Sunday morning we woke up and walked right upstairs for church here at the Christian Zone. The church here is pretty small and consists of college age students or recently graduated. One thing I really liked about the service is that during communion we all got up and made a big circle around the communion table. Then we just passed the break and wine (grape juice actually) around the circle. It felt like a real church family gathering for a meal together. Robert preached in English because there were several Americans there and his wife Jan translated in the back. After service there was a baptism at the Christian Zone from another local church. We were able to meet David Allen's wife and daughters who are related to a family from my church home (the Bowers). It is always powerful for me to witness baptisms, and here in Thailand it is even more powerful because there aren't that many Christians here. It is always wonderful to see a young person dedicate their life to Christ, and be so excited and passionate about their new life. It helps me to remember my baptism 9 years ago now and what a powerful event/decision that was in my life.
After lunch at the restaurant across the street (i had Cashew Chicken, which is VERY good!!) we headed out for English camp. The English day camp is at this village school up in the mountains of Chiang Mai. We drove for 2 hours through the most twisty and curvy roads I've ever been on. It also didn't help that I was riding in a truck bed that has this covering and benches. We were all pretty nauseous on arrival. That night, we stayed with this sweet Christian family that lives near the school. Between sleeping on a concrete floor, mosquitoes flying all around, a late night phone call about the Zone flooding, and a rooster that started crowing at about 4am, I didn't get much sleep that night. I've never woken up to the sound of a rooster before and I also didn't know that they could crow for hours straight...but good to know, they CAN! I don't think I've ever been so mad a a rooster in my entire life :).
We arrived at the school at about 9am. I was in charge of leading silly songs so I got up in front of hundreds of Thai 8-12 grades and started singing... they all stared at me. After awhile they loosened up and started doing the motions with us but for awhile, they just stared. We sang songs like "If you Love Jesus", "Form Banana", "Fruit of the Spirit", "Deep and Wide", "Peace like a River" and others like them. I actually have a video of Leah and I doing the "Form Banana" song because Branson (Roberts son) decided he wanted for us to forever remember how silly we looked. I'll try and see if I can add it. Anyways, after an hour of songs and games we divided up into different grades. Katie, P O, P Wa (random Thai culture fact, I add a P in front of their name because they are older than me) and I taught the 11th and 12th graders. We first went over the alphabet, then body parts, then different emotions. We tried to just make everything fun and mainly work on pronunciation because they knew a lot of the words. At 12 in the afternoon we all went down for lunch with the students, and then we were able to go to the main court yard area to play with the kids. It was so much fun seeing all the school children play all these new and different games I had never even heard of. Little children were just running around everywhere, which is so different because in America it is just so much more structured. From 1-2pm we went back to the class room to work with the students. We reviewed a lot from the morning and then also taught then some foods. We played a couple guy vrs. girl games which they LOVED. It was so funny because in class all the girls sat on one side of the room and the guys sat on the other. They didn't come near each other or even talk much. It was just very different. When they did play against the guys, the girls would just giggle and smile a lot. It was pretty cute. We played a spelling game and then "Catch her eye" which I had played a lot in villages before. They were jumping up and down and cheering which was drastically different from their usual quiet attentiveness and sitting in perfectly straight lines from earlier. I loved getting to teach and interact with these students. It taught me a lot about their culture but also a lot about teaching students who speak different languages. One thing we all found pretty funny is that the teachers and principle at the school kept calling us the "native speakers". I don't know I've ever been called a "native speaker" before. They were so gracious and appreciative of us. It was a great experience and I'm excited because we will be able to do this more through out the summer.
We got home last night and we all crashed for the rest of the night. Today is our day off (its usually Monday but since we were at English camp its today, Tuesday) and we were able to sleep and just relax. I got to talk to my parents on Skype for about and hour which was so wonderful to get to hear their voices and hear about what was going on at home. Robert took us and his children to this little Mexican restaurant across town that was DELICIOUS. It is owned by this Texan, who knows how to make some good Tex Mex! Now I'm just catching up with my journal and trying to rest. Tonight we are having a sleep over with Erica, Roberts daughter, at the Reagan's house, which we are all so excited about. I think our plans are to watch High School Musical and Hairspray...exciting!!
After lunch at the restaurant across the street (i had Cashew Chicken, which is VERY good!!) we headed out for English camp. The English day camp is at this village school up in the mountains of Chiang Mai. We drove for 2 hours through the most twisty and curvy roads I've ever been on. It also didn't help that I was riding in a truck bed that has this covering and benches. We were all pretty nauseous on arrival. That night, we stayed with this sweet Christian family that lives near the school. Between sleeping on a concrete floor, mosquitoes flying all around, a late night phone call about the Zone flooding, and a rooster that started crowing at about 4am, I didn't get much sleep that night. I've never woken up to the sound of a rooster before and I also didn't know that they could crow for hours straight...but good to know, they CAN! I don't think I've ever been so mad a a rooster in my entire life :).
We arrived at the school at about 9am. I was in charge of leading silly songs so I got up in front of hundreds of Thai 8-12 grades and started singing... they all stared at me. After awhile they loosened up and started doing the motions with us but for awhile, they just stared. We sang songs like "If you Love Jesus", "Form Banana", "Fruit of the Spirit", "Deep and Wide", "Peace like a River" and others like them. I actually have a video of Leah and I doing the "Form Banana" song because Branson (Roberts son) decided he wanted for us to forever remember how silly we looked. I'll try and see if I can add it. Anyways, after an hour of songs and games we divided up into different grades. Katie, P O, P Wa (random Thai culture fact, I add a P in front of their name because they are older than me) and I taught the 11th and 12th graders. We first went over the alphabet, then body parts, then different emotions. We tried to just make everything fun and mainly work on pronunciation because they knew a lot of the words. At 12 in the afternoon we all went down for lunch with the students, and then we were able to go to the main court yard area to play with the kids. It was so much fun seeing all the school children play all these new and different games I had never even heard of. Little children were just running around everywhere, which is so different because in America it is just so much more structured. From 1-2pm we went back to the class room to work with the students. We reviewed a lot from the morning and then also taught then some foods. We played a couple guy vrs. girl games which they LOVED. It was so funny because in class all the girls sat on one side of the room and the guys sat on the other. They didn't come near each other or even talk much. It was just very different. When they did play against the guys, the girls would just giggle and smile a lot. It was pretty cute. We played a spelling game and then "Catch her eye" which I had played a lot in villages before. They were jumping up and down and cheering which was drastically different from their usual quiet attentiveness and sitting in perfectly straight lines from earlier. I loved getting to teach and interact with these students. It taught me a lot about their culture but also a lot about teaching students who speak different languages. One thing we all found pretty funny is that the teachers and principle at the school kept calling us the "native speakers". I don't know I've ever been called a "native speaker" before. They were so gracious and appreciative of us. It was a great experience and I'm excited because we will be able to do this more through out the summer.
We got home last night and we all crashed for the rest of the night. Today is our day off (its usually Monday but since we were at English camp its today, Tuesday) and we were able to sleep and just relax. I got to talk to my parents on Skype for about and hour which was so wonderful to get to hear their voices and hear about what was going on at home. Robert took us and his children to this little Mexican restaurant across town that was DELICIOUS. It is owned by this Texan, who knows how to make some good Tex Mex! Now I'm just catching up with my journal and trying to rest. Tonight we are having a sleep over with Erica, Roberts daughter, at the Reagan's house, which we are all so excited about. I think our plans are to watch High School Musical and Hairspray...exciting!!
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