Pai!

We are in Pai! We arrived Sunday the 4th via a Tuk Tuk (back of a pickup truck). It was about a 3 hour drive! Being here we have seen a shirt that says, “Pai 725 turns” so yeh, it was a pretty crazy trip up the mountain! Thankfully, no one got sick! Pai is an amazing place. It is like a combination of Hippy culture, Thai culture, and tourist culture. Apparently, Pai is the last stop on the famous Hippy Trail, which means it is a real destination for hippies. The spiritual atmosphere is really intense and we have to be really aware that we are always under attack. It is good to recognize these things and come against them. Monday we started teaching English! Honestly, it was something I really didn’t want to do because I feel like I’m not that great at English and I’m not that great at teaching, but thankfully it has been better than I expected. We will be teaching in the mornings over the next 2 weeks in local schools. The school we are in this week is a boarding school of 600 students from grades 1-12 and only 2 English teachers in the whole school. Part of our time is in a classroom teaching basic English and the other part is one on one conversational English with the older students. The first day we were at the school it was very hard because we didn’t know what to expect but thankfully it has just gotten easier since then. Yesterday I helped teach the 1st graders. I had to create a lesson plan on the spot because we had prepared for the wrong age group. We ended up teaching them colors and they loved it. It was a lot of fun. Today I had a group of 5, 16 year olds and I helped them with their pronunciation of their vocab words. They were very sweet but so shy it was hard to get them to really talk.
In the evenings we go out in groups of 3 and talk to anyone who speaks English. Some of the conversations we bring up God and some we just build relationships. Our leaders have really encouraged us to make friends and meet up with them throughout the time we are here. It has been fun. More stories to come…
We are staying at the only church in Pai and it is located right in the middle of the town. Some of the girls and I are staying in a room in the back of the church and the others are staying in a house next door. It is really awesome.