And on the seventh day, we rested

There's one thing I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of in Thailand: singing in Thai. Sunday was our first time to worship with the Christians at Payap. We sang lots of songs during the service; they are all sung in Thai, but next to the written Thai is the phonetics in English so that we can sing along. Most of the time, we know the tune so we know which song it is and what we're singing, but even when we don't, I love listening to the Thais sing! They sing very loud and with so much joy - it reminds me of singing in Dominica. Here are the phonetics to "Blue Skies and Rainbows," which we have sung several times. I'd really like to be able to sing this in Thai from memory by the time I get back to the States:



Tong faa lae sai roong lae saeng jaa sa-wahn laa
Bpen sing tii chahn hen muea jai chahn mii pra-jaow
(Chorus)
Chahn roo waa pra-yay-soo mii
chii-wit yoo waan nii
Pra-ohng yoo nai jit-jai chahn
Mai mii waan tii chahn ja mii kwaam glua tdaw bpai
Praw-waa chahn roo pra-yay-soo yoo glai glai.

We just returned from doing an English day camp in a little village in the mountains called Baw Geaw. (Side story: the road up to the village was very windy with lots of turns, and most of us got a little nauseous - especially me. I had to get my friend P'O to pull over the car so I could throw up on the side of the road!) We worked with the students in grades 7-12. Each of us ACU interns were paired with a Thai staff member, who helped so much with the translating! I worked with P'Pui and Erika, who is Robert's 14 year old daughter. (Erika and her brother Branson speak both English and Thai very well - I'm so impressed by them!) P'Pui, Erika, and I (that's a picture of three of us) taught the ninth-graders (that's a picture of some of them that stuck around to take a picture with us). We started the day with songs and games with all the grades together, and then we split up to teach. Our class learned words to use to introduce themselves, like "Hello", "My name is," "I am 15 years old," etc. Then we taught them some questions to ask, like "What is your name?" and "Where are you from?" We moved on to teach transportation and direction words, and words of things you would buy at the store or market. The students were so excited to learn English and were a very captive audience! Even though we didn't work with the younger children, that's a picture of just a few of them. (Grades 1-12 attended the same campus.) They were so cute! They would stare at us as we walked around, and then giggled a lot when we talked to them!

Leah and I rode home with our new friends, P'Gahn and P'O. We started talking about when and how they became Christians, and their stories were just amazing to me. Both of them grew up in Buddhist homes, and they are still the only Christians in their families. P'Gahn said that he had always had a negative few of Christians until he met the people at the Chueng Doi church. He said it amazed him how these people truly cared for him and loved him, so then he decided to study about this God that they served and eventually became a Christian. His parents are still Buddhist, and they aren't so willing to listen to him talk about God, so he says now he prays for them and tries to show them Jesus through his love and his lifestyle. P'O had a similiar story: he grew up as a very strict Buddhist and was even going to become a monk. He said, though, that he was always searching for something that he was missing as a Buddhist: love. When he met the Christians and started to learn about their God, he found that love he was looking for. He is also still the only Christian in his family. Then they told us that about 70% of the people in Thailand are Buddhist, and 25% are Muslim. Only 1% of Thailand is Christian - and that includes everything from Catholic to Protestant. When they tell people that they are Christians, it's something that is really weird. They are definitely in the minority. P'O and P'Gahn are interns as well, but they are working with the Chueng Doi church (we are at the Payap Christian Zone church). Leah and I were amazed at their stories - they are only a few years older than us, but they have had endure so much more as Christians than we ever have. What really struck me about their stories is what attracted them to Christianity, what made them decide to completely change their life. It wasn't just a new list of things to believe, but it was love: the love of Christ that others first showed to them. What an encouragement and call to us to remember to show Christ's love to people!

Today is our day off, so we are relaxing around our dorm style apartment and getting caught up on blogs, emails, and sleep! We are learning how important it is to have times of true rest. Robert and his kids took us to a Mexican restaurant, which was surprisingly good for a Mexican place owned by a Canadian living in Thailand! By the way, that's a picture of all the interns and Robert in front of the Zone. This was the night we went to the funeral for Malee. Thais wear black and white to funerals, which is why we look like a checker board!

A few more cultural points of interest...

• When someone is older than you, you have to say a "P" in front of their name. It's one of the ways Thais show respect to their elders, which their culture heavily emphasizes. That is why I typed P'Pui, P'Gahn, and P'O like that: they are all older than me.
• You have to take off your shoes before going inside anywhere in Thailand. You also cannot point your feet and especially cannot direct the bottom of your feet towards someone older than you. We are all trying to be very careful to pay attention to the way we are sitting!
• Going to the bathroom is always interesting in other countries. In our apartment and in most large places, bathrooms are the same as the States. In more rustic places and in some homes, however, they have (as Americans have nicknamed them) "squatty potties." I think there are pictures in some of my teammates' Facebook albums, but just imagine a sink placed in the ground.
• The Thai language is a tonal language, which means that the same word stressed/emphasized differently means a completely different word. (There are five tones.) This makes it even easier for us to mess up on our Thai! It's hard to explain this without being able to make the sounds. What is interesting to us is that P'Pui's sister's name is the name as hers': just in a different tone.

May you be blessed by the Lord today. Thanks for taking the time to read about my experiences here!

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. - John 1:16