Week 1 and 2 of Outreach

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! I hope you guys are all having a good time with you’re families and such. I’m goanna be honest, I thought I would be a lot more homesick than this, but I’m actually not. It doesn’t really feel like Christmas here, so I don’t really feel like I’m really missing out on anything.  Actually, the people group that live in the village that we’re in (the mongo) celebrate new years on December 24 according to the lunar calendar.

            Their new years rituals are a little different than ours, actually, a LOT different. At the beginning of every year, the people make pledges to the spirits saying: if the spirits give them this or that, then the people will give the spirits a pig or a cow or something, so through Dec. 24-26, the people sacrifice their animals to repay their pledges to the spirits. They do all sorts of spirit rituals, calling demons to the village to help them, and calling their ancestors. At the same time the church spends the night in prayer for God to send out all the demons and spirits so it’s a time of spiritual warfare for the area. It’s weird because back at home, the whole spiritual realm, and calling demons and stuff, sounds so bizarre, but here its part of their every day life. Some of the people are designated to call the spirits and will do rituals until they are completely demon possessed.

            Another interesting little tradition the Mongo people have during these three days is that any single guy can find any single girl that he likes and take her away and then they get married. Does the girl have any say in this? Nope, none at all. If she notices that she’s being followed, she can run away, but if the guy gets her, and is able to get her home, then that’s the end of that, there hitched.

            So anyways, I suppose I should give you an update of what I have been doing for the past two weeks up in the mountains. Getting here was something special that’s for sure. Our vehicle was packed so full of stuff and people that we barely made it up the hill. There were times when we had to get out and push the truck. Plus the roads are full of potholes, and there are places where half the road is gone because of land slides, it was an adventure to say the least.

            We live in a house with five bedrooms, 13 people and one bathroom. Thankfully the shower has hot water because oh my goodness is it ever cold up here, especially at night. We’ve got a little fireplace in the living room, but threes so many holes and open spaces in the walls and stuff that it only helps if you’re sitting right next to it. 

            Most of the work that we have been doing up here so far has been gardening type stuff. We do a lot of weeding, and planting and watering. The people that we’re working for are a missionary couple that has been living here for 18 years. They’re married and have four kids. Their main source of income is their tea. So we’ve been weeding and trimming in the tea fields as well as heating the tealeaves and packaging them as well. We also planted a whole bunch of coffee seedlings. Lots and lots of coffee seedlings. J

            Lets see, what else has been interesting here…. Oh ya, we slaughtered a pig. 7:00 in the morning we were over at the house where we watched the pig get killed and then we watched then burn the hair off and then slice it open and gut it.  They use basically every part of the pig for something.  They made sausage with some of the meat that they ground up and put it into the small intestine as the sausage casing. All the fat is used for oil and lard and then of course there are all the normal cuts of meat. I’m not goanna lie, I was extremely disappointed when our house smelled like delicious bacon, and then I came around the corner only to find it was deep fried large intestines… not really what I was hoping for.

            Now even though the Mong don’t celebrate Christmas, it doesn’t mean that the people on this outreach team don’t. I would say we have successfully Christma-fied the house. J We have a Charlie Brown style tree. Now you see we don’t have much for decorating, so most of our stuff has been crafted out of pop cans some how. Although we do have a little tinsel and some legit ornaments. I even made a little nativity scene out of pop cans. Also, last night, we each hung up a sock by the fireplace and Santa came so we all got something! Haha (It’s possible that there was more than one Santa this year and that I may have been one of them) haha.

            So far everything has been good though. The team has really been getting along and we’re having a lot of fun. It’s weird to think that we’ll only be out here 5 more weeks, then a week back at the base and then DTS is over! Thank you for all your prayers for the team, I can tell you from personal experience that God is hearing them and blessing this outreach.

            I think that’s about it for now, again, I can’t make any guarantees as to when the next time I’ll have internet will be, so this is Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you again. J

Today’s Fun Fact:

When Thai people have kids, they give them Thai names, but as the kids grow up, whatever their nickname is, becomes their name. Which can be cute but some of the names they end up with I'm not so sure I would be thrilled with. Here's some of the names of the people from my base and the meanings of them:

Bow- As in the bow in someones hair

Mai- Silk

Gai- Chicken 

and my personal favourite

Uan- Fat

Outreach Tomorrow/ New Mailing Adress

(If you didn't notice, I also posted a new fun fact to make up for last weeks forgetting)
Sadly, this is potentially the last time I'll be updating you for a long time. Tomorrow we leave on our major outreach, which means I won't be able to see all your lovely faces over Christmas OR New Years, which is rather sad, but February is not that far away, and then I'll be back home.
We'll be on outreach for 7 weeks, and I'm pretty sure we come back January 27 or 28th... I think :). Doi Inthanon sounds like its way out in the boonies, which means limited cell service and we'll see about the Internet. If I get a chance to update the blog, I definitely will, but I can't make any promises as to how often that's gonna be happening.

This week was our very last week of lecture phase, I know I've said this a billion times but its going SO fast! The teaching was about the Two Kingdoms (I realize that kind of sounds like a Lord of the Rings movie, but its not. haha) Anyways, the speaker was from Norway, and he taught about how the world is a Kingdom and its ruled by Satan, and his constitution is selfishness and humanism but we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, where the constitution is love. We can be living in the Kingdom of the World, but we BELONG to the Kingdom of God. I really, really liked the guys teachings, he taught on a lot of things that I so agree with, but he said it in ways that were so clear and to the point.

He talked about how because believers and non-believers come from two different Kingdoms, the laws are different, so what is normal in one kingdom like lying, stealing, homosexuality etc. is against the law in another kingdom. So when we come to situations where we have choices on what to do, we need to base our actions on which kingdom we are from.

Another point he made was how humanism is creeping into our churches, and how its scary because humanism is similar to the real thing. Being a Christian says "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself." But humanism just says "Love your neighbour as yourself." So humanists justify what they do by saying "I'm doing this because I love the other person" but as Christians we need to put our love for God first.

Anyways, things here are getting Christmafied (yep that's a word) We're having a Christmas dinner and celebration thing at the base tonight. I might just be a little bit excited. I am currently listening to Amy Grant's "Home For Christmas", which if you have ever been in my house around Christmas time, you've had the privilege of listening to it on repeat. Gotta love the Amy Grant.

There's a Christmas tree set up in the Geske's house (our base leaders) and we have a mini Christmas tree in the girls house. Not to mention, Melissa's dad sent her a gingerbread house kit in the mail, so we listened to Christmas music while building a gingerbread house, which is now filled with candy canes, AND smelling the wonderful smell of the fir branches and pine cones that smell like cinnamon and cloves, that her dad also sent in the mail. It was a definite Christmas moment.

For our Little party tonight, a bunch of people are performing and there's a little skit planned, and Kathryn and I will be singing... Ya, that's right, I am going to sing in front of a group of people. It's possible that YWAM has pushed me out of my comfort zone a little bit. =P

A couple people have asked me about mailing stuff to me, so here's, a new address for you to send things to if you so desire:

YWAM Chiang Mai
100/2 Moo 9 T.Khii Lek
A. Mae Daeng Chiang Mai
Thailand
50150

I guess that's basically it for now, some prayer requests for you guys:
-Team unity/ safety
-Good communication
-To remember for our team to keep God in everything we do
-Good attitudes/ patience

Oh here's a bonus fun fact for you guys. When we were doing all the prep work for our outreach, our leaders told us this, "Dont' pick up anything shiny, or actually anything at all of the roads!" Apparently, Where we're going, they cast out evil spirits and stuff on to hand woven clothes and stuff. So last year, when the DTS team went there, somebody picked up one of these things and he ended up having and evil spirit in him that they had to cast out and everything. A little intense? I think so. It's like a whole different world compared to North America. So also pray that we don't have any problems like that!

I hope I can get Internet during outreach but I guess this is potentially, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas! For all those school-goers, and anyone else who gets time off, enjoy the break!

I'll talk to all you guys later!

Today's Fun Fact:

Back at home, I was convinced that there was nothing that couldn't be fixed with baler twine or duct tape. 

The Thai have taught me that there is nothing that can't be made or fixed with banana leaved or bamboo.

Forgotten Fun Fact

Okay, so I realize that I may or may not have forgotten to include a fun fact on my last blog post... somebody may have emailed me about that. SO to make sure I don't loose any of my faithful readers, here is the fun fact from this past week:

Today's Fun Fact:

Often when people try random meat like gecko, or kangaroo or something like that, people ask what it tastes like, the common response is, "It tastes like chicken" 

Well ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you that chicken heart kind of tastes like pork.

3 Months Done

So I may have lost track of how many weeks I've been gone, but I know that I've been officially gone from home for 3 months now! And our outreach is coming up fast!
This week we learned about evangelizing. Instead of having just one speaker, a whole group came and took turns teaching us. They taught us ways of telling people about God using things they are used to. There's a saying in Thailand that says, "To be Thai, is to be Buddhist." So everybody here knows a lot about Buddhism. The speakers gave us ways to tie in what people already know about Buddha, and turn it into Christianity. So they pray in similar ways, but to God instead of Buddha. Some of the people in my class really liked the way they did things, but other people found it really controversial. I thought it was a good way of doing things, because then people can relate to what you're saying.
I spent this Saturday with a few of the DTS people at one of the guys from my class' village. He's from a tribe called the Karin tribe. They speak a different language, and they live up in the mountains. It was so beautiful. I felt like I ate all day there. They just kept on feeding us and feeding us and feeding us. The food was all really delicious though. We helped make this "cake" which was basically pounded up sticky rice with sweet things put in it. It was really good too. We got to meet his whole family, and we helped them harvest their bean field.
Afterwards we went to a waterfall. The water from the water fall comes from a hot spring at the top. So the water was really warm, and the rocks were grippy from all of the minerals and stuff, so you could just climb up the waterfall no problem. I'll put some pictures on facebook at some point.
As for the issues from the mini outreach, I think God is telling us that we need to let go of our rights to an apology. A lot of us feel like we deserve an apology, but we need to learn to forgive without getting the apology in the first place.
Some really exciting news is that we found out where we are going for outreach. I'm going to a mountain tribe in a place called Doi Inthanon. We'll be doing a lot of work on a farm up there and stuff like that. I'm really happy with the team I'm on, I think we'll have a really good time.
Anyways, I think that's about it for this week.
I'll talk to you guys later! I hope you're all doing well!

In the Land of Jackie Chan

Well hello everybody! It's been a long time since I've been able to update all you people so I figure its about time I give you all a heads up as to whats been going on for the last couple weeks.
SO, not this past Monday, but the Monday before, we flew out to China. We had to take two flights because it was cheaper than a direct flight. Not our entire group could go because some of them don't have the proper paperwork and passports and stuff to be able to go, so those ones all went to Burma.
We stayed in an apartment. It was actually really nice, it was on a high enough floor that we had a bit of a view too.
Anywho, the schedule changed basically every day. But we did a lot of English teaching. One of the days we taught in a university there. We taught two classes. We started off by playing a couple games that involved them speaking English if they were chosen and stuff. Turns out it doesn't matter how old people are, they still willingly participate if there is candy involved. We also gave them vocab words and they had to incorporate them into skits. Some of the skits they did were really funny.
We did a lot of English corners as well, which is basically a couple foreigners who speak English, leading a group of people who are trying to learn to speak English, in discussions and little group conversations. They also play English games and stuff. We were in charge of leading a bunch of them.
My favourite part was teaching in one of the kindergartens there. It wasn't an orphanages, but they wanted us to do a couple classes for them. The nice thing about that was that was that the teachers gave us some stuff to teach on, so we were actually doing their curriculum instead of just making up random stuff.
The one day we taught them about tastes. Sweet, Salty, Bitter, and Sour. We gave them little taste testers of things. They got candy for sweet, seaweed for salty (which they LOVED), lemon rinds for bitter, and lemon for sour. You should have seen their little faces when we gave them the lemons. So cute, we got some pictures so hopefully they'll end up on facebook at some point.
We did a bunch of "teaching" in an orphanage school there. Basically we just sang random songs with the kids and played with them and gave them candy. Trying to teach was ABSOLUTE CHAOS!! it was ridiculous. It looked like something from a movie. There were kinds gambling in the back of the class, other kids were wrestling, other kids were throwing things at each other, they would just walk around and get up and leave whenever they wanted. It was CRAZY. But the more we went there, the better it got because they would start to recognize us and know the songs that we were singing so that was cool.
The interesting thing about our time in china, was that it was like a little test run for our group for our major trip coming up. Needless to say, we have somethings to work on. So if you guys could pray for that, that would be wonderful. It's a lot of communication problems, and misunderstandings, and people feeling left out. But I hope that we worked through some of it for our major trip.
But don't worry, China was a good time and I'm happy that we were able to go. I'm gonna miss the cold weather in China though, I finally got to bundle up in some sweaters and even a toque!
Oh and I almost forgot, I got to celebrate my birthday in China, I figure most of you can't say that! haha. I realised that I made the mistake of letting the people on my team know that I like cows. I'm pretty sure I have never owned so many cow related things. Pencils, a pencil case, a toy cow, cow tape, a dancing cow and even a cow toque. It was a little ridiculous. haha. My birthday was fun though, they got me cake and everything. :) Oh also a little happy birthday shout out to my mamma. :)
Anyways we're back at the base now for two more weeks of lecture and then out on the major trip, i hope everything is good with all of you, and I will talk to you all next weekend!

Today's Fun Fact:

In Thai, the way you pronounce words is very important, you could be using the same word, but with different pronunciation it means something completely different.

For example, if you say "cow", depending on how you use your intonation it could mean: rice, news, knees, white or nine.

SO, if you say the Thai sentence for "I'm sorry", but use the wrong intonation..... you actually say, "I farted."

Week 10

Welcome to week ten. It's definitely getting colder here. To the point where i can wear a sweater for like a couple hours in a day before i have to take it off because i get too hot. But I do hear that at home its freezing cold. I'm a little jealous of that.
This weeks topic was spiritual warfare. So get this, his parents moved from friesland after WWII, to Canada and started a dairy farm. Yay for Canadians. haha
 It's been interesting because at the beginning of the week we were warned that we might be affected by the spiritual warfare. So during the week we had one person twist their ankle really bad, two people got pretty sick, one girl's eye really started to bother her and hurt a lot and theres girls in the upstairs room that can't sleep because they keep seeing a dark shadow/ spirit thing that wont leave. SO it kind of seems like there might be some warfare going on.
But something that is really good is that we all got our visas for our mini outreach. YAAY. so we'll be leaving at 3:30 on Monday morning. It'll be just like getting up to go milking! haha Then we'll be gone for two weeks and I can almost guarantee that there won't be any Internet access so this is going to be good-bye for a couple of weeks.
But I'm gonna head out for now, I'll talk to you guys in a couple of weeks.

Today's Fun Fact:

Tinkerbelle, the sweet little 300 lb pig that we have at our base?

ya, she bites... she bites hard.

Week 9

So, this week marks two months in Thailand! RIDICULOUS!
I'm gonna start off with the most exciting part of this week. Do you remember how I asked you to pray for Mai because of the potato sized cyst? Well, this past weekend she went back to the doctor for her checkup. He ran some tests and when he came back to talk to her, he made her check the paper to see if he had the right patient, she said yes, he asked if the date on the paper from her last check up was right, she said yes. So he said. "I don't believe it! The tumour is completely gone! I don't know how this happened!" yep, thats right, no meds, no surgery no nothing, (well other than a TON of prayer) and the tumour is COMPLETELY gone! So amazing!!
We applied for our visas for our mini outreach, and we're not totally sure how thats gonna go because its not necissarily easy to get visas for the country that we're going to. But we go on tuesday to pick them up so hopefully that goes well for everyone. Then not this coming monday, but next monday we leave for the outreach, apperently its really cold where we're going and often the Thai people get sick because they're not used to the cold but I'm looking forward to it becasue that means that i get to wear my hoodies. yaay.
The speaker this week talked about the Holy Spirit, it was nice because we often get a lot of teaching about God and Jesus, but not a lot about the Holy Spirit, so it made it pretty interesting.
Now for the other best part of this week. Yesterday, guess what I went and did? Oh just chilled inside some tiger cages. I pet huge tigers and sat with them and played with their tails and feet and stuff, and then (get this) i went and played with tiger cubs!!! They were so ridiculously cute! I wish I could have stayed there all day. Some of the people there were volunteer workers, I would LOVE to do that for a job, just hang out with tigers all day? Sounds good to me! We even got to see a tiger cub that was only two weeks old! We couldn't touch it or get very close to the cage though. Who needs a house cat? When I get home I think I'll just get a pet tiger. =D
Anyways, I think thats about it for this week!

Today's Fun Fact

Tigers have tickleish feet.

week 8

Well we are officially back from the conference. Im going to be honest it was a little sad to leave. i had a lot of fun there. We met so many peple from all different places. Actually it was kind of cool because i met a lady that used to recruit for trinity western! so when i told her hat i was from abbotsford she knew exactly where i was talking about. But i also met people from cambodia,vietnam, myanmar,australia, south africa and like a bazillion other places. there were about 160 peple there and all together hey were able to speak a total of fourty different languages. it was pretty crazy.
loren cunningham spoke at a lot of the sessions this week,the stories he has are absolutely wild. its crazy how God has provided for him and his family. he just casually told us a story about how YWAM people had two people raised from the dead in Africa two weeks ago. we were all thinking thats crazy and he just talked about it like it was just an every day occurance.
the main thing that i think that probably got out of this week was just being reminded that Gods plans for your future are not going to leave you miserable. So many times we get caugght up thinking that we are going to have to leave everything good behind and juts be so burdened for the rest of our lives becasue we are doing Gods work. but i was reminded that,no, God uses the things that we like to do and the gifts that he gives us to make us happy.
My favourite part of the week by far was an offering that we took. there were people that werent abble to pay the fees for the conference so the first part of the offering was for that,  then there were also some people that needed bus fare and then the rest of the offering would be for Laos. But it didnt stop there, we were told to just go around listening to God's voice for wo in the room we should give to. so everybody was giving things to eachother. im gonna tell you a little story just because its cool and worth sharing :). so during the offering i went up to one girl because i felt like i was being told to go to her. so i asked her if there as anything that she needed. so she told me she needed a water bottle. So i thought to myself,"Oh ill just give her my water bottle." then i remembered that during the conference i had dropped my water bottle down the stairs nd it cracked. which is sad because i take tha water bottle everywhere. but thats beside the point. at the conference they were selling water bottles so i gave her enough money to buy a water bottle and she was so happy. But the story doesnt end there. Later that day,i had a guy come up to me, wo didnt know that i had got the girl the water bottle and he didnt know that my water bottle was broken, and he gives me money and tells me that i should buy either a water bottle or a tshirt from the conference. it was really cool. So for those of you wo think God doesnt notice the little things, he even cares about water bottles. Lter people shared testimonies about the offering and it was so cool to see how they were provided for. Oh and did i mention hat the offering taken for the other things came to a total of over ten thousand dollars!? crazy right?
One of the other fun things that we did this week was set off chinese lanterns. they are so cool. theyre a lot bigger than i thought hey were. we had a few close calls though because there were a couple of them that almost didnt make it over he trees. and you would be surprised at how much flame is in those things!its possible that i almost lit my arm on fire because one was almost in the trees but i caught it first. it was a little sketchy.
tomorrow we go back to our regular schedule of classes and stuff. that will last two weeks, then we have two weeks outreach then two weeks back again and then we go on our maor outreach. things are going so fast. it will be two months that ive been gone this week. sorry that was worded funny but you know what im trying to say.
the flooding in Bankok is getting worse. we arent affected by the water because we are far enough north. but remember to pray for the whole situation. some peple are evacuating and heading our direction. but lots of people, even some that weknow fro  YWAM have lost their homes.
Anyways thats bout it for this week, im sorry if theres a ton of spelling mistakes and missing letters in this. The thing im using is really annoying to type on.

Todays Fun Fact
When Thai people dont know how to start a conversation,instead of asking how you are doing or taking about the weather, they ask you if youve showered yet.

Week 7

So for this week, it was a little bit different from all the other weeks so far. On Sunday, we packed up and headed out to the Ywam base in Chiang Rai which is a couple of hours away, near the very top of Thailand. On our way there, we stopped at the highest hot spring in the country.
The reason that we are in Chiang Rai, is to go to a two week DNA conference put on by YWAM. We are actually quite lucky to be able to come to the conference because its technically only for the leaders of YWAM, and DTS students are almost never invited, but this year they let our base come.The orphanage next door let the base use their land and buildings so we all have a place to sleep as well as a big classroom for the sessions. There are 4 sessions every day, lead by three main speakers. One of the speakers is Darlene Cunningham. For those of you who don't know, Darlene and her husband Loren started YWAM. Loren is going to be coming to the conference this week so it's really really cool to be able to meet them and everything. The conference itself focuses mainly on what makes up YWAM and who YWAM is. The teachings are also about how to lead and i really like listening to those ones. It's a nice change of pace.
The orphanage that we're staying at is empty. All of the kids are on a break right now. But we realised that both of the orphanage buildings have huge flat open roofs. PERFECT for sleeping on!!! So a  couple of the girls and i have spent some nights star gazing. Its so much nicer because the rooms are cooking hot, so being outside all night is nice and cool. That is one thing that I like a lot about Chiang Rai though, its quite a bit cooler than Chiang Mai. I've actually been able to wear a sweater at night.
OH and i cant forget to mention our bathroom situation... squatty potties and freezing cold buckets of water to dump on yourself as a shower. It's oh so wonderul.
Now for the coolest thing that we did this week. We got a whole group of us together and went to the Golden Triangle. It's a place where the borders of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand all meet. You can also see China in the distance. So we went for a boat ride and stopped in Laos for a few minutes.
Afterwards we had some lunch and then went to a market in Mae Sai, which is the northernmost part of Thailand. We shopped around there for a bit and then we headed back to the base.
On the way back to the base we took vehicles called Song Taows. (we take them everywhere, they're Thailands form of taxi.) They are basically pick-up trucks with covers over the back and benches in the box. They also have a platform on the back by the bumper. So me and Kathryn, (one of the other girls from my base) stood on the back the whole time. You get a really good view of the scenery standing there. I love looking at the fields back in Abby, but let me tell you, there is no field quite as pretty as a rice field. They're such a deep and bright green. I love them. i tried taking pictures, but as usual, pictures just cant capture it.
Well that's it for this week! Talk to you all later.

This Weeks Fun Fact:

Of all the 32 people that are at our base, guys and girls,

there are only 2 people that are taller than me. Lame.

Week 6

Well, week six has come and gone, to all you Canadian people out there, i hope you had a fantastic thanksgiving and ate lots of turkey and ham for me... well more ham, I'm not a huge turkey fan, you can judge if you want. :) unfortunately we didn't have any celebration. Although there is one Canadian girl here and we wished each other a happy thanksgiving so that counts. Anyways.... This weeks topic was Church... although, to be honest, we didn't really learn much about church at all. It was more about how God chooses each of us, it was a message that most of the white people had heard, so we didn't feel like we learned a whole ton of a lot, but there were a bunch of Thai people who got a lot out of it, so that was a lot better.
This week was actually crazy busy, we had a bunch homework due, BUT we also had a girl come in an teach us three different dances in just a week. That's on top of our work duties, and our work teams, class and homework. We danced anywhere between 2 and 5 hours in a day! It was crazy. Two of the dances that we did were Thai dances, and they were really hard and kind of frustrating at first, but once we caught on to them, they were actually really fun. The last one we did was like a line dance, and it was so fun because we were familiar with a lot of the steps already, it was just a matter of getting them in the right time with the music.
Well, I'm going to tell you a little story now. So, the other morning, i went to have breakfast, and there hanging in a cage was a GIANT gecko. I thought he was the coolest thing. So we were all amazed by it and we named it and all that. Then we went on with our day. I came back later to find that the cage and the gecko were gone. strange i thought. Until i realised.... guess what was there for dinner? Yep, this week i ate fried gecko. I also ate an entire fish, head, tail fins and all. He was just a little guy, but still. It was good, except a little to fishy tasting for me. ha ha
I also became just a little bit more Thai this week. All the Thais, after having showers, or just at random times  during the day, will put baby powder all over themselves. We always kind of made fun of them, until we tried it. Because its so humid out here, your skin gets really sticky, but the baby powder gets rid of that. So one of the girls and i went out and bought some, its technically not baby powder, they call it "refreshing powder" and its got cooling stuff in it too, so it feels so nice because you don't have to go to bed feeling all gross.
And for the second discovery that i made this week.... Thai massage. Oh boy. Kathryn (the Canadian) and i went to get massages today and it was SO nice. The best part about it? it cost $4 for an hour! I mighhhtt just be going back there at some point.
Little heads up, on Sunday we leave for Chiang Rai, which is a couple hours away for a two week conference. We'll be staying at the YWAM base there, the schedule for us will be pretty similar, except we'll have an extra teaching first. I don't know what the Wi-fi situation is going to look like, so i might not be giving updates for the next two weeks, but there is rumour that the base WILL have Wi-fi, but i don't want to get my hopes up.
Well that's it for this week, i hope you guys are all doing well at home, talk to you later!

This Weeks Fun Fact

Fried gecko tastes like chicken

Week 5

Okay, so i know that on a lot of my posts I say how fast everything is going, but let me put this into perspective for you guys: This coming Wednesday finishes of the first quarter of my time here. Altogether I'm here for 22 weeks, and that will be 5 and a half weeks which means that its a quarter of the way through! HOW CRAZY IS THAT?!?!?!?!? Bizarre i think.

Well anyways, the best way to describe this week, is "confession week" It was about having a clear conscience and righting your wrongs with God and with other people. Some of the things that people confessed to didn't even seem like they were real, they seemed like things that you would only hear made up in the movies! Which kind of leaves you thinking about how much Satan has a hold on this world, but that being said, if you leave it at that, being in awe of Satan, you're making a mistake. I realized that the key is to be in awe of what God has done with these people regardless of what they have done, or what i have done for that matter. i think that this confession week was really helpful for a lot of people because it helped them to see that there are a lot of people here that have the EXACT same problems and struggles as they do and that they're not alone in it.

I was able to wear a sweater one day this week (although i wasn't even able to wear it the whole day without getting way to hot) i miss being able to wear sweaters... and shoes. I'm just in flip flops the whole time. But we are supposed to be getting into the cold season now which means that the temp. can drop to about ten degrees Celsius, (which in my opinion is not cold enough). Who would have thought, that I, the one who cant get enough of summer, would miss the cold? Weird right?

Friday nights we have "fun nights." So last night for fun night, we watched Lion King. I forgot how much i like that movie. One of the other girls and I were singing along to it the whole time. It was really fun.

Oh and here's a random and fun discovery that me and a couple of girls made: Cream-o's, which are a knock off of Oreos, are WAY better than Oreos themselves. BONUS, they're also cheaper. People stock up on them every weekend. The sad thing is, Peanut butter is ridiculously expensive here, so dipping them in peanut butter is expensive.. but sometimes so worth it!

Things here are still going good, the whole base is becoming more "family like" and getting more comfortable with each other, although i think that confession week probably helped with that seeing as now we all know the dirt about each other. There goes any masks that anybody had!

Well I think that's about it for this week. I'm gonna go into town and get myself some Cream-O's. :)

This Weeks Fun Fact:

White people: Sit in the sun to get darker

Thai people: Wear jackets and use umbrellas to make sure they stay light

White people: Do anything to stay skinny

Asian people: Try to eat lots because they want to have more "meat" on them (they never gain a pound anyways!)

and get this:

White people: shave their legs, and some girls shave their arms

Thai people: Are basically hairless when it comes to their legs and arms, so some of them will shave their legs trying to make it grow back thicker!!!

Who would have thought right?

Week Four

Well, week four is over. Tomorrow, it will officially be a month since I arrived in Thailand. It's going SOOO fast its ridiculous. four more months and I'll be back in Abby, how weird is that?
So today, two American girls, and myself (Canadian) went to a Mexican restaurant in Thailand... it was a very multicultural experience. Although i will say the food was absolutely delicious, I'm still full. I thought that would be a fun little thing you'd like to know. haha
Anyways, this week we talked about the nature and character of God. most of it was stuff that i had heard before, but it was good to hear it again, there was also some things that were new and interesting. This coming week we have a speaker coming in to talk about clear conscience. From what Ive been told, it can be quite the challenging week. so that should be interesting. i am looking forward to it though
Good news, and a thank you for everyone who was praying for Mai. She got her results back and it turns out that the tumour is NOT cancer! which is so good. She is going to have another checkup in about a month, and if it hasn't gone down in size, then they will have to operate, but hopefully, (with lots of prayer) surgery wont have to happen.
The couple who runs the DTS and lives on the base have a bunch of kids. The kids like to hang out with us lots, one of the girls took myself and three other DTS people to her school this weekend. Their school has this GINORMOUS pool that we got to go swimming in. It was SO nice. I love swimming.
I did do something somewhat adventurous this week though. One of the girls at the base told me she wanted a hair cut.... so i said I'd do it. Not gonna lie I was freaking out a bit, but it turned out really good if i do say so myself. Its a few inches shorter now! i said that a bowl cut would have looked nice on her, but she said no... i still cant figure out why.
Anyways, i know its kind of short, but that's about it for this week, I hope that everything back at home is still good with everybody!

This Weeks Fun Fact:

It is nearly impossible to keep your feet clean in Thailand... 

except for when you go swimming apperently.

Week Three

I can’t believe we’re at the end of week three already! This week’s topic was relationships. So far, this is my favourite topic we’ve covered (even though it’s only the second one haha). Our speaker was really honest and talked about things that some people don’t always cover, I wish that she could have stayed and talked for another week. She also talked a lot about family and how important family is, and how much it affects who a person becomes. One of the things that she said that I found really interesting is that by four years old, 80% of a child’s worldview has already been formed.  I found myself incredibly thankful for the family that I have. Sometimes I take that for granted, but to any family reading this right now, thank you for being amazing. J 
                On a more serious note, one of my roommates whose name is Mai (pronounced “my”), just found out some bad news. I’m sorry if any of this makes you uncomfortable but I need you guys to pray for her. She’s in her late thirties, and has a husband and three kids. Lately she has been bleeding really bad, so she thought, “I don’t have any pain, so I won’t go to the doctor.” But she prayed and asked God to get someone to tell her to go to the hospital if that was what she was supposed to do.  Shortly after that, she had another lady from the base tell her she should go to the hospital to get everything checked out.

                She came back with X-rays and a note from the doctor showing that she had a cyst on her left ovary that was 4cmx4.5cmx6cm. The doctor compared it to the size of a potato. Although she speaks English really well, she can’t read it. So when she called her husband, who is British, she asked me to read the doctor’s note to him. So I had to explain to him what the options were if it was cancer, and what the options were if it wasn’t. It was not nice to have to tell him about it all.

                This weekend she goes back to the hospital to get more tests and find out whether or not it is cancer. She told me it was okay to tell you guys about this because she wants all the prayer she can get. So if you could pray that it’s not cancer, or better yet that God takes the tumor away completely, that would be wonderful. Oh and she also told me to make sure I told you she is really beautiful. (She’s quite spunky haha)

                Well that’s pretty much it for this week. Everything is still going well, I’m learning a lot, including that I LOVE papaya! Who would of thought? It always reminds me of that Sunday school song, “I like bananas, I know that mangos are sweet, I love papaya, papaya?” It’s probably on my top five favourite fruits list now.

Today’s Fun Fact:

 The Thai word for grandpa is “Pu” which is pronounced “poo.”

To all of you who still have the heart of a six year old, I hope you enjoyed that.

Week 2

Well its officially been two weeks since i left home, and everything is still going really good. I've made friends here and everything and the weather is really nice.
This past week, we had a speaker teaching on prayer, fasting and hearing the voice of God. It was really interesting. This weeks speaker is going to be talking about relationships.
I'm gonna go ahead and say that the highlight of this week was definitely riding elephants! Life long dream fulfilled. haha We went to the elephant camp where we watched a show where the elephants painted pictures (the pictures were actually impressive, I'll put some pictures on facebook later, i haven't been able to upload them on the blog for some reason) they also kicked soccer balls, played harmonicas and did other tricks, it was so fun. I had an elephant put a hat on my head and then take it off again, and i also had an elephant kiss me.... weirdest feeling ever!
Later we actually rode the elephants and i got to sit on the elephants neck for part of it, instead of just in the seat on its back. SO FUN!
there were little baby elephants too!
We also got to go zip lining across a river that day.
One of the people from the base knows the manager at the elephant camp, so the whole day, including snacks, riding the elephant, going to the elephant show, zip lining, and renting a taxi for the day cost under $10. It was amazing.

Today's Fun Fact:

The man who owns the cafe that I'm in right now, has a son who's about 12... he likes to sing... really loud. i wish you guys could hear this.

Mailing address

Youth With A Mission Chiang Mai
P.O. Box 290 CMU Post Office
Chiang Mai 50202 Thailand

I'm Here!!!

                Well hello everybody! Usually I’ll only be giving updates on the weekends because that’s when we can come to the café that has Wi-Fi, just so you know. I hope that this doesn’t end up being too long, if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, I take no offence. =P

                On the way to Thailand, everything went well. Both of my flights were good and they were pretty much on time. It was about 12:30am when we got to the base, and it turned out to be a bit of an adventure. The girls that picked me up went to show me where my room was, but the girls that were sleeping inside had locked the door for the night. One of the staff told me that she had bunk beds so I could sleep in her room with her. So I carry all my stuff to her room, open the door, turn on the light and lo and behold a bunk bed…. With no mattresses. Long story short, her and I slept on the tile floor together. It made for and interesting night. haha

                The base is nice and everything is really green. Here I was thinking, “Oh if I leave Abbotsford and go to Thailand, I can get away from all the rain and mosquitoes.”…. WRONG! It’s been rainy, rainy, rainy, and although the mosquitoes are smaller, they make you itch just as bad, let me tell you!

                Like most first weeks of school, it’s been pretty low key. We have mostly been talking about culture differences, and rules of the base and rules for living together. We’ve had lots of time to just hang out and get to know each other too. There are a few Americans here, a lady from Chile, a guy from the Ukraine and one other Canadian. The rest of the people here are Thai, but most of them speak pretty good English. There’s a married Thai couple here who have to kids, and oh my goodness are those kids ever cute. One of the kids is Caleb’s age, and the other one is Lily’s age (for those of you who don’t know, those are my sister’s kids) but I love playing with them.

                I haven’t really been homesick at all. I guess sometimes certain things will remind me of certain people and then I’ll kind of miss them, but other than that I’ve pretty much been fine. I will be completely honest though and say that I’m feeling a little bit farm deprived. There is a pig here (her name is Tinkerbelle although she’s a heck of a lot bigger than any fairy I’ve ever seen) and there’s a few chickens running around. Oh and there are some dogs, but they’re always in their cages, except for a little one that’s kind of ugly, so those don’t even count.

                All in all, everything is good, I’m good, the team’s good, the food’s good (most of the time) and everything is going well.

                Talk to ya next time!

Today’s Fun Fact:

We only have one flush toilet, the rest of them you have to dump buckets of water into, and we’re not allowed putting toilet paper in any of them. So all of you with flushing toilets out there, think of me the next time you flush… or don’t, because that’s a little awkward. =P

I Have a Blog

So it's official... I have a blog. (I have something against blogs, don't ask me why)  Basically I'm just setting this thing up so that when I head out to Thailand on Saturday, I can update all of you people. This way when i get home, I don't have to have to hear people say "Why didn't you send me email updates!?" and if they do, I'll just say, "You should have checked out my blog like i told you." I'm pretty much just trying to cover my bases. I'm gonna be honest though, a lot of people's blogs are boring and lame, so I'll try to keep the lame-ness factor to a minimum, but i cant make any promises.
In Thailand, the Internet access going to be limited, but updates will be posted as much as possible, or at least until you get sick of me.
Next time I'll be talking to you, I'll be far far away. I'm gonna miss you people!

PS. shout out to Danelle and Emma ( I told them I'd do that)