Hilltribe village

This past weekend is full of stories and fun adventures. It was our last weekend with the Aggies for Christ students here. The plan was to wake up Friday, take a raft down to a hilltribe village where we would spend the night, wake up saturday and take the raft to Chiang Rai where would ride elephants, and come back to Chiang Mai.

We left Friday morning and took a 4 hour bus ride to the river where the rafts were. Now, you can't just go to the river and rent a raft, they have to know you are coming in advance because they build you a raft completely from bamboo. The rafts are not very big either, they fit about 6 people in each one, plus 2 oarsmen to steer the whole way. We had somewhat of a roof above our heads incase if it rained, but it never did. My raft was Melanie and me, 2 aggies, and Sarah and Kelly Davidson, their leaders. It was a 6 hour raft ride to the hilltribe village. We got to know each other all very well, told stories, and learned new things. Kelly has been a missionary in thailand for a long time, so he informed us a lot about the Buddhist culture and Thailand history. We rafted straight to the hilltribe village, it was very remote, only this year did they get a dirt road leading to their village. We arrived around 7 I think, and we ate outside there. After dinner we circled up, sang some songs and was having a devo when we heard drums beating. The village wanted to sing and dance for us. We wrapped up our devo and went to watch them. It was nighttime, and they only have solarpower electrivity, so they had heated up this big light all day so it would last through the dancing this night. The dancing they did was more like line dancing. They walked around in a big circle and did steps with their feet, with some clapping here and there. They wanted us to join them so we did. This was a Christian tribe as well. After dancing, they sang us some Christian songs in the language that they spoke. Thai is not their first language. One girl from the tribe had written a song about Jesus and about all the people of the world coming to know him. It was a beautiful song. We were split up to sleep in their "houses" based upon raft. The houses were kind of like big huts raised to a second level. All 6 of us squeezed in our house. It was really hot that night so we didn't really need blankets. They sleep with the door open so bugs are crawling everywhere. I did sleep with a pokima (small blanket) over me to keep the bug off. The first rooster crowed at 2:19 AM. I quickly ignored it. Later on, I kept hearing this noise, probably around 5:30 AM, and it was the lady of the house sifting rice. They wake up extremely early because they have so many things to take care of. They had cows, bulls, geese, dogs, and chickens just walking around outside. Suprisingly I slept pretty well that, probably because I had taken some benadryl.

We left on our rafts about 7 AM down the river. They had breakfast for us on our rafts- toast, hard boiled eggs, oranges, bananas, coffee, and tea. This raft ride was about 3 1/2 hours long. It got really hot around 10 so I jumped in the river and swam along next to the rafts with some other people. That was really refreshing. We got to our next stop with the elephants soon after that. We quickly ate lunch, grabbed a partner, and loaded up on our elephants. We sat on this metal bench that is right on the back of the elephant. It is definitely not comfortable at all. One leg has to go over a metal bar and the other leg goes on the neck of the elephant. I tried some different ways of sitting but theres really no way around that. The elephant ride was also VERY bumpy. There was not a time I was not holding on afraid that if I let go, I would fall right off the elephant. We walked throught the jungle, in streams, and on the side of mountains. At one point our elephant was going around another and walked straigt up to a cliff. We thought we were going to fall straight down, but our elephant managed pretty well. We had a guide who sat on the head of the elephant giving commands and everything to the elephant. I aksed if I could switch with him during the ride and he let me. So I sat on the head of the elephant trying to get it to listen to me. It didn't listen to me as much as it listened to its owner/trainer, but it was fun anyways. After the elephant ride the Aggies went their separate way to another village, and all the ACU interns and robert took a very nice airconditioned bus back to Chiang Mai. We had bought pizza for dinner and it was delicious.

Today at church was really good. We have a few visiting couples who are wanting to be missionaries here, and Jordan, one of the husbands, taught te sermon on salvation, while Robert translated it to Thai. For communion we all gathered in a circle again to take it. We stand for Gods word and sing a lot of songs in Thai. Today me and the other interns stood up and quoted John 1:1-18. I actually was not nervous because I had it all memorized. If you haven't memorized any long passages like that, I would recommend it because it is a blessing to be able to quote scripture like that. I know this is a long post but it has been a few days since I have given any updates. Hope you enjoyed!