Monday Part 1

Mark: hey everyone I’ am doing fine, I leave for Myanmar (however you spell that country) on Wednesday, please pray for me and e-mail me to tell me how Pullman is doing…. Eppp Random_talk@hotmail.com

Ryan S: Hello, I’ am doing well and please E-mail me

Mark: “The ordinary can be extraordinary” These are the words that Laurie gave during devotionals. God gave Laurie these words to encourage the team, in the way that we are just ordinary American people but yet Northern Thai’s don’t see Americans often so we get instant popularity and respect. With our new founded popularity and respect it allows prime opportunities for us to do/be extraordinary in Thailand. Before I start telling about our adventures of the day Michael wants me to tell Audrey that he loves her and he is doing well. We started the day off at 8am with breakfast, there was a tiny issue with eggs this morning, as the Thai waiters did not expect some team members to order the Thai breakfast and only offered eggs. Luckily Bruce stood up for those who wanted the Thai soup and everyone ended happy. After breakfast Laurie did devotionals and Communion and the day began. The team was split into two groups the first group went to visit the boarding school (which was the youth PLUS Jan), and the church builders (which was the old people).

Visiting the Boarding School
We arrived at the boarding school a little early so this gave the youth some time to go to the bathroom and take a quick look at the landscaping and surroundings of the school (As a side note Ryan and Jan decided that their campus was more beautiful then PHS’s or Logos). The boarding schools campus was quite breath taking when you first arrive as the campus for built on a hill with amazing scenery of the surrounding jungles, mountains and rice fields. The campuses landscape was quite unique in my eyes for the flower beds seemed to resemble a waterfall covered by green grass and beautiful flowers, trees, and shrubs. As we got are self organized the boarding school staff showed us what rooms we will be teaching/attending with eh Thai students. We decided that it would be best to split into two groups of four with the exception of the Thai interpreter (Thumb, Timothy’s youth pastor) and his wife. For the first classes Mark, Abby, Scott, and Rosie went on to go visit the younger kids, and Ryan, Bekah, Jan, and Kc went on to the older kids. The younger kids were about the age of 2nd graders and were very excited to see us. As we entered their Class rooms it seemed like a prison, made completely of concrete, with a chained link fence as the upper half of the wall to allow the air to blow through the class room. The kids faces lit up with joy and excitement as we introduced our selves, There was about 25-32 kids per class room and we went to two classes. We usually began the class by singing a song with a dance that follows along, we would go through each song first as an example and the seconded time they would do it with us. We Taught the kids how to play duck duck goose (in Thai it was be be de) they had a blast with the game and all the kids were screaming and shouting for each other, some were confused and would run 9 feet and then sit in a random spot before being tagged by others. We also taught them how to say hello and thank you in English (by the way they were incredibly fast learners) we also taught them how to do high fives (they loved doing high fives they found it to be a fun way to greet us, I also taught some of them how to pound after a high five as well). We continued class by teaching them the names of body parts such as face, eyes, shoulders, nose, knees, and toes. After they learned the names we would sing the head shoulders knees and toes knees and toes song.(They absolutely loved this song, and many of they would laugh super hard when we would do it super fast and Mark would on purposely just do random parts of the body as he was going to fast for him self). We usually ended with teaching them patty cake, and once again they had a blast with this game. As headed towards the door we would wave and give high fives to the children and they would try to spout out all the English words as possible, so you would be hearing thank you hello goodbye head shoulders, and etc as you left. The older kids group was a lot more calmer as they actually had to teach English to two classes to the 14-16 year olds. The teacher of the first class knew how to speak some English so he a lot of the times interpreted for them. During half the time they allowed the Thai teens to ask questions (which were mostly about America and some we kind of absurd). Every one even the teachers were fascinated with the fact that Jan was a Professor (actually almost everyone in Thailand is fascinated about Jan being a Professor). Ryan also seemed to have been growing a fan club for the girls quickly stared at Ryan a giggled toward him during class. Lunch time finally came and we all met up again, with about 30 kids surrounding us, which all of them wanted to give high fives. At lunch we left the school to go eat at a restaurant. …the rest of the story tomorrow.