so we made it to thailand just fine!! we got to stay in bangkok for about a week, and it was amazing!! i got to see some pretty sweet temples and heaps of monks. it was nice to have a few days to relax from malaysia before we started our ministry here in thailand.
so the guys got to go off together this month and do something called ‘manistry.’ im super excited for them to get to know each other better and have a month away from chicks. although they may not feel this way, but i do actually kind of miss my boys on my team. weird right?! i believe they are doing construction this month with each other, which i believe is uber-manly. good for them before they have to come back to their girls!!
so in that case, my malachi girls and i are with an all girls team. we are with team radiance, which is our first time to work with them, and they are super amazing. we are having a blast getting to know them and working on our relationships with them.
so our teams are in the region known as, si saket, which was a 10 hour bus ride northeast of bangkok. i believe we are about 1 hour away from the cambodian border. we are working in a small village, which is amazing!! we are staying at the home of one of the only christians in the actual village. their daughter was the first to come to christ and then she lead the rest of the family to christ. yeah, amazing story right?! so anyways, they have been more than helpful with us. they are letting us stay at their house and they cook every meal for us. its super sweet!!
we do have a translator named katie. she has been amazing to us!! she is also a missionary from alaska and has been in this village for about 8 months. she has been in thailand for about 3 years and actually speaks thai fluently. its super sweet to have a translator since we didn’t have one for 2 weeks in the jungle in malaysia. she is super cool and we have a great time with her.
the only thing is that this place is about 500 degrees everyday. no, im just kidding, its more like 120 degrees everyday. imagine if you will, that you never stop sweating. yup, thats what it feels like everyday and everynight. although i am not complaining (even if it sounds like it), because the village is wonderful!!
so what our typical ministry looks like is this: we do team worship, all day prayer, teach english to the kids, visit different villages and go to the park to attempt to play volleyball. yeah i say attempt because i myself am not the best volleyball player around, but a few of us are pretty good. now these thai people really know how to play volleyball. they are fierce at it!!
so far i have met heaps of people from this village and from other villages and they are all so friendly. they love it when we say hello to them. its amazing what little we can do, yet have the biggest impact on this small village. just to have our presence in the community shows the villagers how much we care. of course we know we care, but to them its just 10 strange white people walking through the village. the only difference is that we all illuminate god from our faces and are willing to hold a conversation without knowing a single thai word. to them and to us , it is the best way we can prove that god is bigger than we can ever imagine. god is so good.
of course there are heaps of kids, which i absolutely love!!! you guys know that im such a huge kid person. of course i have already taught them how to walk fabulously down a runway and how to pose at the end of it. its super cute and super hilarious to see them do it, because they just giggle and giggle. and of course what makes me super happy is how they just love hugs. oh hugs. how i have missed you since the philippines. i love it when kids hug me and i can hug them. yay!!
so that basically in a nutshell is what we are doing here in thailand. im super excited to see how the next couple of weeks are going to pan out. im super excited to see how god will show up and conquer this village. its also exciting to see what new and fun things will happen!!!
