A Yellow Song Taw

                 2 Peter 3:9,”The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some understand slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

                 As I’m on this adventure that God has prepared for me I get more and more excited about each day. Last Monday was another one of God’s many crazy adventures that He had planned beforehand. Whitney, Tonji, and I had decided to go to the new campus night market which is about a 30-40 minute song taw ride from our apartment. We went to go hang out with some Thai students that we had called but after we got there we realized none of them were coming because they had a big homework assignment they had to get done. So we decided to head back and so we took a yellow song taw. (Side information: a blue song taw goes close by our apartment like a 3 minute walk, the yellow song taw takes us to the old campus that is a 20-30 minute walk to our apartment which we knew at the time but there wasn’t any blue ones around so we didn’t mind walking.) So we started toward old campus and I told them that this night would be better if we got to ride a motorcycle.When we got to the entrance of old campus where we were supposed to get off because down the road is where our apartment is at; I said that we shouldn’t because it should turn around soon and Whitney said yeah let’s keep riding, and Tonji said I think we should have gotten off back there. The song taw turned into old campus and we kept riding hoping that it would turn around. 

                    It never did it kept going deeper into old campus. It finally stopped and everyone on the song taw got off except the three of us. The song taw driver got out and asked us where we were going (note: this was all in Thai). I told Whitney we should call Kowit (one of our Thai students that has excellent English) so that we could explain to him what had happened and he could explain it to the song taw driver. Instead Whitney explained to the driver in the best way she could where we lived or close to where we lived with lots of hand motions and the name of an intersection so he said he’d take us there for 100 baht and we said no no and we got off the song taw. Then the song taw driver said he’d take us to a road (we thought he meant the entrance where we had just come from) so we said okay and he took us out the back entrance of the university. At first we had no idea where we were but we got off because we thought we could figure it out. So we got off and I paid him. (my reaction: I’m having the time of my life!, Whitney’s reaction: wasn’t thinking about what we needed to do next, Tonji’s reaction: thinking of every possible way to get home, Whitney and I weren’t thinking whatsoever…haha). Right after I had paid the song taw driver. Whitney was like that motorcycle is coming right for us and the person on the motorcycle looked like an angel because it was very dark outside and there was a light behind the driver that made him look like one. 

                   As the driver got closer we realized it was our student Kowit! He asked us what we were doing and we said we’re lost! So he called Aim (a fourth year students who is amazing) and Jamesbond (this is his Thai name, his English name is Jacob) and they took us home and we were saved. (Whitney got to say that she was saved by Jamesbond that night, how many times can you say that? And as she was riding on the motorcycle they were passed by a bicycle because we asked them to go slowly). On that Wednesday night Whitney got to tell some Thai students about this story and then she related it back to the gospel and how Jesus finds us and saves us when we’re lost! It’s very cool how God uses our lives to point back to Him and his salvation…..and the adventure continues…..

First Times

Hey Everyone!

Even though I’ve lived in Thailand before I’ve had a lot of firsts while I’ve been here. First time I….1) ate a chili pepper in my meal (probably the most painful experience I’ve ever had in my mouth), 2) wash my under garments in the shower, our laundry lady does not do these so by the end of the summer I’m going to be an expert undergarment shower cleaner (but don’t ask me to do yours when I get back to America), 3) have been here without my parents, I love my parents dearly and I miss not having them here with me, 4) have used a calling card, I have memorized all the numbers on that dear calling card so that I can talk with my family and Tony, 5) have had a toilet in my house that does not flush, I have to use water from outside of the toilet to wash it down, it’s not as weird as it sounds, 6) have  led an English class daily at a university and at our home(I don’t know who said that I could teach English, whoever it was has never heard me speak), but despite that fact all of the students are very sweet and outgoing, 7) received a Thai name, a girl named Pat named me Som-O which means palmetto, I didn’t even know that was an English word, I have never heard of the word but apparently it’s a fruit, 8) probably have friends that know my name but I don’t know theirs, 9) have had Chai Yen (iced tea it was amazing), 10) lived with bats and had a rat in the kitchen, 11) lived on my own (I have never lived not in my parent’s house) with four other amazing Christ focused Georgia girls!, 12) that brings up another first, first time I’ve lived with Georgia girls, 13) have got to sit in on a summer missionary meeting and not have to go upstairs, (before when I was an MK Andy and I had to go upstairs and not get to listen in but now I’m a SM so I get to sit in on the meetings!) 14) have had crab (we went with some Thai students and they ordered peppered crab, it was really good!) 15) have lived in a 5-story apartment! (it’s a great home except for our mr. ratburn and bat buddies) There is probably a lot more but right now I can’t think of any so the adventure continues……

Housing

Hey everyone I thought I might just describe the house I live in. I live in a 5 story house with 5 other girls. Our first floor contains an air conditioned living room of sorts, a bathroom with the infamous squatty potty, and our kitchen. The second floor has a balcony off the back and is another teaching room. The third floor is our living quarters where we have about 6 or more fans to keep us cool at night. I probably sweat in the bed all night lol but it's one of the coolest floors. We also have a bathroom on that floor. All our toilets are not automatic we have to flush it down with water from a bucket. The fourth floor contains materials for us to use in English teaching and materials for learning more about the Thai people. There is also a bedroom that contains a queen sized bed but it's very hot and there's also a bathroom which is considered one of the most important because all the smells that we might of had on the third or first floor are eliminated. Our top floor is our roof. We can see all around the city but the other downside is it's the batcave for a lot of bats. One girl went up there to play her guitar and when she wanted to come back down the bats were going crazy. She hasn't been up there since. For about two days our water has been out. So the first night we went to the missionary's house and took showers. Thankfully it came on last night so we received refreshing showers. Yesterday before it came on we had to take buckets of water upstairs in order to flush our toilets because our water meter was running water. I live in the middle of the city so it's easy to get around.
The public transportation are called song tows and today we got from our house to the mall, Ser Thai, all by ourselves. We got some mango stem and a fruit smoothie! We also got to see a baby elephant which was amazing!...and the adventure continues.