Thailand... Ar tyt mai leyg song.

So here's week number two of our trip in Thailand!! Sunday we had church at The Hope of Chiang Mai again, here's a pic of the auditorium in which we had services from like 8 to 2!! It was awesome. We worshipped for like 4 hours straight... It was AMAZING!! : )

It seated around 2500 i THINK... i can't remember for sure, but it was a ton i know that! While we were there, they used the stairs on the sides of the stage for the first time ever in a drama they did, and when they lady walked down them, the entire congregation broke into applause!! It was way cool. Lol, but yeah, after church, we had free time, got to go to the sunday market and shop a little, or go back and do some packing for our village trip... ours to Mae Hong Son. We went to the sunday market, cuz me and jordan, being the neat and orderly people we are, had already packed! Go us! Haha, so we went and shopped at the sunday market:

Basically the sunday market was just a bunch of people selling things in their little tents they had set up... but they made everything they were selling by hand, so in all reality this was their life. It was kinda hard having to barter for some of the tings, but if we hadn't of, it was considered an insult to them. And some of the things they sold, you could tell they had spent days working on, and we just spent 4 US dollars on it. We did have the chance to pray with a couple of people here, some who just randomly came up and asked us for prayer, which was a HUGE blessing for us, and then others who saw us praying for one of the many temples in the area, and wanted to know what was different about us, why we wouldn't pray in the temple. It was WAYYY awesome!! : ) I think all we bought that day was soccer jerseys... we wore em to the session that night...

So this is Cody, me, and Micheal, all in our Ronaldinho jerseys. : ) Haha, it was great!! We had a session that night to brief on our villages and have one last worship time together as a project. The next morning we took off on the great, SEVEN HOUR mountain drive to Mae Hong Song!! It was pretty intense, riding in the back of a taxi that has no back door for seven hours, doing the whole zig-zag pattern up and down the mountains... we had a few people get motion sickness... not I though!! : ) Haha, but it was pretty crazy, but well worth the wait!!

We liked to sleep... haha!! Here's the view off of one of the curves we took... at about 60Km/H... it was awesome!!

It was an awesome trip!! But after the long ride, we finally arrived in beautiful Mae Hong Son!!!! We arrived around 530 i think, dropped all of our stuff off at the church there, The Hope of Mae Hong Son Church, and then took off to find some food that wasnt oreos or pb&j! We found the greatest fried rice in the WORLD!!!! It was absolutly AMAZING!!! Here ya go:

Don't hate, this stuff kept me alive for a week!!! : ) I would go back, just to eat this!! : ) haha! But then we went to our house, which at about 7 it was dark already, so we didnt know what it really looked like, until the next morning... plus we were so tired from the trip, we just crashed. The next morning, the wakeup call came at 530... it was just dandy. Luckily, Jordan has some Red Bull on steriods!! No lie, this stuff was AMAZING! It was like just the syrup, no carbonation at all... It was called Red Bull serum. Yeah, it was a bad mambajamba. : ) But kept you awake for abuot 19 hours straight... not even playing. : ) haha!! We woke up, took bucket showers in our beautiful bathroom, and walked outside, down the street to the church!! Here's our house and bathroom... note the squatty potty and bucket shower!!! : ) : ) : )

So that was our house and living quarters... i loved it, not everyone thought it was that awesome, but i went to town on thsoe bucket showers!! : ) It was fun to me... : P Haha, so monday through friday we went to the local college Rajabhat had planted in the town and taught english to the students there! It was a lot of fun, because some of the team who had been really quiet turned the switch once we got into the classroom!! We were kinda shocked when they stepped up and really took control of the classroom!! It was really cool!! We taught 2 3 hour classes a day, 8 to 11 and 1 to 4. Here's one of the classes that we taught... two classes in a row... it was hard beacause they were pretty advanced in their english... so we had to improve on EVERYTHING!! : ) But God was there the entire time and guided us and gave us the words!!

We taught until friday, and had thursday and friday afternoon off... the whole school had friday off... where we had a scavenger hunt in the torrential downpour that dumped on us during it... it was awesome! : ) We had another party for the students that night, and it was due to start at 7 pm... and when 730 rolled around and nobody was there... we started to get a little worried. So we prayed for a while, and around 8 people started showing up. We did our whole thing and one of our thai translators gave her testimony, and 4 of the bigger, older guys from the university jumped up and accepted!!! It was really cool to see the 'leadership' in the school turn from who they used to be. And maybe with those 4 coming to Christ, other people will follow their example and raelize that somethings not right!! 2 younger freshman girls also got saved, so all in all , we had SIX from this little village in northern thailand give up their buddhism, their nationality... to be thai is to be buddhist... and turn 180' and run staright towards God!! Ah, it was awesome!! : )

Saturday morning, we left the church at 6 am... i dont even remember how early we had to get up... it was earlier than everyone else in the town i know that... haha... but we pulled out and did the whole 7 hour trip.... back home to Chiang Mai! Our hotel, The Lanna View Hotel, was absolutly the BEST ever!! It was nice, they served us in everyway they thought possible... which was more than we thought!! Lol, but they were always ready to do something for us... this is our view from our balcony, Jordan and I...

I know... you're jealous... it's ok... no it really is. : ) So finally late saturday afternoon, we arrived back home in Chiang Mai and got some much needed sleep and R&R... : ) And that my friends.... was 'ar tyt mai leyg song'. Week number two.

dueces.

-AndyP!

Week ONE in Thailand...

Sawatdee Kop! So this is a blog... about me. OR about some of the kick awesome things that God's done over he past summer!! : ) So yeah. I've been to Thailand and back, and here are just a few of the pics that can give you just a TASTE of what went on and what we went through and did over there... here we go:

So this was our team over in Thailand, there was two teams in all and a church plant team that we only saw on sundays at church. I'm in the front laying down with SteveO, my MA **Missionary Advisor**, who was pretty much the BEST EVER!! I had a really hard time leaving him, cuz we got REAL close over the month, he was a C tripper. Our team was dubbed the Tuk-Tuk team... and this my friends... is a tuk-tuk:

If we got on one of these, it was a BV... Bon Voyage... cuz 1/2 the time the drivers were drunk off their faces... it was crazy. : ) But the 1st week we were there, we walked around Rajabhat University and just talked with the students there, played a LOT of futbol, american soccer, and just developed relationships with the people there inviting them to a party that friday where, of the 40 that showed, 6 or 7 accepted Christ which... is kinda AWESOME. : ) Here's Rajabhat:

So this is what we did the first week, just getting to know the Thai people, just talking with them... and some of them... can TALK... : ) but it was pretty cool just to meet some of the Christians on the campus, however small an amount they were, just to have them randomly come up to us and say hey and give us an oppurtunity to minister to them through just loving on them. And soccer... has got to be the best ministry tool ever. : ) Friday night we had a party at The Hope Church of Chiang Mai:

This is a picture after everyone else has left with the few that accepted the inviatation and a couple of the workers and our translators from the school. They were cool. : ) Again, me and SteveO are laying in front of everyone. : ) We made a habit out of that... haha! When we were in the school talking to people, we were broken up into teams within our team called MIGs, they were basically 4 to 5 people in a ministry group. Our's was named the Awkward Turtle MIG... It's a really long story. : )

From left to right: Willard from Hong Kong... he wasnt allowed on the China trip because he's a Chinese citizen... and speaks fluent Cantanese... or something like that. : ) Then there's Becca, our MIG leader, she's from Nashville, Ten-UH-C... haha, that's how we explained it during english class... then there's the beautiful soul in the white.... yes, we all know and love him... it's Andy!! **Applause!!** Then there's AllisonP from Wyo, she's pretty cool, very quiet, but extremely cool. : ) These 2 are our TL's, team leaders, Sarah and Jay!! They are pretty much the AWESOMEST people in the WORLD!! : ) Haha, but they were seriously amazing and were always there for us when we needed them. They were great. : )

Plus they look like they should get married here... but don't tell anyone... ; ) HAHA!!

So that's just the beginning of our trip to Thailand!! I'll keep updating with the 2nd week and the traveling part of everything!! Leave some love... lata.

-AndyP!