(Tengmo is my Thai name given to me by the Thai students because I love watermelon. It is phonetically spelled. )
92% of the people here are Buddhist, so Buddhist principles are infused in all areas of life. This monument was set-up for the house we are now staying in for the house warming ceremony,
and there are little mini temples/altars everywhere.
Flag raising ceremony
Sushi I bought from Tanan Kan Durn (that is phonetically spelled [Which means Walking Street]). Walking Street is a market that happens every Sunday night from 5pm-7pm/8pm-ish in downtown Fang.
Volleyball on Sports Day. We were divided in to team colors and mine was Yellow. On the score board above the yellow team girl who is closest to the net you can see that my team is smoking the green team, even with a purple sub (It’s 6 to 21).
First off, I’m sorry for not updating my blog more often. I want to share my story but it has been hard for me to write, but I want to blog more often. I really appreciate all of your prayers and support.
For the last 6 weeks, we have been living with Team Talitha Koum and teaching English at a Buddhist school in the Chiang Mai District, near the city of Fang. The school is called Fang Chanu Patham and has 1,300 students. FC is a high school that teaches 7th to 12th grade. At the beginning of the month, all of our teams were divided amongst the teachers, because there are 11 Thai teachers and 15 of us. Originally, I was just going to be a floater and help my squad mates out when they needed it. But, on the first day, I went to class with Noah and it was crazy. Apparently, we were the first race team that had guys. Every team before us had only been all girl teams and the school is at least 3/4ths girls. So, everyone just wants to be our girlfriend. After the first day, Noah didn’t want to go in alone so I just stayed teaching Noah’s classes with him. For the last 2 months, I have been teaching pronunciation with Noah and it has been great. Sadly though, because we are viewed as celebrities, it has been hard for Noah and I to get to know the students. We just get giggled at a lot and when ever the girls walk by, they walk fast because they are shy. This has given us a lot of time to just read the Bible and grow with God individually. Which has been hard because I have more free time and I could be reading the whole time, but temptations are still there to watch Youtube and play games on my computer. I am just now hitting the point when I need to either choose the race and to give God my all or choose myself. If you would pray for that, that would be awesome.
As of right now, I am only 75$ away from being fully funded and I did not realize but I need to have the money by this Friday. I ask that you would pray about just getting me over the edge. I’m almost there and that is because of all my supporters. Thank you again for all your prayers and support. I could not have done this without you guys.
Peace out,
Elijah
