, we unpacked a bunch of school supplies: pencils, paper, folders, erasers, and lots more. We passed some to each child, all of whom were very polite and appreciative. We also had several blankets for them.

We then headed to Jenny’s uncle’s house for lunch and an unplanned siesta. Turns out after eating, I lay my head down, and awoke an hour later with our entire group crashing on the wooden floor.

Once we all awoke, it was time to head to the next village over to be tourists for a few minutes. You see, the closest village sports some amazing jewelry. It’s known as the Long-Neck Village.

You may have seen the villagers on the cover of National Geographic or in a special on the Discovery Channel, but we saw them up close. The women of the tribe start wearing gold rings around their necks at a young age, and add more and more until their necks become ridiculously long. It was an interesting experience, to say the least.

After the Long-Neck Village, we drove back to the city for the night. We ended up driving quite a bit, eventually making it to the hotel Jenny’s parents owned. They gave us free rooms and food, which help a lot when you’re feeling sick. Early in the morning, a few more of the Christians arrived, which brought our numbers to about 16.

The next day we woke up early to drive out to the next village. Again, winding roads and scenic views were the norm. When we were naught but two miles from the town, we found ourselves at an impass. A truck had gotten stuck in the road, and it was positioned in a way that we couldn’t get by very easily. Our driver tried to pass it, but slid close to it, and didn’t want to risk scratching his new truck, so we waited.

We sent a motorcycle on to the town to retrieve the truck’s owner, and we stood around, contemplating ways to get out of our predicament. Eventually, we decided to lift the truck with sheer man-power, then pull it backwards and out of the way of ours, so we could move past. After a few mostly unsuccessful attempts, we realized the girl we’d put in the driver’s seat to ensure that it didn’t roll away forgot to disengage the parking brake. We soon found it a lot easier to move without that slowing us down. Before we knew it, we were rolling into town.

I was paired with Jeff Cobb, and former intern who’s fluent in Thai, so I was pretty excited about our class. We wrote up fairly simple English sentences and cut each word out on its own. We made two copies of each sentence, then got the kids set up in two lines. For each sentence, we would start by explaining the important words used. For instance, in the sentence, “I love the King of Thailand,” we explained what love, Thailand, King, and I meant in Thai. Then we called the first two kids up, and they had to piece together the sentence, with the quicker of the two to complete the task scoring a point.

The funny thing was that I felt like I was learning as much as the kids. For instance, “tuk-tuk” means every, and “wan” means day. One kid was almost done, but had switched out a couple of words, creating the sentence “I like to eat rice day every.” So I said to him, “Wan tuk-tuk?” He looked at me like I was dumb, but then it dawned on him what I was saying, and he hurriedly switched the final two words. It felt really good.

After four groups went through our games, as well as the other intern learning games, we met back together to sing some fun, Camp-type songs. When irrational exuberance is needed, people know who to call.

After a quick lunch, I led the kids with Thum in some more games, then we followed them on about a mile and a half walk. We traipsed through fields with cattle and chickens, across a bamboo bridge, and eventually found ourselves at a beautiful waterfall. What happened there? Did I do anything ridiculously dumb? How’d the trip end?

These questions and more will be answered in the epic conclusion to the English Camp Trilogy. Until then, blessings!

Howdy everybody! It’s good to be back from my brief hiatus. Over the weekend I was far, far away with no laptop, and since my return Sunday evening, I’ve been busy, exhausted and a little under the weather. That combination does not spell “Blog Entry,” at least for me. But now I’m feeling well and have a little free time, so I’ll write a little about what went down this weekend, at least until I have to go eat lunch.

My whirlwind weekend got off to a rocky start Thursday. During our final equipping time, I was feeling sub-optimal. Julie provided some Advil, but my headache persisted throughout the day. Tasks came and went, and I trudged on, knowing that this of all weekends I had to tough it out.

Thursday Night Cell Group always starts with a meal, followed by some devotional time. I was in charge of leading singing, but wasn’t in any shape to eat, so I lay in bed until Kaz came to give me ten minute warning. I walked downstairs carefully, because at this point my whole body was shaking from cold, as my fever went up.

Despite the conditions, I still managed to perform at Cell Group, and singing went well. (Though in my weakened state I totally forgot about getting it on film to show y’all. Maybe this week…) From there we tossed our luggage into the back of the truck and about ten of us made a mad dash to the bus station.

There were exactly enough seats left, but the bus was absolutely tiny. Even the 5′4″ Thais said that they had no leg room, which spells disaster for Kaz and I who both tower over most here at 6′ even and 6′2 1/2″, respectively. Luckily for us, the bus ride wasn’t supposed to be too long. Or so I thought.

The drive dragged on, as Kaz and I tried to sleep. The bus was just not comfortable in the least, so sleep was elusive at best, despite the help of Tylenol PM before Cell Group. He had the aisle seat, which afforded more leg room but nothing to lean on. I had the window seat, which I could lean on, but my long legs were folded and twisted like a coiled slinky. Eventually, some people got off at other stops, so Kaz switched to another aisle seat so I could have leg room, but a random Thai guy took his place, an both of our new seat-mates fell asleep, sometimes leaning on us. Eight hours later, we arrived at our destination.

Unfortunately for us, the guy who was supposed to pick us up at 5 AM ended up having to work until 8 AM. We ended up stranded in a city whose name I can’t pronounce, much less spell. We headed to the police station where he worked, he’s the uncle of one of the Thais on the trip with us, and crashed on the floor of the police station for three hours.

When we woke up, we crammed into another pick-up and started driving towards a small, mountain village. The view was amazing, but it took another two hours of driving through winding roads. Then we got in a long, skinny boat and made for the village.

Updates on what we did once we got there and much more are coming soon, I promise!

I don’t have much time to write this morning, since we’re getting started soon, but I thought I would give y’all a heads up on what I’ll be doing this weekend.

First off, tonight is my night to lead singing at our Thursday night devotional, called Cell Group. I’m looking forward to it, and maybe I’ll be able to get Kaz to video part of it or snap some pictures. I’d like to show y’all what it’s like.

Next up, this weekend we’re in charge of teaching an English camp for a small village living in some nearby mountains. We’ll also be bringing blankets to pass out, and we’ll visit that tribe you’ve probably seen on the Discovery Channel that wears the gold rings to elongate their necks. Should be a fun weekend.

Lastly, for our day off on Monday, we’re thinking about going to try out some Thai karaoke! If that doesn’t make for an interesting post, I’m not sure what will.

In stuff I’ve been doing, I enjoyed my first Thai church service in six years on Sunday. I’ll have a full post on how it all goes down soon. On our off day, we hung around the C.Z. until evening, when we decided to go to a Thai kick-boxing match, which I hope to make a slide-show of soon. We’ve also eaten at many cool places from a cook-it-yourself buffet to the fancy M.K. Restaurant. I’ll be doing a “Best of Thai Food” post soon.

We’ve been spending most of our mornings and afternoons studying our Red Book. Today we finish up with the final chapters, 15, 16, and 17. We were in for a treat when Robert took us on a “Mystery Equipping Time,” and we ended up in a natural cave miles outside of the city. It was cool enough to possibly warrant its own slide-show…

Anyway, hope everything is going well where you are. Say a little prayer for me, the other interns, the Thais, and Camp of the Hills. (Just had to sneak that last one in there.)