We are two full days into our stay here in Thailand and I'd say we are doing pretty well. We are staying at The Hope Center with one of our hosts, Sandy. She has been taking good care of us and has been really understanding of the adjustments we are making culturally, food wise and time wise.
After over 24 hours of traveling on Monday, we were up bright and early Tuesday morning, super excited and slightly awake, just in time to enjoy a home cooked breakfast, care of Gun. Gun is a Thai woman who is currently getting back on her feet and living at The Hope Center with her beautiful daughter Gam, while MB Mission helps her to start up a food and drink stand. Our first Thai meal was"Rice Porridge" a concoction of shrimp, scrambled egg, broth, green onion, fish oil and of course rice - FOR BREAKFAST! Surprisingly, I loved every bite of it. I can imagine the jaws of every single one of my family members dropping to the floor as they read that (I am a RIDICULOUSLY picky eater!) but I had many people praying for my willingness to try and enjoy new food during this trip and it worked!!
Afterwards, we headed over to Dave and Louise's home where we took part in their weekly worship service. Together with our 3 English hosts, a Burmese Pastor and 7 Thai believers, we praised and worshiped Jesus in 3 different languages!! It was absolutely incredible to pray and to sing in English, alongside my brothers and sisters in Christ, who were speaking in Burmese and Thai. I could feel that we shared the same heart, even though we didn't share the same language. At times, English would be translated to Thai, which would then be translated to Burmese and the Burmese response would be translated to Thai, which was then translated to English - really incredible to be a part of.
Following worship, Dave attempted a brief orientation with us but he quickly recognized we hadn't yet adjusted to the time difference and were fading fast and sent us upstairs to his kids bedrooms for an afternoon nap and we continued orientation later in the day.
Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening, we headed to a park and gathered up local children to play games and to do ESL lessons. Special thanks to Erin, an ESL teacher at my school Highbush P.S for providing us with easy to use lessons for English language learners. We had a blast playing with the children and teaching them how to have simple conversations in English. Apparently they enjoyed themselves as well as we had most return today and many new faces as well. Thank-you to WMB Church for donating a parachute via Bethany. The kids LOVED playing with the parachute and we had a lot of fun joining in. Thanks to my friends back in Ajax for donating so many dollar store items - this helped us to provide toys as prizes to many of the children who participated in word bingo today!
It hasn't only been the Thai children experiencing new things but so too have we. We watched Sarah ride away with a squeal, followed by the sound of many giggling Thai children, as she got a lift back to our meeting place on the back of a motorcycle. On Tuesday I was given a break dance lesson that thankfully wasn't recorded. Wednesday evening Sarah, Bethany and Kiara were given a break dance lesson and we were able to capture Bethany and Sarah's demo of their skills. I will work on posting that now, as they are sleeping. Payback for their love of cheesy pics, perhaps?!? haha
Tuesday night we headed to the Burmese Church and took part in their worship service. We were introduced to the small but growing congregation in English and then we attempted in Burmese. Wednesday evening we headed to Bethel Church and participated in Thai worship and prayer with 3 of the students from the park - Dow, Meyou, Mai, Meyou's little brother Garfield, as well as Dow's father and one of their friends. During prayer time, all the Thai and Burmese people shout out their prayers at the same time. At first this was overwhelming to me and a bit distracting but it quickly became encouraging. It is a great feeling to share and hear the prayers of others (even though I am unable to understand all of them) and it very powerful to hear the prayers and praises of all at the same time.
We have all formed a special bond with the three girls Dow, Mai and Meyou who attended both ESL classes, spent some time trampolining with us and attended service with. As we spend time with the girls, they are working on teaching us Thai, as we are teaching them English. We are all giggling away and really enjoying our time together.
After a successful authentic Thai breakfast on Tuesday, we decided to fill our day with Thai food - morning, noon and night. After some digestive complications for some team members (I won't name any names!!) we decided to take it a little easier on Wednesday. We were able to find cereal and milk at a 7/11 (they are on every corner here in Thailand) and Sandy took us to a local mall for lunch, where we ate KFC (slightly different in Thailand but chicken none the less) and had Dairy Queen for dessert. DQ cost us only 30 BAHT each- which is 90 cents CANADIAN!!! I was tempted to order 5 for myself but I exercised control. We finished the night off with Pad Thai from a local market. It was absolutely delicious.
Here's hoping our digestive systems can handle today's menu and that I am able to sleep through the night.
Thanks for reading my LONG post!!!
Cara xo
After over 24 hours of traveling on Monday, we were up bright and early Tuesday morning, super excited and slightly awake, just in time to enjoy a home cooked breakfast, care of Gun. Gun is a Thai woman who is currently getting back on her feet and living at The Hope Center with her beautiful daughter Gam, while MB Mission helps her to start up a food and drink stand. Our first Thai meal was"Rice Porridge" a concoction of shrimp, scrambled egg, broth, green onion, fish oil and of course rice - FOR BREAKFAST! Surprisingly, I loved every bite of it. I can imagine the jaws of every single one of my family members dropping to the floor as they read that (I am a RIDICULOUSLY picky eater!) but I had many people praying for my willingness to try and enjoy new food during this trip and it worked!!
Afterwards, we headed over to Dave and Louise's home where we took part in their weekly worship service. Together with our 3 English hosts, a Burmese Pastor and 7 Thai believers, we praised and worshiped Jesus in 3 different languages!! It was absolutely incredible to pray and to sing in English, alongside my brothers and sisters in Christ, who were speaking in Burmese and Thai. I could feel that we shared the same heart, even though we didn't share the same language. At times, English would be translated to Thai, which would then be translated to Burmese and the Burmese response would be translated to Thai, which was then translated to English - really incredible to be a part of.
Following worship, Dave attempted a brief orientation with us but he quickly recognized we hadn't yet adjusted to the time difference and were fading fast and sent us upstairs to his kids bedrooms for an afternoon nap and we continued orientation later in the day.
Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening, we headed to a park and gathered up local children to play games and to do ESL lessons. Special thanks to Erin, an ESL teacher at my school Highbush P.S for providing us with easy to use lessons for English language learners. We had a blast playing with the children and teaching them how to have simple conversations in English. Apparently they enjoyed themselves as well as we had most return today and many new faces as well. Thank-you to WMB Church for donating a parachute via Bethany. The kids LOVED playing with the parachute and we had a lot of fun joining in. Thanks to my friends back in Ajax for donating so many dollar store items - this helped us to provide toys as prizes to many of the children who participated in word bingo today!
It hasn't only been the Thai children experiencing new things but so too have we. We watched Sarah ride away with a squeal, followed by the sound of many giggling Thai children, as she got a lift back to our meeting place on the back of a motorcycle. On Tuesday I was given a break dance lesson that thankfully wasn't recorded. Wednesday evening Sarah, Bethany and Kiara were given a break dance lesson and we were able to capture Bethany and Sarah's demo of their skills. I will work on posting that now, as they are sleeping. Payback for their love of cheesy pics, perhaps?!? haha
Tuesday night we headed to the Burmese Church and took part in their worship service. We were introduced to the small but growing congregation in English and then we attempted in Burmese. Wednesday evening we headed to Bethel Church and participated in Thai worship and prayer with 3 of the students from the park - Dow, Meyou, Mai, Meyou's little brother Garfield, as well as Dow's father and one of their friends. During prayer time, all the Thai and Burmese people shout out their prayers at the same time. At first this was overwhelming to me and a bit distracting but it quickly became encouraging. It is a great feeling to share and hear the prayers of others (even though I am unable to understand all of them) and it very powerful to hear the prayers and praises of all at the same time.
We have all formed a special bond with the three girls Dow, Mai and Meyou who attended both ESL classes, spent some time trampolining with us and attended service with. As we spend time with the girls, they are working on teaching us Thai, as we are teaching them English. We are all giggling away and really enjoying our time together.
After a successful authentic Thai breakfast on Tuesday, we decided to fill our day with Thai food - morning, noon and night. After some digestive complications for some team members (I won't name any names!!) we decided to take it a little easier on Wednesday. We were able to find cereal and milk at a 7/11 (they are on every corner here in Thailand) and Sandy took us to a local mall for lunch, where we ate KFC (slightly different in Thailand but chicken none the less) and had Dairy Queen for dessert. DQ cost us only 30 BAHT each- which is 90 cents CANADIAN!!! I was tempted to order 5 for myself but I exercised control. We finished the night off with Pad Thai from a local market. It was absolutely delicious.
Here's hoping our digestive systems can handle today's menu and that I am able to sleep through the night.
Thanks for reading my LONG post!!!
Cara xo