Yesu Cree mae ya kla

Amen and Amen. Yesu Cree mae ya kla....Jesus Christ is the way. He's the truth and the life. Last night I had a conversation with Solo. I was waiting for my pictures to upload, because the internet is so slow here, and Solo began to share his heart. It was amazing listening to his life, how he grew up, and how he became a Christian. The thing I will always remember from this conversation is when Solo told me that Jesus Christ is the way. He had been searching and he looked into being a muslim (many of the people here are muslim) and he looked into being a buddhist (the predominant religion here is buddhism), but none of these religions had a way to heaven. His search and his longing ended when he found God and he found the way, the only way. He found Jesus Christ. It's incredible the passion he has for God. He is leaving back to his home, which is in a refugee camp. He was supposed to be at the orphanage for two months, and he told me that he has been here for 1 year and 9 days today, praise God! He told me he's so excited that God was able to use him in such an awesome organization. I had the opportunity to go to one of the refugee camps where the Karen people live because they have fleed from Burma, and it is horrible. Our bums in America live better than these people do, and yet Solo still praises God that he had the opportunity to come to this orphanage and that he has a home to go home to. I don't even know if we would be able to praise God for what he is going home to, but he has joy and gratefulness in everything. These people truly know how to have joy even in their sorrows. If you sit and listen to Solo it makes your heart smile.
(ok I just need to let you know that right as I put the last period, I saw something slither by my feet. I heard Solo and Kawee (one of the most amazing girls and one of my favorites) laughing. They told me it was a snake. I jumped up onto my chair, they laughed harder, and looked all over the ground for it. It was already gone. They told me it wouldn't hurt me, but it sure did scare the crap out of me. It's not every day that you're sitting at your computer and a snake slithers by you :))

I had the most amazing church service ever this Sunday. We went to one of the Karen villages, Kamawpoekloe. We first arrived and we walked to the Pastor's house. It was a hut that they built themselves out of bamboo and their roof was leaves. It was amazing! We all walked to the church together. It was just right down the dirt road. It took us about a minute or two to walk there. We all took off our shoes, and then walked into the room. It was just an open building, with no doors and only half walls. There were little children running around with only their shirts on, and me and Leslie watched as one boy lifted his shirt up, walked over to a little rain gutter thing, and peed right in it. It was hilarious! We were cracking up. Then Pastor Winai brought me, Carl, and Leslie up to the front of the church. We stared out at the audience of about 20 all sitting on the ground with their Karen skirts on (men and women) and them staring back at us. We introduced ourselves to the Karen audience- Ya mi mae Andrea (my name is Andrea). As I spoke, there were dogs howling and fighting in the background, a boy picking bugs out of his dad's hair, and children all lined up outside the wall with just their little heads poking over it. Life doesn't get much better than that. We were able to preach to them. I shared a scripture verse and Carl talked about how we are to mirror Jesus and the life He lived. Pastor Winai told us we could sit down and he invited me up one more time. He introduced me to the people again and told them I would be living here for a year. He also told them that if they want me to, I can come and teach English in their village. They said they would love for me to come, so I will be driving to this village and teaching English to the people. God is so good!! What an opportunity to grow and learn from these people who are on fire for God! After he introduced me again, we sang worship! It was so much fun, because some of the songs we sang I recognized and was able to sing in English! They love to hear us sing in English! After the service, a woman came to the front with her baby and asked if we would pray for it. The baby has been having seizures. The other people who live in the village who are buddhists wanted to do a ritual over her baby, but she told them no, because she believes in prayer and she knows God and only God can heal her baby. We all laid hands on the baby, including the children, and raised our voices to God. If you could have heard it, tears couldn't have helped but well up in your eyes. After we finished praying for this woman and her baby, it was lunch time.
We went back to the pastor's hut, and they lined up our bowls with rice and they had the food set up for us. For them they prepared fish (with the bones and skin and everything) in a spicy sauce. The fish is so fishy and not very good. I tried a piece of it because I want to try a little bit of everything they serve us. There hasn't been anything they've served us that I haven't tried- except for the water because that would give me parasites....no thank you (mai kapkunka). They prepared for us, pickled green beans, eggplant-which was amazing, and tofu. There was silverware set out for everyone, but even if they have silverware the Karen people prefer to eat with their hands, so that's what they did. I took pictures of them. They probably think I'm some crazy American because I had my camera and video camera out practically the whole time. It's funny.
After we left this village we stopped by the refugee camp to visit Pastor Winai's brothers. Pastor Winai is from Burma and he is Karen. God blessed him with the opportunity to become a Thai citizen, almost by accident, but his family still lives in the refugee camp. His family is leaving for America in September because of the UN. The UN has a program set up where the refugees can go to a participating country, work for 5 years, and then they can gain citizenship. So praise God, his family gets to leave the refugee camp! We sat and ate cookies with his family and talked. We all prayed together and sang together and then we said our goodbyes. As we drove back through the camp, it smelt so bad. We saw many goats, and I learned that wherever there are muslims there will be goats because they sacrifice the goats, drink their milk, and eat them. There are many goats throughout Thailand.
Today I was awakened again by the delicate sound of the children screaming their passion to God. The children were still home from school because of the buddhist holiday so I had the opportunity to spend more time with them, teaching them and playing with them. I taught the children basic conversation, like What is your name? How old are you? etc. They really enjoyed learning that. Then I wanted to give them a break so we played games. The children are hysterical when they play the games. They get really into it. I had the children play this one game where there were 4 teams. Each team got in one of the 4 corners and they put blindfolds on one of their teammates and when I counted to 3 the blindfolded person from each team had to run to the center and try to be the first one to grab the blanket that was in the center and bring it back to their corner. I got it all on tape because it was awesome!! Sometimes I would take away the blanket once the children were blindfolded and tell them to go. They would all be fighting in the center for nothing....awesome! We played a couple more games and then we all took a break for lunch. While we were eating lunch, Noah gave me a Thai-English dictionary he bought and I read the funniest line in it. One saying was translated into English....in Thai it says my stomach hurts and the book translated it "I feel gassy long time". That's so how I picture Asians speaking :)
After lunch we went into town so I could buy teaching supplies. I bought candy and treats for prizes for the children and I found a jumbo BINGO game. I'm going to use this game to teach English and make it exciting! We also bought a cake in town for Leslie, because today was her birthday. When I came home, I started to organize my supplies and clean my room and 4 girls stopped by my room and asked if they could help. They practically did everything for me. They took the English words that I wanted to hang on the wall in the area where I teach and all the children put them up on the wall themselves, I didn't have to do anything. I took pictures of them and they will be up on kodak :)
After dinner, we had worship. Leslie spoke and then the children gave her words of encouragement, and then we all prayed for her. While we prayed, they got the cake, lit the candles and surprised her with it. We all sang Happy Birthday, and then we gave all the children cookies and punch that we bought for them in town. It was awesome!! We had a blast! Everything just seems to be better here! When God is always present, life is good!!
So I just found out that it wasn't really a snake that slithered by me, it was a mouse scurrying.....probably scurrying away from a snake. Oh the joys of Thailand! So I guess I should get to bed because it is 11:40 pm and I have to be up at 5 am because we are going to a Karen village called Pade. We are going to go worship with them. A Tuesday spent in Pade at 5 in the morning worshipping our God. Life is good!


ps. you can still see my pictures at the same website that I put in my post before this one :)

Taco Pado

Very correctly titled. These past couple days I've been walking around saying "Taco Pado". The children laugh, and agree, then they repeat what I say but in English- "Very Hot". Taco means hot and Pado means very. It has been so humid here. If I just stand outside I am dripping with sweat, I've probably lost 3 pounds just in water today :) It hasn't been raining, even though this is the rainy season, so we haven't had relief from the heat in a couple days. My new best friend has become the fan. It is way too uncomfortable to sit inside a room without a fan blowing on you. There is a little bit of a breeze outside, and every time we do feel a breeze we praise and thank God.
This weekend is a 4 day weekend for the children because Friday was a buddhist holiday. All the children and the people left school and work early on Friday to go to the buddhist temple to pray to buddha. Monks have been walking around Mae Sot with baskets accepting offerings of food from people to give to buddha. They will take the offerings and bring them to buddha. Our children and staff do not participate in this holiday, so they simply returned to the orphanage after school. Pastor Winai drove a lot of the children to their villages, so they can stay there for the weekend. So there are only about 70 children at the orphanage this weekend. So Friday night, I decided to give the children a break from learning English and we just played games. I learned two new Thai games. One of the games the children line up in rows and they connect their hands. You have two people, one person is the tiger and one is the deer. They have to chase each other through the rows of children. It is so much fun!! Me and Leslie played and I was the deer and she was the tiger. Then we played a game that is really similar to musical chairs, except you play sitting on the ground in a circle and you have hats on your head. There is one less hat then people. You take the hat off the person in front of you and you keep doing that until the music stops. The children play really intensely. They hold onto their hat until they take off the other persons hat. It's crazy! Me and Leslie were the last two left, and we were playing some hard core musical hats and she stabbed me in the eye with her finger. It was really funny!
Today was also a really fun day! I taught the children directions. I taught them forwards, backwards, left, and right. They had to pair up with another person and one person had a blind-fold on. The person without the blind-fold had to direct the other person around the room using only English. They had to tell the person forwards, backwards, left, or right. The children loved it. They boys were being boys and they were directing each other to run into the girls or the wall. It was so fun and the children were speaking very well. Then the English lesson was over and I played red light, green light with the children. It was a little bit difficult because there were 70 children, but they loved playing! They get excited about everything. I would give whoever touched me first a peice of candy that I brought from home as prizes for the children. They would bow with their hands together as if they were praying and say "Thank you teacher". It's incredible how grateful these children are. It blows me away! They are so polite. Even if they just walk by me they bow until they pass me. Their culture is so different from ours.
Me, Carl, Leslie, Noah, and Mae drove into town today. They don't use toilet paper here, they use a little hose to spray their bottoms clean with water. So I had been using baby wipes but I was really starting to miss toilet paper, so I decided it was time to drive into town and buy some :) I also needed some laundry soap. It's coming time to do some laundry so I needed to buy some soap. There are 3 cement water tanks that they fill up with water to do their laundry. They fill up a plastic bucket with water from the container and then put some soap in the bucket and then they put their clothes in and wash them with a scrub brush. Then they hang all their clothes to dry. This is how I'll be doing my laundry for a year :) While we were in town we stopped at a 7 eleven and bought some ice cream. It was pretty good. Not American good, but pretty tasty. I was sitting in the back of the truck with Leslie and Mae and I started to feel really sick. Noah drives like a crazy person and it was really, really hot, so Carl let me sit up front where there is air conditioning and Mae drove instead of Noah. I started to feel so much better and we drove through the market so Mae could buy vegetables. She rolled down her window and some rank, nasty, funky smell made it's way into the car. We were driving through the fish market where there was fish, pig heads, pig intestines, and other fowl things sitting right on the tables out in the open. There is also this fruit here that the Thai people love that is called Durian. It smells like poop and tastes just the same. Solo told us that if you eat too much of it, gives you a fever because it starts to burn your insides. It's some nasty stuff. So the fruit was also in this market. All these smells together made me almost throw up. It's so funny how weak us Americans are. The smell doesn't even faze these people and me I can barely hold down my throw up. I'm going to be "strong like bull" when I come home in a year :)
After we came home from the market I went in my room to sit in front of my my fan and read for a while. I guess I was exhausted because I fell asleep in the middle of reading and slept for about 2 hours. It was very nice, but when I woke up I was so sweaty. I'm really starting to appreciate the air conditioning I had back home. We have so many luxuries in America that we take for granted. We are so blessed in America and so many of us have no idea, and we're constantly wanting more. These children have nothing, and they are the most unselfish children I've ever encountered and they all take care of each other. The older girls cook and do the younger girls hair. We all could learn so much from them. I wish everyone could come here and live even for a week. It would change your life. Hopefully, it would change it not just for a month, but for a lifetime.
Tonight, the sunset was absolutely gorgeous. On one side of the sky you could see the moon, bright and hiding half-way behind the clouds and on the other side you could see an array of orange, pink and purple amidst the clouds as the sun said goodbye. It's better then Phoenix sunsets. As I came out of my room with my camera in hand to capture the beauty of the sunset (which photos can not do it justice), I ran across the stage that takes me from my side of the building to the other side of the building. The children were all sitting by the stage, and I stepped up to the stage and didn't step up high enough and I fell right in front of all the kids. It was so funny. I jumped up and said "I'm ok". The kids all just stared at me because they had no idea what I was saying. We'll call this my first embarrassing moment in Thailand. Although, the kids only cared if I was ok, there were no wrong intentions at all. But it was hilarious. Sorry, I have no pictures of that. Also, today it was very neat because I spoke with Noah's English teacher. Me and Noah are meeting with him August 8th and we're talking about an English camp. They are having an English camp at the University and I am going to teach at it. I pray God will use me during this event to witness and be a light. God is so good, and He is totally directing me and stretching me and opening up so many doors.
Tonight I ate a wonderful dinner. They truly treat me so good. I think they want to make sure I'm healthy so I can teach the kids :) I eat a lot of garlic. Tonight the weirdest thing on the menu was fried flowers. They are this certain flower and they cook it up. It's delicioius. I never thought I would be sitting in Thailand and eating flowers. Amazing the places God takes us :)
Speaking of places God takes us, I was doing my devotional this morning and I loved it! I read John 7:17. It talked about how the way we understand spirituality is not through intellect but through obedience. This is so true. We get so caught up in knowing and memorizing scriptures and the rules and going through the motions and thinking we're all high and mighty because we can recite scriptures, but we get spirituality mixed up with religion. It's not about religion, it's about our obedience to our Love, our Father. We grow spiritually when we obey. The last line was the one that hit me the hardest- "First go- at the risk of being thought fanatical you must obey what God tells you." No matter what, we must obey. When we obey God can use us in ways we never knew He could before. I'm learning this day by day.


p.s. Thank you all so, so, so much for your prayers, words of encouragement, and love! It means so much to me all the way out here in Thailand land :)

p.s.s. I can't upload my pictures to my blog for some reason, but I'll be uploading them to kodak gallery and you can view them by going to this website. It takes forever for them to upload so I'll be uploading them as I get time :) I think each time I upload them they'll show up on this site, but if not I'll keep you updated on the website address.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=9g2wdfq0.81wlq2oo&Uy=-915v4m&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

Day 2 in the village

As a lizard scurries by me squeaking, I right aboiut day two. Today was such a wonderful day! I woke up at 5:30 am to the sound of 130 voices singing as loud as they possibly could to God. I have to say that is the best way to wake up. I lay in bed, close my eyes, and listen to the voices. It's so easy to be drawn so close to God here. The presence of God is so incredible here! I'm always hearing Pastor Winai say "Praise God". The things he does for the children here and the surrounding community is incredible! After the children finished worshipping, they began to get ready for school and I drifted back to sleep until 7:50. It was so funny because last night I had a dream that I was teaching the children English and the phrase I was teaching them was "Yes I can". I was shaking my head up and down and pointing to myself as I said it. I felt like God was speaking to me, because last night I was praying before I went to bed that God would help me teach them because I didn't really know where to start or exactly how to teach them, so God was reassuring me "Yes I can" :) After I woke up, I went to Pastor Winai's house and ate breakfast. Mae made us Thai french toast. It's not at all like American french toast, it's not sweet and it's basically just cooked bread with eggs around it. It wasn't all that good. Then I taught the staff members (they range from 19-24) English for an hour. I taught them while the children were at school. They go to school Monday-Friday from 8-4. Everyone here is so eager to learn English. They want to learn anything that I can teach them. I played "UNO" with the staff and they had to say the color and the number of each card they put down. They loved it! They had so much fun and they were cracking me up! Anytime they would say something wrong, they would laugh and laugh. It might have been the funnest game of UNO i've ever played :) After we were done with the English lesson, Teep (one of the staff members) taught me how to drive the motorcycle. I learned very quickly and then I drove it by myself to the village store. I definitely will be taking it on rides around the village. I loved it! Today it was very hot (taco pado in Karen-their tribe's language), so I was relaxing on a table outside and reading my book and the girls asked me if I wanted to go with them. I didn't know where we were going to go but I want every experience I can get. So we walked down the road to a swamp and one of the girls stepped right in it, mud and water up to her knees, and dug her hand into the mud and pulled out a crab. I couldn't believe it! Then all the girls began doing this and pulling out crabs. They were collecting crabs for a crab paste. I walked right through the mud, knee deep, with the girls but I was too scared to catch any crabs. I told myself "I will catch a crab before this year is through", but I'm going to have to work up to that. As sweat dripped down the girls faces and they were muddy and working so hard, all you could see were big smiles on their faces and all you could hear was laughter. It's funny because American children would have been complaining about the heat and would have not worked anymore, but these girls never complained and worked harder than adults I know.
After the children came home from school, did their chores, and ate dinner I taught them English. I taught them in two different groups-the older and the younger. When we were done with the lesson, they all bowed and said "Thank you Teacher". It is so amazing how incredibly grateful these children are for things that we take so much for granted. After I finished the English lessons, there was a wonderful dinner waiting for me in Pastor Winai's house. The food was delicious! I love Thai food!! We ate dinner while we listened to the children worship and pray. Pastor Winai talked about the progress they made on the water well. They bought filters and the tank and pipes today. They will begin the water well tomorrow so the children will have safe water to drink, so they won't be getting parasites anymore.
As I sit here and write this entry, Teep asks what I am doing. I tell him that I am writing so everyone back home can read what I'm doing here, and he says "you mean the people in America, because Thailand is home now"....it made me smile :)

I've arrived!

After a long 3 days journey, I've finally arrived! I boarded the plane that would bring me to my new home July 22nd, 2007 at 1:00 am. I was so blessed because I was able to sleep 10 of the 14 hours that I occupied the plane. Carl and Leslie did not enjoy the flight as much as me because they were not blessed with the ability to sleep anywhere. We stepped off the plane onto our overly swollen feet and began our 2 1/2 hour layover in Taipei, which found us roaming the airport, having photo shoots at the scenic areas that are supposed to make you feel like you had the opportunity to step outside the airport into the lovely country of Taiwan, and waiting at our gate anxiously checking our watches. We finally stepped aboard the plane and we were told to sit back and relax and enjoy the 3 hour plane ride. This ride was a peice of cake after we had already been on an airplane for 14 hours. Once we landed in Bangkok, Leslie looked over at me and said "Welcome home". I think it hit me then, that this is going to be my home for a year. We got our luggage, went through customs, and made our trek with their luggage and my years worth of luggage, to the Christian hostel. We left our bags here and toured Bangkok. It was noon and we had until 9:00 to tour. Right when we walked out to start touring, it started pouring. It rained really hard, but it felt wonderful! I loved not having to care about what I looked like and just being able to enjoy the rain, the wind, and even the humidity. We took the sky train around town and it brought back memories of when I was in Thailand in 2003. I was reminded how much I love this country! At 9:00 we boarded the bus that would take us to Mae Sot. Mae Sot is where the orphanage is at. I, once again, was able to sleep the whole bus ride, and Carl and Leslie were, once again, not able to. Pastor Winai was already at the bus stop waiting for us when we arrived. We arrived at 5 in the morning. Pastor Winai greeted us with a huge, genuine smile. He put all our luggage in the back of the truck and drove us to his village. As we drove up to the orphanage, the children were all in the worship area worshipping. We drove up to 130 voices shouting up to God. It was absolutely amazing! We unloaded our luggage and joined them in worship. It brought tears to my eyes, standing amidst all the children who were so passionately and beautifully singing to the Lord. After they sang, all the children prayed out loud. They love lifting up their voices to Him. Then Pastor Winai gave us the floor. They introduced me to the kids and Carl talked about Esther to the children. I told the children that I am so excited to be here to be teaching them English and that while I teach them English I want them to be teaching me Karen/Thai. After the worship service the children all got ready for school. They made 4 trips to get all the children to school. I met Mae and Noah, who are Pastor Winai's daughter and son-in-law. Mae is pregnant with her second child. Mae and Noah both speak English, it's broken but understandable. We ate breakfast with them and chatted with them. We have to be really careful with what food we do eat and don't eat. Carl got really sick the first time he came here and his digestive system hasn't been the same yet. Carl and Leslie went to take a nap and I unpacked and made my room my home. My room has a mattress on the floor with a bug net around it and a bathroom. It's very basic and simple. It's so awesome because I prayed that God would simplify my life, draw me so far out of my box, and show me how I can't do anything without Him. I know God is definitely going to teach me that this year. After I unpacked I went and helped the girls make lunch. Lunch was amazing!! I love the food!! The children love to serve us. They brought me to the table and it was already set for me, and then they took my plate away as soon as I finished. They are prime examples of what it means to serve. I had the opportunity to teach the girls some English while we made lunch. Today is just a day of settling in and getting used to the time change, which, I'm so happy to say, I'm already used to. It's been drizzling all day today, but the weather is beautiful! I have the best view ever from the orphanage. I can definitely sense God strongly here, and the nature surrounding me draws me so close to Him. The children are so happy and I'm so excited to teach them and grow with them. I found out from Mae today that I will be going into the school in the village about 3 days a week and teaching English to the children there. Be praying for that because it is not a Christian school and the children don't hear about God. I pray God will just use me in the school to reach the children there. God is doing a mighty work in the Karen people and I'm excited to be part of it and keep you updated on it! I'm so excited to walk through this journey day by day and experience by experience.


-Pictures will come soon (I can't seem to get them to upload, but once I figure it out I'll put them up :))