During the past week, all of us interns have pretty much gotten into our daily routine here in Chiang Mai. We have a few hours of equipping time in the morning. This consist of studying a chapter in John, watching the Gospel of John, then each of us discussing it. We go into an hour of quiet time after that, and come back to go over one of our study books on Spiritual Disciplines. Each one of us interns leads a lesson on it. My lesson I will be leading is on service. We usually end around 12-12:30, and then head over to the Payap campus for lunch. Even if its strange or awkward, we eat with the Thai students who we haven't met. This has actually been really productive. They love having us come by, and are very invited for us to talk to them. We invite them to come study English with us, and to come to our cell group where we sing and have a devo every Thursday night. We have actually had a lot of new people show up, which is very excited to see our efforts pay off. Each afternoon we all have English classes to teach. A lot of the students are at different places in their Egnlish. We also have fun activities that go on during the week that we invite these new students to so they will feel comfortable being around us. Every Wednesday we have just a time of singing praises for whoever is in the Zone, and every Thursday we have cell group, where we all cook and eat together, sing, and have a lesson. It is a blessing to see new people be apart of this.
Last Sunday all 5 of us interns stood in front of the congregation and recited John 1:1-18. I have never memorized a scripture this long, but I am so glad I did! It is amazing to look back and see how beneficial and powerful it is to memorize scripture. As I read through the rest of John, I can relate what I have memorized to the scripture I am reading. Its a really neat new concept to me. Today for church I taught the youth class with another intern, Terri. We taught them on prayer, one of the spiritual disciplines we have learned about. There are a lot of opportunities for us here to be a leader and teach. Each of us teaches a spiritual disciplines lesson AND teaches the girls bible class one Sunday. This has really challenged me because I am not much for one to stand in front of a lot of people and teach, but God has really helped me through those fears and has helped me to be bold and speak out. It's amazing what God will do when you ask Him to help you =) I am also taking Thai classes here to learn the language better. I have learned so much already, and it really helps being around students who speak Thai all the time. I am at the point where I can have a small conversation with somebody. It's different when you learn a language in school because you don't really want to learn, but when put in a situation where you really have no choice but to learn the language, it really makes a big difference on how much you will try to learn. For me, I love languages, and Thai language is something I have come to love very much. I have had great experiences here in Chiang Mai so far, and cannot believe that I am already half way done. I pray that I will be able to come back here sometime in the near future.
. We all prayed together, sang songs in English and Thai, and had a time of reading scripture. It is encouraging to take time out of your busy day to spend time worshipping God. During church on Sunday the speaker was Thai. Usually we have an English speaker and somebody translates for the Thais, but this time the English people had to go to the back and have the lesson translated for us. It was very interesting but neat at the same time. Cell group last night was also very good. Our lesson was on diligence and we should always persevere and not give up. I also got 3 new Thai students that I am going to be teaching last night. They stopped by because they saw our sign "Christian zone" and new we taught English. It is 2 girls and 1 boy, all 3 are 19 years old. One of the girls is a Christian, so I am hopefully that God can work through me to get the others interested as well. Today is the 4th of July! Happy 4th of July everyone! I wish I could be in America on this day and celebrate with everyone. Yesterday the American Embassy here held a big gathering, so all of us interns went to that. We walked in and everything was covered in red white and blue. They sold hot dogs and hamburgers. It made us feel at home. I entered a watermelon eating contest as well as an egg cracking contest. We had a good time. Tonight we are going to the mountains to teach another English camp for our students. We have gotten lots of compliments saying we are doing a great job with building relationships with the Thais and that they enjoy being with us very much. My time here is already half way over and that makes me v
ery sad. Sunday we are going to an orphanage to help out as well. One thing I've noticed while being here is that Thai's love to watch movies. Whether it is going to the theater or renting a movie, they just love watching movies. I think it has to do more with being together socially. Thai's are very social people, they love having fun. We try to incorporate things they like to do with with talking about God, or else the non-Christians probably wouldn't initially be interested in doing anything with us. For example, so many of the Thais here love to play guitar, so one night we started singing worship songs and they joined in playing along with us on the guitar. I am teaching our Sunday bible class this Sunday, so I am very excited about doing that. It will be my first time teaching a class. I will be sure and let you know how it goes. Thank you so much for keeping up to date with me. Our schedules here have gotten so much more busier with activities to plan, trips we go on, etc, so I am trying to update this as much as possible. Thank you for your prayers =)
