Internet is 3 Bot per minute

So my time and day schedule is messed up once again because we left from Chiang Mai on a 22 hour bus ride, and still then jumped in a truck for a 3 hour ride so that we could meet up with members from the church in Phuket.

I think the 50th Asian Missions Forum was a great experience. We soaked up as much wisdom as we could from all the experienced missionaries, and Christians from all over Asia. I loved the new perspective, because up till now we’ve spent the majority of the trip teaching English, in small towns with very few foreigners, and working with one church at a time. The forum was an interesting change of pace because we’re still on a mission trip, but now the people we are trying to serve already have grown in Christ, know the story, and matured probably more than we have. I feel like the team can apply that feeling at home, and we all learned a little how to look for ways to serve and encourage even when we’re in a comfortable environment. I feel like we got a little taste of heaven, I picture heaven a lot like the week turned out, everyone coming together with the same purpose, looking to serve and encourage each other, even when all of our needs were taken care of already.  I hope each of the team members take this spirit back to America with us

– Cameron

Tourist Day

Today, our greatest elephant dreams came true.  We had a day filled with tourist activities in Chiang Mai.  We went to the Maesa Elephant Village in the morning and saw a sweet show with lots of cool things like elephants playing soccer, elephants throwing darts at balloons ( I got to go head to head with an elephant at darts),  and the coolest thing of all, elephants painting.  We also rode elephants for 30 minutes!  After that, we went to the umbrella factory where artists painted some of our stuff with vibrant colorful designs.  Some of the items painted were bibles, phones, wallets, and backpacks.  After that, we ate possibly the best tasting meal yet in Thailand at a place that Kelly frequented as he grew up in Chiang Mai.  Today was a welcome break from the toils of mission work, but the team is eager to get back on the horse (elephant) tomorrow and help out at the Asian Mission Forum.  Keep us is your prayers.

Ben

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AMF

This next weekend is the Asian Missions Forum. I am so excited because missionaries from all over Asia are congregating, so hopefully the Aggie team can form some great relationships, creating and finding connections from all over the world. I know we will also witness some great speaking and hopefully we can get a feel for how we should be missional people, not only on this short term mission trip but in our every day lives.

Yes we had a changing of the guard, as we were sad to see Matt go, but now we are excited to see what Nishadi can do.

I’ll leave the pictures up to other people for now, as I hope they will post media and tell all their stories from the mountain village. It really was a unique experience as we stayed 2 nights with no internet, 2 hours away from the big city, teaching English at the local school and mingling with the Christian community there.

My favorite moment in the village was when a huge elephant walked right by the school in the middle of the school day, and all the kids outside and in the classrooms could see it. Everyone ran to the fence to get a good look, hundreds of little kids just trying to get as close as they could. I thought there might be another riot scene, and I’m just glad no one got trampled. It all happened too fast for anyone to get a picture, but it was the closest we’ve been to an elephant so far (hopefully that changes this weekend)

Thanks Matt for your hard work, it won’t be easy to adjust to not having your personality here!

– Cameron

Every minute spent is a minute remembered

Hello Everyone,

The group is now staying up in a small mountain village outside of Chiang Mai called Baw Gaow.  Nishadi has made it in to Thailand and has been reacquainted with the group.  We were really happy to see her.   Nashadi brings some new spice to the group that we don’t have without her.  She also brought with her a whole box of cheez-its and some bananas and the group was really happy about that.  We ate the whole box yesterday. Hahaha. Delicious!

This is one of the best group of people who I have had the pleasure of being close to.  We have spent every waking moment together for the past three weeks and have become like brothers and sisters.  I love them all for their spirit and fire.  We all wanted to get out to the places where foreigners were not swarming and we could live within the community.  Forget the city life, this group wanted to really be intimate with the people, get to know everything about them and how they cook, sleep, talk to each other in their homes.  We all feel like we have a calling to really reach out to the students and the people and let them know that there are Christians that care about them enough to leave their life style and immerse themselves in the culture.  It is awesome what the Christians in Chiang Mai and Bangkok are doing with the city and really trying to bring the people there to Christ but we felt more comfortable in a place like Kra Nuan or Baw Gaow than in any other place we stayed.  Thank you to all the people who have helped us thus far with homes, food, love, kindness, friendship, English tips, Thai lessons, and overall a great time.  Teaching English is amazing and I hope that I can do it again sometime int he future.

The group will be coming back on Thursday evening and then the Asian Missions Forum is starting and I will be missing everyone. I fly back to the USA tonight.  Thank you to my donors for everything, you made this trip possible and I know that God has done some amazing things through this group.

Thanks to all,

Matt

Mountain Village

So Friday we taught a full school day of English at a school in the mountain village, maybe 3 hours away from the city. It started off with some games and the Aggies entertaining with a couple of skits.  Then we were paired up and in charge of stations so that 140 kids rotated between them. I’m not gonna lie, the kids hands down loved my station the most. Literally, hands down, it would have been difficult to make their friendship bracelets if their hands were up. Ben and Matt of course were exhausted after teaching all about anteaters, polar bears, goats, and slacklining. All of the kids now know all about clothing in English thanks to Abbie and Jenica’s station. And if you ever give a direct command to a Thai person and they understand, it will probably, statistically speaking, be thanks to Jared and his “Jared Says” station.

Ben and I were also nearly trampled by a mob of 100 kids, each child thinking only of the candy we were holding in our hands. They climbed on Ben, with maybe 10 latching onto his legs, knocking him over into a bush. Great Success!

They loved us so much, now the plan is for the Aggies to head back and spend two nights in the village to teach some more next week! I hope God will really encourage the Christians in the village, because I know they are such a minority there and hopefully we can bring some energy and a larger sense of community to these resourceful people, since as of right now they will probably be housing us. Thank God we can participate in the work of the spiritual giants that have come before us and that take care of us now. We are so lucky to get the chance to work with the great Christians in Chang Mai, thank you for helping us get here!

– Cameron

* Edit – Jared calculated and we think today was the halfway point of our trip. It is a little sad because it brings a little feeling of coming close to the end, but also feels strange because we’re not sure how so much seems to have fit into only half the trip.

Explosion of Activity

So right now the easiest way to put pictures up I think is Facebook, so particularly friend Jared Wissel. <— Click there for his pics while we were in Kranuan

Anyways, I’m about to go to sleep for our 2nd night in Chang Mai. We hit the ground running yesterday, as Ben and I arrived in our overnight bus at 8 AM, and the rest arrived a little earlier in their overnight train. Immediately we joined up with Let’s Start Talking members and interns at the Chiang Mai Christian Zone for some equipping time to get ready for a big English Camp for a tribe out in the mountains. It’s gonna be most of the day Friday, and this big conglomerate group is in charge of activities and lessons for maybe 100 kids for the day.

There will be 8 stations for them to rotate between, each with a subeject to teach such as Math, Body Parts, Colors, etc. I am particularly looking forward to Ben and Matt’s station acting out animals. My station is arts and crafts teaching everyone how to make friendship bracelets.

Well thanks again so much for following us and supporting us. I’m about to go to sleep cause I only got 5 hours till we leave for this camp. The only reason I’m up is cause I tried some mentos in some Coke Zero to see if that worked, and had to spend probably an hour cleaning up the explosion.

– Cameron

One Night in Bangkok

As I write this post, we are situated in Bangkok.  Yesterday, we said goodbye to our new friends from Kranuan.  It was one of the hardest things I have ever done to leave those people.   They lined up and we walked past each one individually on the way to the van.  After hopping in the van and wiping our eyes, we headed out on a 6 hour trip to Bangkok that showcased some of the best driving Thailand has to offer.  Our driver was so good, we joked that he could be a race car driver.  When we arrived in Bangkok, we went to see Harry Potter 7 part 2.  Thai movie theaters are great.  Kelly and Sarah are here now and communication is getting easier because of their presence and because we are all learning some thai!  Anyways, we will be leaving for Chaing Mai soon. Some will take a bus and most will take a train.  Expect us to check in once we arrive safely.

– Ben

I could happily live in Kranuan

Finally my turn to write! (Hi guys! Its Abbie.)

Several exciting things have happened since the last time that we blogged!

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We continued to teach English at the school for the next several days, and the plans continued to change. Thankfully, we have a fantastic group that stays flexible and positive and always seeks to glorify God, no matter the circumstances! (In your prayers, please thank the Lord for this, and pray that it remains this way throughout our trip.)  Thursday was our last day at the school, and after we had finished teaching they had a huge luncheon and performance for us. There was so much food that we nearly overflowed 2 large tables! Some of the male Thai students played instuments while some of the girls showed off traditional Thai dances. It was a wonderful show! After the dancing, the principal informed our Aggie guys that they would be singing a song. It took only a moment of preparation before Matt, Cameron, and Ben were on the stage singing Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours.” The students went crazy, and our boys did a great job!
The reason it had been so easy for the boys to jump up on stage and into the spotlight is because they had already been doing it all week. Ben, Cameron, Matt, and Jared have, as of late, been spending their afternoons practicing for the church’s “concert.” Wednesday night the church members all drove a few minutes out of town to a smaller village where they used their musical gifts to evangalize. The Aggie boys did several delightful numbers, and then some of the Thai Christians played and sang a few songs. Everone had a fantastic time, and we were able to reach out to several people in the village.

Last night we had a sleep over at our rent house with a bunch of kids from the church. We treated the kids to pizza before heading back to the house, and they were thrilled! Oreos, dancing, singing, and Uno filled the evening and carried well into the night. Everyone had a fantastic time!

This morning we all woke up and headed out to a farm to do some work. We weren’t there more than an hour or two, but I could have happily stayed all day. We slogged through the mud to help pull up and replant rice. Everyone laughed, joked, and had a great time.

We’re about to head to the church now to spend some more time teaching English to the Christians. We are also all very excited to see Kelley and Sara tomorrow!

I believe that I speak for the group when I tell you that I miss my friends and family and cannot wait to share pictures and stories of adventure, triumph, and precious memories, but I am reluctant to leave.

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers!

My Favorite Video

Hey guys, it’s Cameron again

I don’t think we can post video on this blog (you need to pay I think) but you have to check out this link to my favorite video. Jared and I had a team of our students playing games against Abbie and Ben’s team. We won the games, so obviously that meant we get to embarrass ourselves, and do the Japanese Crab Dance!

“Change of Plans!”

Hey guys, this is Cameron

This has become one of our favorite phrases here in Thailand: “Change of plans!” We knew coming in that the church here in Kranuan loves for the Aggies to come, so there would be lots to do, but the specifics of what will happen are tough to work out beforehand. (Sometimes even after a conversation or something happens it is tough to work out what just happened  : ) This was pretty evident to me yesterday.

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We were excited because it was our first day teaching English at this school some of the Thai Christian kids go to, Kranuan Community School, but the school wasn’t sure what time they wanted us. At 7:45 I get a call from our contact saying “You ready? Pick up at 8:50!” I said ok, taking my time to get ready.  As I’m about to step in the shower I hear some Thai voices outside talking to Jared. “You ready? We go!” I heard the wrong time, it was supposed to be 7:50, so me Jared and Abbie get ready in like 10 minutes and go to the school.

When we get to the school, one of the first things we do is get up on a stage in front of maybe a few hundred kids (I guess I’m bad at guestimating because Abbie, Jared and our Thai helpers are saying more than 1000 kids) and we are supposed to say: “Your name, where you from, and atittude!” So I say “My name is Cameron. I am from Texas in America. I am so HAPPY!”

When they take everyone to their rooms, the Aggies learn that we each are in charge of our own class for 1 hour. This was interesting because so far we have always taught in groups of Aggies. I’m so glad Jared and Abbie were so great. I played a simple version of Simon says, taught how to introduce themselves and each other. As it was getting near the end of the hour, I was running out of my material, so I was trying to stretch it out. Then the principal came in and says: “Are you tired? Everyone likes you teaching. Change of plans! You have another hour!” So we all started some new lessons and taught another hour (: It was awesome, and the students were sad to see us leave.  I know both the Aggies and the students are excited about the next few days at the school.

Maybe enjoy some Dr. Pepper for me, I will enjoy some noodles and some rice dishes for you! Also, hope you enjoyed the slideshow, don’t be shy leave some comments

– Cameron