My Livingroom

Here are a couple pictures of my living room. After we decorated the tree and ate dinner, we sang some songs and shared what we wanted to thank God for. It is good to remind ourselves of the blessings the Lord provides each day! After we shared about our blessings, I shared something that the Lord has been teaching me! I am so thankful for my friend Aoy who is fluent in English and can translate for me when I speak and when I am listening to Thai! She is a great blessing to me in many ways! In the pictures you will see my living room and my bed room. They happen to be the same room! My bed is pretty big and it sort of takes over the room but it is nice at night when I want to sleep! :)

My Apartment

Here are some more pictures of the party and they show my apartment. My kitchen is a nice size. It is open so it feels roomy! On the right of the picture in the kitchen is my oven and my burners. Both are electric and very small. When I make chocolate chip cookies, I can only make 6 at a time, that is all that will fit on the one cookie try that will fit in the oven. I am continually learning patience! :) Thai people love chocolate chip cookies and so I try to make them once a week for different groups of people! It is fun to make them and have people enjoy them!

Christmas tree decorating

Christmas in November...well, without Thanksgiving we can start Christmas early! :) When I told my friends that I wanted to buy a Christmas tree they said, "The one with the red leaves". I had no idea what they were talking about. I said, "No, they are pine trees with green branches, no leaves." Anyway, I found out that they call Poinsettias Christmas trees! So funny! So, due to the fact that Thailand is a natural rain forest, no pine trees are here. I had to do the forbidden thing and buy a fake tree. It was so fun to have friends over to decorate and listen to Bing Crosby sing Christmas carols! It put me in the Christmas Spirit which is a good place to be! Here are a couple pictures of us decorating but for more, click on the photo link on the right!

Fon and Ploy's University

Two of my friends from church attend a university that is about 1 hour away from where I live. They are learning about food and nutrition. Some of their classes are in English and they told their teacher about me and he let me come in and teach for almost 3 hours! It was good! I had a lot of fun but I was very nervous at first because it is a university! But I did fine and the students had a good time and they learned so that was great!

VCC

My church from home, VCC, came to visit me and to pray for the members of Tai Church! They were on their way to India and flew through Bangkok! It was great to see them! They brought me left over Halloween candy, magazines, and tortillas! YAY! It was great to show them around a little bit and just to be with some familiar friends! I loved it so much! While they were here, Ann Bowman, the missions pastor, took us to a snake farm. It was quite interesting! We saw a show and I held a snake, as you can see in the picture! Crazy! There are more pics in the photo page! :)

The Royal Gardens

Thailand has a wonderful King. Everyone in the country loves the king! He has helped develop Thailand into the magnificent place it is today! This year is his 60th year in reign and it is also his 80th birthday. The country honors him by wearing yellow shirts on Mondays and by these royal gardens that were built for him. Countries from all over the world brought plants and trees and flowers and planted a beautiful garden in Chiang Mai! While we were in Chiang Mai for the conference, we went to these gardens. As you can see they are so beautiful! I put many more pictures in the photo page so you should take a look!

CCMN

The church that I am involved with here in Thailand is a cell church. It reaches out to the community and takes church to the community rather than bringing the community to church! It is a great network of churches from all over the world. As a team of 8 we went to this conference and listened to how the Lord is moving all over the world! I met a woman from Taiwan (she is in the picture with me), her name is Tesia, and she was so full of life. She told me about the history of Taiwan and how it came to be what it is today! So cool! I also met Lawrence and he is from the Phillipiens. He is on the right of me in the photo. I think that I will visit him at some point in my stay here in Thailand! And the other guy in the picture is from "the OC"! His name is Tony and he is so cool! He lives in Irvine! It was so good to talk with people in English from all over the world and here how their church is making a difference in their communities!

Another boarder crossing!

My friend Aek and I travel together once a month to stamp my passport! He is a great travel buddy and his English improves every time we are together! This trip we went to Burma to stamp my passport and we got a tour of the boarder town! It was fun to ride in a little 3 wheeled motorbike cart. Not exactly sure what the name is but that is what it looks like to me! The place we went is the most Northern point of Thailand. Here are a couple pictures to show you! Check out the photo site for more!

Halloween

Parties are fun! I had ten people over to my apartment for swimming, snacks, and pumpkin carving. A few things to set the stage...pumpkins here are not orange, they are green, kids of any age love candy corns, and 5 boys in a one bedroom apartment make messes! Nonetheless, we had a great party!! :)
Being the good teacher that I am I wanted to make an example of a carved pumpkin. So, with modified tools, since I did not bring my pumpkin carving knife with me, I attempted to carve my pumpkin. This was a very hard process and one that I almost lost a finger to. The pumpkins are VERY hard and it broke my knife. As you see, my pumpkins nose and mouth are combined because the knife went out of control! :) Needless to say, I did not have the kids carve but rather draw their pumpkins faces on! Check out the uploaded photos and you will see all the activities! Gitles, I wish it was like your birthday 3 years ago! That was so fun! :)

Saturday Adult Class

Teaching adults is different than teaching high school students. No discipline problems that's for sure! :) My students work hard on their pronunciation as well as their sentence structure. They know more about grammar than most English speakers do! So, they teach me some things about grammar! I am learning to think about the English language in a way that I never had before. Such as, do, did and does, when they are the beginning of a sentence that it a question, the response is always yes or no. Never thought about that before but things like that help my students build their knowledge! It helps me too! I think deep down I love language! Who knew, especially since I can't spell! :)

Eng Jet Kids

Teaching kids is so much fun! Because their English language skills are still developing, I had a translator in the room to help with instruction! She was a blessing! :) We taught grammar, I learned many things, we taught art, and we shared Old Testament Bible stories with the kids. Day 1 we studied Creation, Day 2 we studies Noah's Ark, Day 3 we studied a New Testament miracle of Feeding the 5,000. We had a party on Day 4 to celebrate the end of the class. I only had these students for 4 days because school started again for them! They were so precious! Check out the photo link because I have uploaded more photos there! :)