pictures pictures pictures

Whoop!
...for Thai attire




Jared and Caitlyn teaching and singing English praise songs



Looney talking during Sunday morning bible class



Brad and Tom teaching the school kids how to dance



Brittany being loved by the kids



Brad, Lauren, and their class



Amanda and Brittany learning to play Thai games

Goodbye Kranuan!

Howdy! The last of our days in Kranuan were amazing but also very sad, as expected. On Monday after church, Tikky and P Pra Krong took us out to "BBQ" with a few other people from church. Despite our low expectations for this Thai version of BBQ, it ended up being a very cool place where you grill your own meat! Tuesday we taught English at school and played games with the kids at church at night, and stayed a little later to set up for the Wednesday night party. Wednesday morning before teaching, we were presented with our Thai dancing outfits! There was also much embarrassment on Tom's part, as he was made a spectacle in front of hundreds of kids for his birthday, and it was all great fun. After teaching and lunch, we rested at home and prepared for our performance of the night. We ate a wonderful dinner with the church to begin the going away party, and then the ceremony began. The 8 of us sang "Someday" and "The Lord Bless You and Keep You", to kick off the show. Next, we performed the Thai dance that we learned, called Rum Pan Mow, which you will see and hear more of in the near future, I hope. Also, some Thai girls from the church danced, and a man played an interesting wooden instrument, accompanied by P Pra Krong's vocals. To conclude the night, we sang the Texas A&M War Hymn and took probably a million pictures. Many hugs and tears came as we hopped in the truck to go back to homestay for the night. Thursday back at School, we played games and sang songs with the kids instead of teaching. The students formed a giant line to say goodbye to us and we received flowers, candy, and hugs galore. The ceremony that followed consisted of our Thai dance, our singing, Thai teachers dancing, Thai students dancing, and concluded with some hilarious "freestyle" dancing on our part, per request of the teachers! More goodbyes were said and pictures were taken, and we made it back home to pack and hang out with the church kids and adults a little more. They took us to the bus stop, which made it even harder to say goodbye. The people we formed relationships with on this trip will never leave our hearts. The pictures posted are a cumulation of the major parts of the trip: singing, teaching, and playing with kids at church and school, and of course we had to throw in a picture of our amazing Thai attire! We are now in Bangkok preparing to leave for Chiang Mai. We appreciate the continued support and prayers!

Wow, only three more days

Church yesterday was wonderful. Brad and Looney lead songs in Thai and Tom peached a wonderful lesson on faith. We then had lunch with the church members and relaxed the rest of the afternoon. We thought we were going back up to the chuch for evening classes but due to the communication barrier, we just waited and were never picked up. But we had a wonderful time at our "homestay." Last night the girls were measured for our dancing dresses. We are started to get excited about performing. We ended the day with a run with Tikky (the girl we met on the bus).
Today we went to Tikky's house and met her mother. We song them some songs of encouragment. Then we went to a chuch members house who had been in a motorcycle collison. We were able to hear his story and pray for him and his family. Then we had dances classes at the school, and the teaches were very impressed with our improvment. After were we done, hot and sweaty, the boys got to go eat icecream, while the girl were taught to make artifical flowers for our hair. We were not very good at it, and left without making a successful flower. But had a good laugh at our attempts while eating icecream ourselves. It was Aloy (delicous in Thai).
We only have three more teaching days before we leave the village. Please continue to pray that we use these days to the best of our ability and give all that we can give to the children.

2 More Weeks!

On Monday, we went to Khon Kaen for our day off. We enjoyed some American food, which most of us had been craving. McDonalds and Pizza Company! YUM! We also did a little shopping for essential supplies...like granola and cereal, which they don't have in Kranuan. On our way back, we met a woman on the bus who spoke some English. We invited her to come to lessons at the church. She has been coming the last few days and is interested about learing more about Christianity. We're pretty excited about that so please pray for God to open her heart!

After teaching at the school the last few days, we have started learning a traditional Thai dance to perform in front of the school and church on our last day in Kranuan. It's tough! Thais are all very graceful and smooth and we are not quite up to par. We will continue to practice the next few days and hopefully be able to perform a decent dance by Thursday!

Well we only have about 2 weeks left on our trip, half of which will be traveling to Chiang Mai and Phuket so please pray for us during these trips! We appreciate your encouragement and support so far and can't wait to see yall when we get back!

Time is flying

We only have a week and a half left here in the village. My how time flies! Things are wonderful. We are eating lots of rice and working out as often as we get the chance. Yesterday we went to a natinal park with all of the church members (about 30 people). We saw a huge dam, went hiking, swam in a lake and had a picnic. It was a lot of fun. We ended out the day singing worship songs in Thai. It was very uplifting.

Last night we spent several hours out in the village where most of the church members live. We just spent time hanging out with all the little kids, playing games and having fun. We didn't really speak the same language but we all knew how to have fun. We also got to hear several peoples testimonies on how they became christians and the persecution some of them had to endure. It was really encouraging to see faith under such circumstances. Today we drove to a dam about an hour away and spent time looking around. We had a picnic under a bunch of the trees with the Thai's, took lots of pictures and taught some new songs. We took a lot of kids with us from the village whose families aren't chirstian but after seeing us play with them last night, wanted them to tag along and have fun with us for the day. We all had a great day but are glad we get to relax and do nothing this evening.

Our group at the King Cobra Village, everyone was so brave!