The Simple Life

The pictures are... in cute hut on Payap campus, at Carrefour (which is like Walmart/mall/ foodcourt all in one, we go there almost every other day!), cooking food for cell group, dinner at cell group, and at a church family's house for lunch on Friday.

One thing I love about the life here is how simple everything is. It has been so great to get away from TVs, cell phones, school, work and just... be. My life back home is so busy. I have two jobs, school, many student organizations and add on a social life. My life is cram packed with stuff, things and busyness. It has been so cleansing to get away from it all, come to the beautiful city of Chiang Mai and just live for God. My sole purposes are to be daily transformed by God and show others His love. Not that we don't plan events, teach lessons and other activities but it all centers around those two things. Another aspect of this simple life that I love is no makeup, no dressing up and no getting ready. Just shower and go... I love it! We spend so much time everyday on ourselves, making ourselves look good, entertaining ourselves, making us happy, that we get lost... in ourselves. I really want to bring this simple life back with me to Abilene. Less TV, less cell phone, less noise, less time spent on appearance, less time busy and more time just living for God. It sounds, well... simple but unfortunately coming back into all the 'noise' I think it will be difficult. God has truly continued to transform me in amazing ways and I hope I can continue this when I get home.

This past week has been very low key. Sunday we had to recite John 1:1-18 to the entire congregation. I was kinda freaked out but it ended up being a great experience to have to memorize God's word and then share it with others. That night we had a big goodbye dinner for the Reagans who left for America on Tuesday. They go visit friends, family and their supporting church once a year for a month, so unfortunately they get back the DAY after we leave. We are so sad to see them leave! Jordan, one of the other interns here, fixed is an amazing Italian dinner from scratch that night... I was very impressed. The next day Katie and I went to the train station to say good bye to the Aggies as they left for Bangkok. We were pretty sad but its nice to know we can see them when we get back to Texas! Tuesday through Friday were all very typical days. Every morning we had equipping time which includes studying a chapter from John, 1 hour of quiet time, and studying a different spiritual discipline. Equipping time is such a great way to grow and be transformed through Gods word and thoughts from each other. After that we go have lunch on Payap University campus where we invite students to the zone for cell group, movie night, church and English classes. Then we teach English lass all afternoon and that night we usually have some activity with the students. I've already formed great relationships with many of the Thais and I hope that they continue to grow. I am not very talented in new languages and although we do take Thai lessons twice a week, I struggle just to get just a few sentences out. I do have five more weeks here so there is plenty of time to learn more! Thursday was cell group and the interns fixed American food for everyone; BBQ chicken, potatoes, green beans and watermelon! It was so much fun to cook and be able to share a little bit of our culture with them! Lastly, on Friday one of the sweet families from another church nearby had all the interns over for lunch. We had so much fun at their house playing/ talking with their two teenage daughters and just fellowshiping together!