HP giveaway

Thanks for pointing this out, Kristen. HP is giving away some touch screen desktops. You can enter in by commenting on this blog, twittering, facebooking and of course blogging about it! Here is the link you should go enter and if you win give me the computer haha jk...I guess you can keep it for yourself. Good luck if you enter!http://mckgiveaways.blogspot.com/2009/12/hp-touchsmart-giveaway.html

I usually dislike posts like these, but...

Sometimes it feels harder to be a christian, like when you should lose all selfish motivations because of stories and ideas that are unproven. Sometimes it is easier to be a christian, like when you can be happy and playful in spite of anything that happens.

Registration

I registered for next semester classes and I'm pretty excited. I only have 12 hrs. right now and only 6 of those are AERO, so it is looking to be the easiest semester, possibly in all of my time at A&M.

I'm also excited about Winter Break. I will only have about three weeks because RA's are the last to leave and the first to get back, but it is sounding so good right now, I might go hang gliding, the fam is going to Sea World, and get to spend some time in Irving, it's looking like.

Until then, though, it's looking tough, I've got 5 AERO finals and a couple big HW assignments and 2 projects left, not fun.

championship

Just finished intramurals with conner, Micah, Jeremy. Micah caught a 30 yard or so (maybe) hail mary on 4th down in the first half that was the the difference in the game, we won by less than a touchdown. Another notable play was when we drew the defence offsides by changing our snap count. 5 yard play. The next play we drew ourselves offsides so had to give the 5 yards back. The guys on the team are really fun to play with, and I'm ready to play basketball with them, too.

Now to study for a Stability and Controls test tomorrow, and then studying all day and then hopefully checking out the carnival in the mall parking lot (:

Halloween!

This was the first one in a while where I didn't dress up or anything :( Oh well. I told people I was a tomato because i spent all day at the Aggie game getting sunburnt to prepare my costume.

I get to sit down and watch the cowboy game this week! Then homework afterwards!

Tech Game

Goin to Lubbock this weekend! I will be so happy to see my grandparents, and a couple people I met in Thailand - Michael and P'Bhee. I went to Abilene last weekend to see David, Kristen, and Ava, and I am so glad I did. However, it made me hate the distances between me and my friends and family even more. I hate how far away my friends in Thailand are, how far away Abilene is, the distance to my family & friends in Irving, Oklahoma and Kansas, and friends from college station spreading everywhere pretty soon. I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and this made me wonder if Jesus ever teleported anywhere while he had a physical body supposedly constricted by time and space.


I think this guy is my favorite comedian. I wish he didn't cuss, but his jokes are cleaner than the average comedian I think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiFrfeJ8dKM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftrYWLpFZqw

Leaving on a jet plane

So we are waiting in between connecting flights right now, I think in Taipei maybe? The Aggies had to say goodbye to the 7 Thais that took us to the airport at 5AM, and it was not very easy.

Our last week was actually pretty busy, even though we didn't hold our regular classes. Wednesday we went on a day trip with 50 christians or so to provinces around Bangkok, where we explored an aquarium and the 100 yrs. market and a farm with some water buffalo. Saturday we went to a theme park called Dreamworld with a few of them. The other days were full of last minute errands and last chance activities with friends we won't see for a while. Yesterday we threw a going away party for us and held games (they all pretty much love childrens' games, like one game we played was pretty much duck duck goose), and had a pinata.

As this will be the last post of my trip, I kind of wanted to sum up my thoughts on my summer right now. I saw how valuable learning the native language was, because the Aggies were completely dependant on translating and there was a real bridge we had to cross to connect with Thais outside the church. I am extremely happy with the people we helped connect to the church and the interactions our group encouraged this summer. Volunteering to teach English classes in order to bring new Thais to the church was a challenge, sometimes a grind, and ultimately a blessing for me, and hopefully everyone involved. It was definitely a perspective changing experience for me to see just how small a blip on the screen I am, and yet how small the world can be when random connections with people seem to pop up everywhere.

One last thing we did before we left was exchange pictures and video between the Aggies, so keep checking my Facebook because i am sure there will be lots of awesome stuff. Thanks again, and keep praying for me because I have no leeway to get over jetlag, my job starts as soon as I get home in college station (:

Winding Down

I only have just over one more week of teaching! It has gone by so fast. We are having a movie night with our students on Saturday the 1st, and hopefully this will be a good way of encouraging friendsips bewteen our students and the Thai christians. The next week of August 2-8 will be our last normal week of classes. After that we have a few day trips planned with some Thai christians during our open week, and then a going away party the day before our flight will be the Aggies' last face-to-face interactions with the students this summer.

So last week we went ice skating with all the Aggies, Anne, some students, and some church members, and I got a ton of funny videos and pictures. When the whole group got back to the church, we were about to get something to eat when I realized my camera wasn't in my pocket. I'm thinking I left it either at the ice skating rink in the mall or in the taxi on the way home. Either way it is gone. The best thing would be if I just put it down somewhere in the church building right before we decided to eat, but if this were the case I think it would have turned up by now. I guess I will just have to be happy with the 15 GB of videos and photos I already have from the trip.

Anyways, thank you again for all of your support. This whole experience has been very humbling for me. I wish everyone could see how this church operates, it is a very encouraging viewpoint on being a family and deciding to have passion for each other and for worship.

I will get back to the States late on August 17th, already two days late for work. I may not get to Irving until perhaps the second weekend of September, but those plans are not set in stone. I hope to see you soon!

Pictures and Video

I am so sorry if you don't use Facebook, but if you do then you can go see my pictures I just posted, and my video of bungie jumping. Also anyone can watch our team video blog where we talk about everything we've done, the link is on the right in my "Links" section.

Our Schedule is Packed

In the Links on the right you will find more video and pictures.

First I would like to say how proud I am of my ties to everyone back in the states. One of the first things we do in any conversation with a Thai christian is find common friends, and I have many Aggies and people from South Mac that my new friends and I have in common, like Kathy Kimmerly, Tim and Ann Lewis, Steve and Dorothy Witt, Ryan Binkley, and more that I'm forgetting right now probably.

The thing fresh on my mind right now, is that I gave the lesson for Sunday evening service in front of the church. I had to talk for about 20 to 30 minutes, I think I took a little too long, but half of my time was taken up by translating. My notes that I basically read from the pulpit are in the picture at the bottom. It was mostly about Romans 8. I think it went ok, I was probably pretty boring, and perhaps confusing sometimes and too simple the rest.

Anyways, as far as my English classes go, two weekends ago we took all of our students to a beach a couple of hours from Bangkok. Justin the trip leader was sick and couldn't come. So I was now in charge of his stuff as well as my own. I led about 5 hours of games, and then about a 2 hours of english lesson between the 4 Aggies. There are a ton of pictures on my Facebook.

The next week we travelled to Phuket and chang Mai, where I bungee jumped and got my Bible painted (: Now we're back to our regular schedule of weekly English classes.


If you want to read my sermon click on the picture to make the text bigger, I had to load it as pictures sorry.

Pictures 3

You can click on a picture to get the full size version. I also posted these on my Facebook.






One of the Thai christians who speaks both languages helping everyone communicate (:






One of my weekly classes.






Another of my weekly classes.




One of my favorite people. She cooks for us every Tuesday night and we have some singing in Thai and a devotional at her house with her family.




Talk amongst yourselves.

Pictures 2

The students with their heads covered are Muslim I believe.

That's my team for the day. The professional lady standing is our Thai christian contact at the school, and she's one of the one's that can speak English very well.

I won the game of course as my team goes wild.

We take turns entertaining Ellie every day.

Ellie and her mom, Delissa.

Pictures 1

It was a crazy day.

We split them into teams and each team made some cheer with dancing and yelling.

We played the game where you have to find a different person to sign their name in a box if they can do a cartwheel, can speak 3 languages, been to cambodia, like sushi, etc.

The team can all jam into a single cab.

This is us with some of the students that come to church once a week to learn English.

One crazy week

The links section on the right will lead you straight to pictures and video. Also, just comment or facebook me with your email and I can email you every time I add a new post.

So this week was packed full. Monday the Aggie team did some touristy things, and spent a lot of the day at the National Museum. Tuesday was some planning meetings and running errands. Also, a couple (Neale and Delissa) doing missionary work is moving into the church here, and we helped transport some things from their apartment to their place in the church.

Then was three straight days of intense English camps at a couple of nursing schools. We had about 90 students on Wednesday, 200 on Thursday, and 50 or so on Friday. We played Steal the Bacon, Simon Says, Telephone, charades and a couple others, trying to help them use common English phrases and understand some of our culture. We were in charge of them from about 9AM till 3PM or 4, (the exact times varied each day), so we also taught some lessons about English sayings for common diseases and symptoms and questions for talking to patients. Many already knew how to read or write at varying levels, so our main focus was getting them to open up, not be so shy, and to give them experience with conversation.

Then we finally get a "day off" today.... and spend some more time helping Neale and Delissa move, then some more planning meetings. Next week we resume our normal English classes and I am looking forward to it!

Two weeks done!

A key on my keyboard isn't working. "AB DEFG," so that's why some words aren't right. I kouldn't read it very well, so I'll use a k or s sometimes instead, it made it easier for me to read at least.

We have finished two weeks of klasses. One of my students has started koming to the afternoon " hur h" servise and a few of my students were very interested in the Bible story after the lesson, so one of the Thai hristians was in there answering questions.

Our shedule is full, even our off days, bekause we are helping paint an apartment in the " hur h" building in the rooms where Neil and Delissa (introdued in the video blog right beside this post) are staying. Keep looking at the links for pitures and video!

So this is my teaching schedule, with the names of my students and the time we meet.

Saturdays are the craziest. Everyone wants to come on Saturday because that's the easiest to get off work. Also, Suan Dusit isn't a student, it's a University here where we'll start talking with their English Club I think. It's still kind of fuzzy because that doesn't start till next week.

Keep checking our video blog! It's in my links section on the right!

English Classes Have Begun

To find some pictures and video, check out my links section.

I had my first day of teaching yesterday. Some students already knew lots of English, as far as simple phrases and many vocabulary words. Others barely know more English than I know Thai, so it is an experience to draw pictures, use gestures, and simplify words (not to mention a Thai/English Dictionary) to help them understand.

Our lessons come from books that were either adapted from other books or passed down from previous AFC trips. I got through the first lesson with all my students so far, though some have less homework because we finished early and had time to keep going.

Welcome to Bangkok!

Well, I am finally in Thailand. We flew from Houston 11:30 Monday morning to L.A., then to Taipei, Taiwan, and then to Bangkok, where we arrived at the church at about 4AM Wednesday. As of Saturday morning I am still trying to get a regular sleep schedule, as we are ahead of Texas by exactly 12 hours. It was a very strange feeling to race against the sunrise, so that we stayed in the daylight for probably around 24 hours or so.

We have an orientation today where I get to meet my students for the summer, so I am really excited, and right now I am off to get my class room and everything ready for this afternoon!

Meet the team

The last few meetings we had as a team were mainly logistical stuff, but May 26th is the day we leave, and I'll be back in the states August 18th. Here is the blog we have set as a team, go watch the video and meet the team (:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVSRkyboElI

Thank You!

So I feel very privileged, because of how everyone has responded to my letter. I will eventually send out thank you letters to let you know what I have received.

The meeting last Thursday was more an update rather than preparation for the trip. Justin bought plane tickets last week, so I will have exact dates soon, but right now I know I will be in Thailand for almost three months. I was asked over spring break about any shots I needed, and I hadn't heard anything about that. Evidently it had not come up yet because we don't need any, so one less thing to worry about.

Conner, Tori, and Micah came to College Station this weekend and hopefully Morgan and I did ok showing them what we like about this place.

Irving for Spring Break!

I'm in Irving till probably March 22nd, so send me a call (:

I want to be more specific about concrete ways I am preparing for the trip. We have a team meeting every Thursday to go over things Justin, the team leader, thinks we need for the trip. I will try to update every Friday if only to document to remind myself of what we went over.

This last Thursday, we went to a Thai cuisine place to kind of prepare us for some kinds of things we'll be eating.

Before that, there was a missions retreat the the weekend of March 6-8. Everyone who is going on a mission this summer with the AFC was required to be there. A lot of it was team building, getting to know the people I will be with this summer. There was also worship time, and then everyone interviewed individually with Kelly and Tracy, two adults who know what is needed on the trip and want a grasp of our perspective of the trip. That was all Friday night. The next morning we came early for breakfast where we video conferenced with one of their missionaries in South America and learned about his perspective of missions. Tracy, Kelly, and his wife Sarah also spent the morning basiclly teaching us to be "tough, flexible, and optimistic" this summer. One thing everyone stressed is to eat what you are offered so we don't offend any host.

This weekend was when I found out I definitely chose the right trip. At one point there was 6 of us going to Bangkok, but at the missions retreat we found out 3 of them couldn't go. So now it is me, Justin Kern leading, and Rachel, who lives in Leander. Less people means more work for me, because we will still have the same number of students learning English, just less people to teach them.

Basic Thai language lesson

(Click the notes to see them better)
Justin Kern, the group leader, made this cheat sheet to give us some basic Thai to work on. As of right now, without looking at the paper, I can count to ten, greet someone, and ask if what I just said was right.

I just wanted to get this on here to let you see something I'm working on, and this will help me organize things I learn and need to remember. I really just thought the Thai writing looked cool.

You're In the Right Place!

Hey, thanks for checking up on me. This will be my blog for updating information and pictures geared towards summer 2009 when I head to Bangkok, Thailand. Thank you to everyone helping me on the way!