สุขสันต์วันคริสตร์มาส (souksaan wan Christmas)

That's what you say in Thailand when you want to say Merry Christmas!! That was being said a lot at our Christmas celebration on December 10th.

A lot of planning went into the Christmas celebration. We spent all of November practicing for our program. Me and Terra made a couple day trips into town to buy the Christmas presents for all 130 of our children. We had amazing donators who wanted to make sure our children's Christmas was very special, so me and Terra were able to buy one thing off of our children's Christmas lists. We were able to buy each child a jacket (if they put jacket on their list, some put school shoes, and some put sweatpants) a beanie, gloves, school socks, underwear, and two little toys each.

Two days before our Christmas celebration me and Terra locked ourselves in my room and began wrapping presents. We were in there all day wrapping. We didn't even stop to eat lunch :) Noah, Boon Choi, and Teep would pop in and out and help us wrap when they had time. My room was a disaster. Full of gifts, wrapping paper, trash, and bags. I guess I didn't realize how much went into wrapping 130 packages. It was a blast!! I had so much fun wrapping it all because I knew how special it was going to be for our children!

The night before our celebration me and the kids were up decorating our worship hall. We had so much fun putting up our signs, streamers, decorating our Christmas tree, and cleaning for our Christmas celebration.

I finally got into my room and was ready for bed. I could hardly sleep because I was so excited to see our children's faces as they opened up their Christmas presents.

We told the children we were going to have our Christmas celebration at 6:00 a.m. They were all up way before then, but we kept them waiting in anticipation. As they waited, their eyes lit up as we began to bring the Christmas presents out and put them under our Christmas tree on the stage. There were so many Christmas presents. It looked awesome!!

Me, Terra, and all the staff were ready to start our celebration with our Christmas hats on. Me and Terra bought Christmas hats with lights on them. We all looked so cute!!
Our morning started with worship and singing Christmas Carols. Then Pastor preached about the meaning of Christmas. Then it was time to open up the Christmas presents. We let the staff open their gifts first and we had everyone watch them. It was funny! Then we gave the gifts to our children. We called each of their names, because each package was labeled with their name, making it more their gift. We made the children wait to open their gifts until everyone had their gift, then we counted to 3 and the room went crazy!!

Everyone was smiling and they were all giddy as they opened up their gifts. The boys laughed and laughed and were so embarrassed when they saw that we gave them underwear. It was so cute!! When they finished opening up their gifts and playing with them, it was time for cookies and hot chocolate. We bought cookies and hot chocolate because we thought it would make it feel even more like Christmas. On the cold morning we all sat around and drank our hot chocolate and munched on our cookies.

After lunch our sports day started. We had been playing games (ping-pong, volleyball, soccer, etc.) this whole week leading up to today. Today we had our finals. The kids had a blast playing all the games. While the children played the sports, the teachers from the Huai Bong school and some of the students came and decorated Agape. They made it beautiful. One of the teachers is also a florist so she decorated with flowers, they put up lights and just made it awesome! I just stood there and watched as everyone helped me to make Christmas amazing for the kids and I had to hold back tears. I was just overwhelmed by their love. As a thank you for the teachers, I wrapped up Christmas presents for them. I gave each of them a Thai Bible and another little gift. The next day at school, Krusookit came up to me, Bible in hand, and told me "Thank you so much for my Bible. I love it. I love Jesus!" He had read parts of the Bible and the Lord really just grabbed his heart. This man and his family are Buddhist, but the Lord can do amazing things!! It's so awesome seeing the Lord working and using me to help!!

The children played the games up until dinner time. For dinner they ate really good food. We had enough funds left over to buy the children delicious food for Christmas. They had 3 items of food to choose from (they normally have one). They were all very happy. After dinner, they all had to rush to the showers and get ready for our performance that was happening at 7:00.

We opened up our celebration with fireworks. One of the teachers brought fireworks In our program we started with worship and a sermon then we had the little girls and big girls do a dance, they sang Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls, and some Thai songs, we had a drama, me and Terra sang a duet-Hark the Herald Angels Sing (it probably did not sound like Angels singing, I'm sure :)), and then we had a Candlelight service with the children singing Silent Night and we finished with Joy to the World. The children all did a wonderful job!! It was beautiful hearing them all sing Silent Night, with the lights out, and the room lit with candles. It really felt like Christmas (even though it was only December 10th :))

I hope your Christmas is just as amazing as mine and just as blessed!

สุขสันต์วันคริสตร์มาส

***I've uploaded some more pictures, so check them out if you get a chance.

Happy 80th Birthday!

Thailand's King celebrated his 80th birthday on December 5th. This King is loved by his people, so all around Thailand on December 5th and 6th the King was honored and celebrated. Our children cleaned their rooms, made their beds, cleaned around Agape, and even cleaned the restrooms extra well to honor the King. They set up his picture and flowers in our worship hall. We had a little celebration in honor of the King's birthday. A group with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) came and celebrated with us. There were about 15 people in the group. It was really fun being able to hang out with more foreigners. Sometimes I think if I don't talk to foreigners every once in a while I'm going to forget how to speak proper English. When I'm not talking to foreigners, I sound like a cave man :) After we celebrated the King's birthday me and Terra had to go into town to buy all the children's Christmas presents. We had so much fun making our way through Mae Sot by ourselves and bartering with the people as we bought things for 130 children. When we were on our way back home, after we spent the entire day shopping, we wanted to make a quick stop at 7-eleven. We saw a 7-eleven and decided to drive to it. We ended up going the wrong way down a one-way road. It was so funny. We finally got going the right way and parked our car. When we got out, of course, there were 2 police men standing on the corner. Right when I stepped out of the car I heard them say "Ohhhh Farang". They just laughed at us. It's funny how we can just get away with that because we are farang :)

Terra and I were asked by the Huai Bong School to be part of a parade in the Huai Bong village. The parade was in celbration of the King's birthday. We had the parade on December 6th. That morning we woke up at 3:30 in the morning because they were picking us up at 4:00. We had to go get our hair down and our make up. While we all got ready at the salon, Krudam told me that yesterday at the celebration at Agape one of the YWAM people prayed for her. She said today her heart felt so good. She felt like all her burdens were gone. She told me she wants to be Christian like me and take care of the Agape children. PRAISE THE LORD!! I told her she can be Christian and we can give all our burdens and worries to Jesus. It was awesome!

Anyways, We arrived at the salon and the first thing we had to do was put this little tube top shirt on.

I figured it was so the face make up wouldn't get on my own clothes. But, no, they do the strangest thing here. In Thailand everyone likes to be white, they think it's beautiful. So they took this white creamy make up and put it all over my arms, chest and back. They kept saying how pretty it looked and I thought I looked like a dead zombie. I didn't like it one bit.

Once they completed my zombie look it was on to my face make up. This wasn't any better. They piled the make up on, but at least my face was now the same color as the rest of my deadly looking skin, so it wasn't so bad. I felt like I was about to go compete in a pageant. Once my make up was done, it was on to hair. I was the leader of the parade, with marching baton and all, so I had a big fluffy hair peice put in my hair. It looked really funny.

Once we were all done with our make-up, hair, and dresses, it was time to go march in the parade. Me and Terra were the only farang in the whole parade.

As we walked we had to stop so many times for people to take pictures of us. I felt like a celebrity. It was a blast!! I practiced marching a couple days before, so I had it down. I had so much fun twisting and turning my baton, and I even threw it up in the air a couple times, watched it spin, and caught it. I'm a professional now, so if anyone is in need of a leader for a parade, I'm your girl :)

After we finished the parade, we all had to march in front of the school and government leaders. As we marched I had to salute them. It was funny watching how excited everyone was to see us farang in the parade :) Anyways, it was so much fun and our Agape kids who were in the parade also did a great job too!!

I'M GETTING MARRIED!

That's what Teep and Terra said at their engagement ceremony that we had on December 1st. It was a beautiful celebration! Many people showed up that don't even really know Terra or Teep, but I think it was because they wanted to see with their own eyes the farang who was getting engaged to a Karen person :) The girls spent all morning decorating and preparing for the ceremony. Teep's father came from Chiang Mai to celebrate with them. It's funny how they do a whole big ceremony for an engagement but it was really pretty. Terra, and all of us girls, were dressed in our Karen dresses and Teep, and all the boys, were dressed in their Karen shirts.

(Me, the happy couple, and all the kids)
I was the official photographer of the engagement ceremony. I'm getting pretty good ;)During the ceremony Pastor Winai talked about what being engaged means, and then both Teep and Terra exchanged rings. Then Pastor Watchina, the Pastor from Hope Church in Mae Sot, came and preached a message. After the ceremony, we had an awesome meal. It really was beautiful. The funny thing is though, Teep and Terra spent like a whole day looking for rings, and the best ones they could find looked like the ones you get from Peter Piper Pizza with like 15 tickets. It was really funny. But oh well, it's not the ring that matters, it's the heart :)

(Me and the newly engaged couple)

Sweet December

I can't believe December is already here. With December comes my fifth month of being here. It's crazy for me to think I've been here for that long. It seems like only yesterday I left. With December has come a new experience for me. The Christians in Thailand celebrate the coming of December. Just like we celebrate New Years Eve, they celebrate December's Eve.

After a full day of teaching at the Mae Ramat Witthyakom school (that's the high school), I came home with just enough time to put on some warm clothes and jump in the truck to make the 1 hour drive to the village we were going to be celebrating at. My day at school was a fun filled day. Malee's (one of the girls at Agape) teacher asked me if I would edit and read her Electronic English books. She wanted to record my voice and use it when she teaches her children from her E-book. I told her of course. My morning at the school was spent doing just that. It was pretty funny. She kept telling me I had a beautiful voice (I think the only reason why she thought it was beautiful is becaus along with my voice comes an American accent ;)). It was a pretty official ordeal. After I finished the book I had to critique her book, and then sign the page I critiqued it on and write my qualifications (B.A. in education). She had to send all the paperwork into the Head of education.

Anyways, after we finished with the book, I went to teach her class. For class today, the students were cooking Thai food. They had to prepare the food and write all the ingredients and step-by-step cooking instructions in English. My laborious (;)) job was to sit at the table as the children brought me their food that they cooked. I had to ask their group leaders name, the name of the food and they had to tell me how they made it. Then I had the privelige of tasting each and every one of the dishes they prepared. There were 10 groups, so let's just say I had 10 lunches that day ;)

After my delicous lunch(es) I went into another teachers English class because she wanted me to teach her class. All the students asked me to sing a song, so I told them they had to sing me a song and then I would sing them a song. They sang the Thai national anthem and I sang my National Anthem. It was pretty intimidating singing in front of 35 high school students, but I made my way through the whole song :) After this lesson, I just got to play some scrabble with a couple of the girls. It was a lot of fun! As the day came to an end, I got back in the truck and made my rounds to pick up all the children from school. I had to go to 3 different schools to pick up all the children, but I was greeted at one of the schools with a lovely cake that Bybooa made for me, so it wasn't so bad. We hurried home so we could get back in time to go to the Sweet December celebration.
I had my scarf, beanie, long johns, sweat pants, gloves, and my beautiful afghan my grandma made for me on as I rode in the back of the truck with all the kids. It was freezing and the cold wind was making it even worse. But the cold weather didn't seem to bother any of us as we sang songs the whole time we drove (English and Thai- the kids love to sing the English songs). We got to the celebration and Somoo and Eja had to hurry up and run close to the stage. They were both singing in the singing competition. Eja was playing the guitar and singing and Somoo was playing the drums (well it's actually just a box seat thing that you hit with your hands and it sounds like drums :)). I walked around with Kawee and saw the village and some of our Agape children's bamboo huts in the village. It was so dark as we walked to some of the homes. Kawee held my arm and directed me. I really just had to trust her because I really couldn't see a thing. For all I knew my next step could be off a cliff. We made it to the house safely and back to the celebration just in time for Eja and Somoo's performance. They did such a good job! I was so proud of them. As they stood on stage I gave them roses and put little necklaces around their necks. It was so much fun!! They won first place!!

Me, Terra and our children went on stage and sang Jingle Bells. Me and Terra had the microphones so I'm sure it wasn't as pretty as it could have been ;) There were a couple more performances, including dramas, dances, and the grand finale performance was a Karen Christian rock band. It was really funny because when they first came out they started singing and it was like heavy metal. Heads banging, screaming and everything. Me and Terra were like "what the heck?!". We totally weren't expecting that at all. Then they finished their song and it was all a joke. They don't really play like that. They ended up being really good actually. Anyways, the night ended with fireworks and everybody welcomed in Sweet December.

Poo-Ping

I hurried up and ran outside my room as I heard May's voice. I knew she was getting ready to leave. I'm not very good at getting up early, so I had to hurry up and get ready and run outside and catch her before she took off. This was the last time I would see her with a baby in her belly. The next time I would see her that baby would be in my arms. So I took one last picture with pregnant May, told her I loved her and watched the future parents of a baby girl drive off to the hospital.

May had her C-section planned the next day (December 4th). She was nervous, but she told me she couldn't wait until that baby was out of her.

Noah came home on December 4th and told us that he had a healthy baby girl and they named her Tanpraporn. What a beautiful name! Her nickname is pretty funny though. Her nickname is Poo-Ping. That's right. In Thai it means the ground where the queen would plant her flowers. In English, well let's just say we for sure wouldn't name our kids that :) Me and Terra jumped in the truck and went to welcome our new Agape baby into the world. She was gorgeous. I didn't want to put her down.

She was so tiny and looked just like a little Poopah :)

So, we have welcomed our new little Poo-Ping into the world. May and Noah said that if she goes to America, she's just going to have to tell people her name is Ping :)