Trying to put into words the past two months of the race, is near impossible.
Living in the COLD mountains of Asia. Eating nothing but fried rice and fried noodle. Teaching English three days. Taking care of everyone when they were sick. Fried rice and fried noodle. Christmas unlike any other. Did I mention fried rice and fried noodle?!?
That was all JUST December.
Skip to January where the whole squad meets in Chiang Mai, Thailand for MIDpoint debrief (yeah, you read that right M-I-D point !!). Spent a week catching up with the other teams and eating fruit and cheeseburgers and ice cream! No, no fried rice or fried noodle for Syd. I know, shocking. For the next 7 weeks my team was placed in the village Chiang Dao, 2 hour bus ride from the city. We would be the only team where we were. When we arrived, we met out host, B. B spoke pretty good English, and the only one in the village who could speak any English. Only a few others spoke a tiny bit of English like greetings and such. Whoo ! Only 7 other people to talk to for 2 months!
We lived with B’s family. May, Pa, Leah (She can speak a little bit of English) and Yiley. May and Pa are B’s parents. Leah is his sister and Yiley his 95 year old grandma. I, along with my team, fell in love with this village and family instantly. Our ministry would be to teach English at the local primary and secondary schools. I was THRILLED !!
(If only you could tell how sarcastic that last sentence was…)
I have never been very confident in my teaching capability. I’ve never really actually taught a class before. But the thought of having to teach little kids how to speak English that only spoke Thai… that made my stomach drop a little bit. Thank goodness we were able to teach with another person so we weren’t alone. I ended up teaching with Grace. We taught the 2nd and 5th graders at the primary school. I taught with Madison (1st grade) and Samantha (6th grade) at the secondary school. (This blog is more about the primary school, rather than the secondary school. Due to the fact that we taught three times a week at the primary school and only once a week at the secondary school.) At first it felt impossible trying to teach 8, 9 and 10 year olds how to say “My name is ____.” And “I am ___ years old.” But something that I think is so amazing, is just by using hand motions and pointing to things, I can teach a kid who doesn’t speak my language. I think that doing that is such a cool experience. It took a lot of patience and lots of practicing but by the end of two weeks I can proudly say that all 13 of my 2nd graders and all 7 of my 5th graders could say their name and their age, in English. *Cues audience clapping noise*
Two weeks into ministry we got news that the primary school only wanted us to teach once a week, due to the fact that they had school wide testing or something like that. (They needed extra time to prepare and practice for them). It wasn’t until we were told that, that I realized how much I was in love with Bannon school and the kids that I got to teach. I was heart broken that I would only be able to see my kiddos once a week. Needless to say, Wednesday became my favorite day of the week. The days leading up to Wednesday seemed to drag, not just due to the lack of ministry, but also the lack of seeing my kiddos! I missed them so much every single day, and every day at 3:38 I would sit outside and watch them go by on the bus (a truck with a covered bed, jam packed with 30 kids). My favorite part of each day was seeing them all smile and wave back to me. With such lack of ministry, we were just waiting for somethings to straighten out with our host to get some new things to do. 1 week, 2 weeks went by with no ministry to be found and that left me very frustrated and upset because I just wanted to be back seeing my kids everyday. Thats when me and two of my other teammates sat down and decided to write our squad leader an email about our situation and that it needed to be fixed. We brought the email to the team which led to a rather lengthy conversation about some other situations that were brought up that we were unsure about. Which led to a call with our squad leader that night which led to another call the next day and then the dreaded news. Due to the fact that we have had such little ministry and a few other situations, team selah would be moved to Chiang Mai for a new ministry that would promise 5 days of solid ministry. Part of my heart was happy to actually be getting ministry for once in such a long time. The other half of my heart felt like it was torn out of my chest and thrown to the floor, left to rot. I was so heart broken to be leaving all of my kids from Bannon. And to be leaving the village and Leah, Yiley, May and Pa, who had grown so near to my heart. That meant no more meals of rice, potatoes and eggs. (Literally every meal. BUT sometimes we had fried chicken!) That meant no more late night chats with Yiley and Leah, which always ended in laughter (due to the language barrier). That meant no more teaching my kids and hand motions. No more playing with them and making them laugh. No more playing bingo with the older kids on their break after lunch.
On our last day of being at the school, it was a great day but also the hardest. It was the hardest goodbye I have ever made. This one wrecked me good. Right now I’m in the process of trying to just wrap my brain around the whole situation. It all happened so quickly. Too quickly. It shouldn’t have happened, and I’m mad, upset and sad about it. I just wish things would have worked out from the beginning. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that the Lord has better things in store than what I think is in store. Good thing I have a reminder on my arm:) Being beautifully wrecked again and again by the Lord. Right now I think He’s making something colorful, very colorful. Full of beautifully broken different colored mosaic pieces. Taking away from different parts of the last few months, getting ready to reveal the masterpiece.
Grace, Jontram. Bank, Namptoa, Nampoo, Tosapone, Daysheem, Ploy, Channon, Orange, Pelano, Pim, Ying, Goto, Kombiley, Tiger, Yada, Yatso, Pakama, Paywa.
20 amazing, beautiful, crazy, energetic, loving, caring, shy, sweet, clever kids that I had the opportunity to teach and love on.
I painted these two pieces to always remember my kiddos and remember to pray for them always. The piece with only 7 names are the names of my 5th graders, and the color that goes with their name is their favorite color. The flowers are all my 2nd graders. All of them each different but beautiful in their own way.
