For the past month, my team and I have been living in a village in northern Thailand called Bon Doi.
Our ministry is teaching English and loving the children and teachers at Bon Doi School. The children are in Kindergarten through 6th grade, and almost everyone at the school is Buddhist.
Our daily schedule looks a little like this:
6:30 AM: Wake up on our sleeping pads on the floor (mine is deflated, whoops) and come out of our tents/mosquito nets to get ready for school.
7:00 AM: Walk .8 miles down a village road, bowing hello and uttering, “snahwahtika (hello) to the neighbors. They are usually bundled up in winter coats and are sitting around burning fires because 50 degrees is freezing to them. Old women pass us by on motorcycles, dogs greet us with friendly barking, and the fog begins to clear
7:15 AM: Greet the children as they are dropped off at school. Some are walked to school by their parents, some ride on motorcycles with their grandpas, and some come in a “schoolbus” (a van that fits about 50 kids in a 12 passenger van. Sounds like a car at home I know…). The children all bow to us (respecting elders is very important here) and say, “Good morning teacher” as they run into the school grounds, excited to play.
8:00 AM: A flag ceremony takes place in the field. Students line up in grade order in rows across the field, and stand silently and respectfully as a couple 6th graders raise the Thailand flag. Their voices ring out the Thailand National Anthem.
8:15 AM: We split off into groups and lead the children in songs, stretching, and games. Abbey, Brooke and I take the 1st-3rd graders. We always begin with some red light, green light. It’s really a joy because they don’t understand the concept of “red light” and just sprint to us, giving us high fives, hugs, and fist bumps. Usually 10 rounds of this tires them out.
This is when my 9 summers at camp come in handy. I pull out Baby Shark, Little Cabin in the Woods, Singing in the Rain, Penguin Drinking Tea, Dum Dum Da Da, Button Factory, the works. They go wild.
8:45 AM-11:30 AM: Depending on the day, we all have one or two classes in the morning. I teach 2nd grade, and they are not as crazy as the kindergarteners, but they are still naughty.
Class looks like trying to teach English to Thai students when I know .00001% Thai and they know even less English. Since Thai is a tonal language and their alphabet has over 40 characters, one can imagine the difficulty that arises during class.
But, with some simple sign language, charades, and poorly drawn pictures on the board, my class has learned a lot! I have taught them numbers, family, nature, Christmas (all about the nativity), the song Jingle Bells, parts of the body, clothes, Simon Says, emotions, “my name is ___”, “I am feeling ____”, directions, time, the calendar, and more.
11:30-1:00 PM: Lunch. The school serves some FIRE Thai cuisine. Sometimes cow tongue; gross. This is also recess time. I like to either play volleyball or other games with the kids. This is a huge way to connect with them, because while I cannot use words, everyone knows the rules to sports games. This creates unity and friendship with several of the students.
1:00-3:30 PM: More class with the students. The hours I don’t have class, I spend journaling, doing devos, logistics, facetiming my family, blogging, having quiet time, or helping in other classes.
3:30 PM: Walk home with my team to our house where we have the rest of the afternoon off. I spend the time working out, showering, blogging, journaling, having a worship session, organizing and washing my clothes, watching movies, and hanging out with my teammates. Our house does not have a fridge, sink, real shower/bathroom, any furniture, or stove. This makes many activities, especially cooking, very difficult. But we laugh a lot as we make pasta in a rice cooker and potato wedges on a hot plate.
6:30 PM: We usually have dinner around this time, and it ranges from any of our non-refrigerated food! This has resulted in many not-super-healthy meals, to my great disappointment. But we laugh a lot during dinner as we tell stories from the school day.
After dinner we have team time, and I usually go to sleep pretty early. Around-9:30-early. I wash my face using the spigot water and brush my teeth and spit it in the grass outside. I lay down on my deflated sleeping pad and go to sleep.
Doing ministry here the past few weeks has been a huge blessing. While it has been super difficult to actually preach the gospel to these students, (religion/language barrier) getting to be Jesus to them has been a blessing. It is sometimes hard to wonder if our actions are making an impact in their life, but I know the Lord is sowing seeds in them every day.
We head to debrief in Chiang Mai with the whole squad this Saturday, and then to Myanmar on the 11th of January. Keep my team and my squad in your prayers for good health and safe travels.
All glory to God,
MG
