Chiang Mai

I am in Chiang Mai! We left Pai two days ago. It was really hard to go because there are amazing people up there. The night before we left P-noi asked me if I was going to miss her. It was so sweet. She told me that she was going to miss me a lot. She is a phenomenal cook and I would go in the kitchen and help her. She is funny, she doesn’t speak much English but she laughs a lot.
Yesterday we went to Myanmar to renew our visas. So we were in the back of a pickup truck for 8 hours! We were hoping and praying for a 30 day visa but we were only given 15 days. That means we have until the 6th of February to leave the country or get another visa. I am not sure yet what we will end up doing but I will keep you posted. Myanmar was a very interesting place, we were only there for an hour but it was amazing how much poorer it was than Thailand.
Today we get to chill and rest at a wonderful guest house in Chiang Mai! Tonight we take a 10 hour night bus to Bangkok! I will updated you when I get there.

Teaching in Pai

Kids! 
On Thursday and Friday afternoon we went up to a town outside of Pai, it was only about a 20 min drive away. There is a small church up there and we did a mini VBS for about 35 kids from the area. Each day we prayed about what God wanted the theme of the day to be and each time he gave three of us the same thing! On Thursday our theme was LOVE and Jesus’ love for us. Then on Friday our theme was JOY and the joy God gives us. The kids were so sweet I really enjoyed spending time with all of them. They loved duck, duck,… goose! I don’t think they have ever played it before. 







 
 
Church! 
I was really excited about going to Church on Sunday because we had been here at the church a week but never seen what a Sunday morning was like. It was really good. The congregation is quite small even though we are in a highly populated area, only about 11 people. Half of our group did the kids ministry and the other half stayed in the service. I was in the service. It really was a precious time and I am excited we are going to be here until the 22nd of Jan. Please be praying that we would be able to effectively go more in depth into the word and all that God has for them. P-nom and P-noi are deacons in the church, and since there is no pastor at the moment, they do a lot for the church. They are also the most precious people you will ever meet. P-nom has a pick-up-truck and we go everywhere in it! 
 
We have two translators, Anna and Kwan who are amazing. They are precious women of God! It has been a lot of fun getting to know them! They are both in their late 20’s and married. Anna is very sweet spirited and Kwan in spunky, they are so funny together. 
 
School!
Yesterday we started a new school! This school has 160 students and unlike the last school this one is a day school. The atmosphere seemed different, the teachers and the kids seemed happier. My group of 4 taught 28, 6-10 year olds! It was pretty crazy but a lot of fun. I really think this is one of my favorite ages to teach. We taught them colors and we colored pictures. I was actually quite impressed with their drawing ability! We also drew the body and sang head, shoulders, knees, and toes. It was really fun. Please pray for fun and creative ways to teach English and share the gospel with these kids and their teachers.
 
Team!
Please pray for my team, a number of people have been struggling with sickness and just not feeling their best. Over the weekend 6 people were pretty sick but now thankfully everyone is on the up. Thankfully God is bigger than sickness and the devils schemes. Sunday, Shea had a bike accident and came back quite beat up. Ouch. It took Sahlyn and I and a lot of gauze and tape to bandage him up! 
 
 Other than that our team has been great. I have been blessed by everyone’s good attitudes and servant hearts! 

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.

Fun day

I'm in THAILAND!!!!!! It is so good to finally be here! Our trip was good but very long with a total of 22 hours of flying time. We got in to Bangkok New Year’s morning at 1am. I got to sleep like five hours then we had orientation and a scavenger hunt and we left that evening for Changmai! Yesterday we went to a Buddhist temple way up in the mountains. It was beautiful in a way but I could feel the spiritual oppression was very heavy. The temple we went to is one that many Buddhists take pilgrimages to.
Today we went on an excursion! First we rode on elephants! It was pretty crazy!  It was quite a bumpy ride, and a few times I really felt like I was going to fall off! It was an amazing experence.

Next we went to a beautiful waterfall! It was  fun we got to get close to the water and I got really wet and cold!
Our trip down the river on the bambo raft was probably my favorite! I rode with Shea and Lish and it was a bit of a wild ride, and yes I did fall in!