Thailand Take Two!

Hi friends,
Well, we have been here in Thailand for about one week so I thought that I would fill you in on the happenings.
There are thirteen people on our team. We arrive here on the 18 of June and spent the first two days in Bangkok in orientation. After lecture, we went on a scavenger hunt around the YWAM base and surrounding neighborhoods. We visited a coffee stand (yay!), visited the open market and ate weird parts of chicken (EW!), met the locals and hung out in the 7-11 (the only place with AC), walked around the King’s University praying and then met up with the rest of the YWAM team for lunch at the Turtle…we went here five years ago and it was still just as good as I remembered!
The next day we arose early to head into downtown Bangkok…two hours away, to play tourists for the day. We were able to visit several temples I had been to before and also a few new ones. First we jumped on a bus, sky train and then a boat to visit Wat Pho…the largest lying down Buddha in the world! The temple complex is expansive and has courtyards full of rows and rows of Buddhas. It is the oldest Wat (temple) in Bangkok and so many of the idols are hundreds of years old. It is a little overwhelming and you can feel the spiritual oppression. Next we walked down to the river through some slums, got on another boat and went to the Golden Mount. The Golden Mount is one of the highest places in Bangkok. It has a lot of historical significance which I tried to understand but since most of the signs were in Thai…I didn’t have a lot of success. The view was expansive so we took the time to pray over the city. Oh my, it was soo hot by then that we decided on lunch by the river…we ate Moo Ping (Grilled Pork) with Peanut Sauce, a noodle dish which names escapes me…and Thai Milk Tea which is the yummy!
Afterwards, we went down the river to the palace. The admission for the actual palace courtyard is super expensive and so we satisfied our time by visiting the city guardians. There are five of them and all are housed in the most elaborate shrines I have ever seen. They are different idols which represent protection, wealth, health ect…There was lots of incense and people lying prostrate on the floor crying, singing…it was very surreal…and very sad. As we walked around the temples we prayed that God would open their eyes and that would learn to call out to the only one true living God.
On Sunday we headed two hours north. All we knew is that Sweete an English professor had set us up to work in a town called Supanburi with a private school and we would be staying two weeks.
We arrived to find that the owners of the school owned a hotel so we would be staying there in the Mind Hotel. The rooms were nice and clean and had an added blessing of AC! The only downfall is that we are in the same lot as a nightclub which likes to play their base so loud after midnight it shakes our windows. After we settled in, our local contact Dum, took us to meet the local pastor, Felix. Felix greeted us at his tiny church with such excitement and passion that we were caught unprepared. He and the rest of the locals made us very extremely welcomed…they took us to supper. The food was amazing…the majority of it was seafood so I ate squid for the first time!
On Monday we were taken to the school to meet the owner, teacher and of course students! The school is privately owned and so it is very different then the school we taught at before. It is fairly Western looking; they have a pool a library and AC in the teachers’ lounge. We are the first foreign volunteers and first Christians to ever visit the school. Because it is a private school they do have an intense English program and three Americans who teach it. We will be assisting the teachers in the both the basic and advanced classes with accents, conversations and generally encouraging the kids to engage in fun activity and practice their English. As before a lot of the English that they know is very robotic and doesn’t actually hold a lot of meaning to them.
The kids are generally very well behaved; welcoming and shy! We divided up and assist the different teachers in the morning and then at lunch try to play/talk with the kids and then head back to the classrooms after lunch. The English levels range from none to fairly understandable.
Will write later with more details…please pray for our team that we have grace for each other, that we will be prayer warriors, that we will be a Light. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers!
I love and miss each one of you!