Thursday, July 24, 2008

It's true...The Grand Palace is pretty sweet!

More pictures...this time of our Grand Palace extravaganza!
Just me, Sarah Jane, and Kirstin. Hanging out, taking the boat, riding in TukTuk's, and doing some sight seeing...great day. Long but really great!

Grand Palace...from the outside

Sarah Jane...I miss her already!

Shhhh...I'm not supposed to have this picture.

Amazing...


Yeah for traveling buddies!

Demon or Monkey? I can't tell...it's one or the other though

I don't know...he just looked really cool.

details, details...

So many details...

Yeah...still can't tell. I think it's a monkey...or maybe a demon.

Us as again.

gate keepers...

and again...

All 3...notice that the young one doesn't have bags under eyes...

guard...not aloud to talk or smile or whatnot.

There was some kind of monk worship service going on in there while we were there and a few Thai girls took pictures with us...just because we were white.

The reclining Buddha...

Huge! Like Building size!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

It's true...time for pictures from retreat!

So here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure...
These are just a few of my favorites (pictures and people)...

The backyard of our hotel

Kirstin was kind of the cat lady at retreat...
there were a whole bunch of cats (at least 10) I think she held every single one...


Me and Sarah Jane on the beach in Rayong


Me and Kirstin...on the same beach in Rayong

Me and Nat...she's amazingly funny

Beach Volleyball...we played nation vs. nation.
This game was supposed to be between the Americans and Australians...
except, there is was only 1 Australian on the Australian team (look at Sarah Jane go)...
the rest were Thai's.

Me and Sarah Jane before Dinner

Just one of the FEASTS that was prepared for us this weekend...
none of which I actually ate...

Night fall on the beach in Thailand...AMAZING!!!

Me and Kirstin after Dinner just hanging out...

Me and Cindy...doing more of the same...

Oh!!!! That's all...she's one of my favorite people...

Last day of camp...Me and P'Wun (oh yeah, and Evan...being ridiculous in the background)
Wow, you know next to the foreigners I look tan but next to a Thai person, I'm a totally whitey!

Kirstin was the cat lady and the ice cream lady...

Rayong, Thailand

Just two random kids playing on the beach...They were pretty cute.

Me and P'Bow.
This was when we had just got to the turtle place and she had just woken up...

I love Thai writing...So pretty.

I'm in the Lord's army...Yes sir!

Little baby sea turtle.
Actually this one is like 1 months old

Mandy and Trish from the Australian team.

View of the bay from the turtle place.
Our hotel was to the left and over the ocean from that island.

More of pretty Thailand

I don't know...they wanted me to get in the turtle so I did.

Little bitty baby turtles...

I love Thailand.

Me and my Sarah Jane

Me and P'Nave

We both hardly fit on that swing...
hence me looking quite awkward and uncomfortable.

and finally...more of beautiful Thailand!

So those were a few of my favorites from Our Home Chapel Retreat. The Lord really blessed us all during that time and I am so thankful that I got to come and be apart of what is going on here again and that I got to be with my Thai family and make new friends from Australia and Hawaii.

It's true...retreat was pretty fantastic!

You know, the Lord is just so good. It is kind of hard to express how much He does and how perfectly He plans things. So we came over here, expecting to teach English at an English camp. The Lord however, had other things in mind. As I said earlier, only 8 people signed up and we needed 100 in order to break even. So clearly, that was just not enough...

So, Pastor Dton decided that we should do a staff/missionary retreat in it's place, in order to take a break and just hang out. So...this blog is going to be my attempt at telling you about camp with out it being like 27 pages long...we'll see how I actually do.

Let's start with me being scared out of my mind...how about that??? I was told the morning we were leaving for retreat that on the last day, I was going to have to talk about evangelizing to youth for an hour. What the heck? Seriously? I immediately started to FREAK OUT. For starters, I don't speak Thai and I totally started to disqualify myself. I was thinking what do I know about evangelism...

That was how my trip started. I scooped myself into the van and tried my very hardest not to burst into tears. So things were going through my mind and on top of it all, at that moment, I just really wanted to talk to my dad. I knew that he would have had something to say to calm me down and make me feel more confident. Just like he always did with teaching stuff. I just started to silently vent about the situation to the Lord, asking Him for peace and wisdom and words...cause I didn't have any ideas. The point of the workshop was for people to talk about how to minister to different groups of people to the Thai staff that is in charge of each ministry, which for me, made it even more stressful. I don't know why. It probably had a lot more to do with other stuff then with what was actually going on, but anyways...as I was talking it over with the Lord, I just felt such a peace and He slowly started to speak different things to me, different ideas and points that I could share. I am so thankful that I serve a God who is amazingly faithful and constant, always near.

After that, I felt so much better and was able to relax a little bit more. Me and the people in my van had some great prayer time for a few different things. We prayed for my sister to get her stolen stuff back and for my back (which, by the way, I have somehow done something to...not good...very painful) and also for safe travel. Then we headed out and...watched KUNG FU PANDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yep, that's right, I totally bought a copy of Kung Fu Panda for 80B ($2.50).

When we got to the hotel, we dropped off our stuff and headed for the beach. It was soooo beautiful. I took so many pictures (SIDENOTE: the next post will be pictures from retreat). We started the day off with some worship and an opening message from Pastor Kelly. He talked to us about Spiritual Disciplines and about solitude and how we just need to spend time ALONE with the Lord. Away from people and distraction and just listen to what He has to say to us. He talked about other disciplines as well, like fasting and tithing. It was a very good message...a little long but very good. I kept scanning the place and I think just about everyone did the "falling asleep head nod" at least once.

Our night worship service was just amazing. The Lord so gently whispered that He was going to take care of me and that I didn't have to worry. The presence of the Lord is just so overwhelming. It's so hard to keep yourself together when the Lord grabs a hold of you and just wraps you up in His arms...It's just the best place to be. After day 1 festivities ended, some of us headed to the beach. Like I said, the Lord plans things really amazingly. It ended up being me, Sarah Jane, Cindy, and Evan just talking for a couple hours. We were able to share our thoughts and struggles and positives and everything else. I was totally encouraged by worship and everything else that I was able to be honest about the ups and downs of the last 3 months. After we were all done talking we all prayed with each other and for each other. It was just a really nice time of fellowship and relationship and I am just really thankful for the time.

Friday, we started with worship and a devotion from one of the Australian missionaries, Mandy. She talked about worship and being in the presence of the Lord and expressing yourself through different ways, so when she was done, we spent a few more minutes in worship. Just singing a new song to the Lord. Inviting Him to walk with us and thanking Him for how great He is and just whatever the Spirit put on our hearts. I think it was stretching for some but very positive. After breakfast, it was time for a little practical application. We spent an hour in solitude with the Lord.

I just walked the beach for an hour and talked to the Lord. I cried, a lot, worshiped Him and listened to whatever He had to speak to me. It was an awesome time to just be and receive. I was slightly encouraged and really drained after that hour though. I was just kind of tired but pushed through because I was promised that the Lord would take care of me and everything that I had to do. One of the things they had to visiting missionaries do is an English teaching for the Thai staff. Me and Kirstin were in charge of Grammar...yeah...I don't really know anything about grammar. So, I wasn't really looking forward to having to teach it for 90 mins but I was trying to be positive. We ended up running late and only having 30 mins of time with the staff. We also ended up only have 4 people in our group. It was really low key and not stressful at all. We just had them ask questions, we went over complete sentences, and did some mad libs. It was actually really nice.

After that we did some other stuff, ate dinner, and had service, which was all really good. The hotel cooked all our meals and they were like for real Thai meals...aka: I didn't eat anything. Literally. So Friday night, I ate a granola bar and a fruit snack and headed off to take a shower and go to bed. After I ate, I started to feel really sick, I figured a shower would help so I kind of just ignored it a little. When I got back to the room, my stomach started to cramp up and well the end result of that was just not cool at all...then as soon as the not coolness ended, I started throwing up...also not cool at all. After all of that I felt like junk so I took a freezing cold shower (our hotel didn't have any hot water) and passed out.

Sorry, I know I said I was going to try to make this not super long, but I just can't help myself. I'm almost done I promise. Saturday went really good. The Lord put mine and Kirstin's thoughts together quite nicely in our talk with the youth leaders. They asked questions, we gave ideas, and told them a lot about how we do things at the church. Kirstin talked about High School group and what she likes about it and what works for her and what doesn't. I think it helped them a lot to be able to hear from someone still in the age group.

On the way home we stopped at the Turtle Conservatory and Museum. Have a mentioned lately that I love turtles? They we so cute. They had little babies up to like 9 months old so you could see the differences in their growth at different ages. Then we walked down to where you could actually touch the turtles in a big tank. I didn't reach my hand in their though because the water looked really dirty...the conservatory was right up against the water's edge so we took a bunch of pictures and just enjoyed the view. After that we headed for Bangkok, watching I Love Lucy the whole way...I was in heaven! We watched some of my favorite episodes including, Lucy does a TV commercial, Ricky things he's getting bald, and Lucy's Schedule. Sooooo good!!!!!!

When we got home, I went to the bathroom (again...), unpacked, did a load of laundry, finished putting pictures on here and then headed for the movies. So, that was my weekend in a very large nutshell. This is what I will leave you with...Retreat was fantastic and really refreshing and Batman was amazing! Check out some pictures of retreat too. Hopefully I will get them added tonight, if not, tomorrow. Love you all!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

It's true...pictures, pictures, and more!

Hey all! I kind of have a lot to cover...it's been a few days and we've done a few things. So here is kind of the rundown of what I have been up to for the past little while. We went shopping in China Town, did more construction, I got really sick, saw Hellboy 2, played Uno at the Ram University and met some new people, went shopping at the Night Bizarre (and watched a lady boy sing Kelly Clarkson...), went to the floating market and rode an elephant.
It's been a busy few days for sure!

So first off...Friday, we headed to China Town, to see some sights and do some shopping. Everywhere we have been shopping has just been too overwhelming. There is just entirely too much stuff, I don't know what to do with it all and I have no idea...my brain is hurting after the all the shopping we've been doing the last few days. So, what I am going to do tomorrow? Oh yeah, that's right...SHOPPING!!!

We have also been doing more work on the new building. It's very exciting to be involved in that process, even if it is just in a small way. I was here before they even started to break ground and I got to see the vision and the goal when it was only in the planning phase and now to be a part of the actually progress has been really great. We haven't been doing anything extreme or even anything that is the immediately seen but still. The fact that we have been able to help them by doing things that just simply take a lot of time to do is cool.

Oh so here's the deal with me getting sick...I'm not quite sure how it happened or what happened exactly, all I know is that I spent the night with a fever, cold sweat, and everything expelling itself from my body...gross and not cool at all! We went to pizza company after working on the building I ate half of piece of pepperoni pizza (w/no sauce) and started to feel really sick. I threw up in the bathroom at the mall, went home, threw up everything I had eaten all day (which wasn't much) and then crawled into bed feeling like junk. I woke up the next morning feeling LOADS better...not great but WAY better, so praise God for that! I am still having stomach issues so if you could all keep that in prayer that would be awesome!

Yesterday, we went with the team from Hawaii to Ram University. The goal was to build relationship, invite people to church, and just hang out. So we brought Uno with us and just hung out with students. We talked and a couple tried to play the "guess what nationality I am" game...they totally thought that I was European. Funny.

Last night we went to the night bizarre. More of the same stuff...I really need to make a list or something of things I would like to buy so I don't seem like a deer in headlights when I actually go shopping...I should definitely do that as soon as I finish this...

and today...we went to the FLOATING MARKET! Yeah. I took so many pictures because really the floating market is one of my favorite places. It's just so awesome and great! It's just such a cool place to relax and enjoy the view.

After we left the floating market we headed for the ELEPHANTS...have I told you all lately that I heart elephants??? I really do. They are just my favorite. This time around we had some trouble though. We had a hard time getting a good price and when we did, we didn't get to do the same stuff we did last time. We kind of had a hard time getting them to let Kirstin ride on the actual elephant but our guy finally let her do it right at the end, so that was sweet!
There was another elephant that was totally dancing...I mean just rockin' out to some techno music. It was sooooo cute. Cindy was trying to dance with him and he totally booted her (forcefully) out of his dance party! Overall, it was a really good of relaxing and hanging out. Just being with friends!

Now for some pictures...I was going to put the pictures with the paragraphs but it was getting a little confusing to keep track of what was going on so I just wrote first and now it's picture time! Here are some pictures from pretty much everything in the last few days and then some...

So...let's start with this! "If it swims...we have it!"
I don't think I really need to say much about that except...AWESOME!!!


Me, Elena, and Cindy


China Town!


Me and Cindy!

This is what we have been doing...making this little concrete molds...apparently they are going to support the floor once it goes in or something like that. Guess which side was done by me...Miss OCD???

There is a rooster living in the building with the construction team.
I guess it's quite friendly too and at some point, I'm almost positive that it will be food...

Some new friends from University...playing Uno

Me and Oh...I really love her!

YEAH!!! ELEPHANTS!!!

Me and Kirstin up onto of our sweet little elephant.


I just love them soooo much and no...I wasn't actually kissing it...that would be gross!
You don't even know how dirty these lovely animals are...

Me, Kirstin and my lovely long lost friend Sarah Jane.
Just floating around the floating market.


Floating Market...one of the greatest places ever.
Perfect for picture taking!

The crew...Chris, Kristen, Sarah Jane, Me, Cindy, and Kirstin.
Lovely!

Me and Sarah Jane.
I do love her so...


Ok so, I am heading to see BATMAN!!!! YES!!!!
I will write about the retreat (which was totally awesome) tomorrow and I'll post some more pictures. I have sooooooo many. It's ridiculous! So I will get on making those available for everybody to check out.