[day one]

Today was a long day. Good. Full. Helpful. Long. It started off as a relaxing morning. Claire and I had breakfast in my room and then I was able to skype with my mom and sister (yay!). After getting ready for the day, having my quiet time and knocking out a little more of Empty Promises, we met with some of the BSC staff.

John, Lorena (a 91-year-old woman who has been teaching at the BSC for... years), and Khun Noo briefed us on teaching at the BSC and our schedules until our "official teaching semester" begins July 2. Matt is the BSC-English coordinator. He also met with us to discuss the classroom, introduce us to more of the staff and show us our desks. He graduated from VT and lived in Madison (Laura-Michal: shout-out to your hometown!) so he was very familiar with Fredericksburg. It was nice to meet someone who is familiar with our area.

Lorena has been having some trouble with her vision, so Claire and I are going to be helping her finish out the semester with the students she tutors and with one of her classes. Because this was unexpected, we started taking over with her students today! Please be praying for Lorena, that the doctors can figure out what exactly is going on with her eyes.

I taught my first class this evening-- there were only four students, but they were a lot of fun. I am curious how long I can blame jet-lag on my scatterbrained-ness, though. I'm hoping at least a couple more days... The Thai people are very gracious though, which I appreciate! After class, Claire and I had dinner with Dylan, one of the other young teachers at the BSC. He invited us to go with him to visit some refugees, but because of a tutoring appointment, we were not able to go this time.

We tutored a 15-year-old girl named "Fourth" tonight. (She is the fourth person in her family, so her parents gave her that nickname!) She will be an exchange student somewhere in America this fall. I will be tutoring her until she leaves in August. She was so sweet and a lot of fun! We showed her how to use a knife to eat (they don't have knives in Thailand) and also explained currency/tipping/pricing of American meals.

Claire and I also ran into Archan Thongchai, Archan Ponsak and the missionary couple (Jack and Gladys Martin) who the building we're staying in was named after! Everyone is so excited to have us here for a year... and to have the short term team come in August (56 days! But who's counting?). Archan Ponsak was especially excited to hear about the construction-crew Jake will be heading up to paint/repair his home. Jack Martin even offered to donate some paint brushes to the cause :)

So, that is the short of it! I'm trying to stay up a little later tonight to help regulate my schedule-- so blogging is keeping me up until bedtime :) Claire has to leave at 8am in the morning to go to Ampa Wa with New Vision Church to teach English-- but since I'll be teaching and tutoring at the BSC, I will get to sleep in a little longer. Yay! Thank you for all your prayers-- please continue to pray that Christ is glorified through our time here and that He leads us to develop strong relationships with the Thai people.

Happy Thursday!

Guinea Pig Interns

Claire and I were able to skype with John Lapos on Wednesday night after our small groups (click here for her post on it!). While we would love to have a definitive schedule of what our year in Thailand will look like, that’s not really practical. Instead of pre-planning every ministry and event that we will help with, John has asked us to be flexible. Which, if you know me, I tend to default to flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, so this should be no problem! But I did want to share what we do know so far:


Teaching
Monday-Thursdays we will be teaching 8 English classes (this may be 8 different classes, or a couple classes, multiple times during the week—depending on the need) These classes will be from 5:00-6:30/7:00-8:30(9:00), with our prep time from 3:00-5:00 on those days. This will be the bulk and most consistent part of our ministry time in Thailand.

Interns
We will also be serving with John as his “interns” while we are in Thailand. The job description is: “yes”.Being willing to serve and help and go wherever the need is. John asked us this question when we spoke, “Would you be willing to say ‘yes’ to anything God asks from you this year?” That is exactly what I want! I know there will be things that are hard, uncomfortable or not my strongest gift-set, but I want to maximize my time and impact where I am for the Kingdom. And I’m not waiting until in June when I leave for Thailand to start saying “yes”—I’m saying it now.

Friday nights
Friday nights, the BSC hosts something called “Friday Night Life” which we would assist with in some capacity. We did not get to see this while we were in Thailand in August, so I’m excited to find out more about this ministry!

Sundays
Sundays we will have church (of course!) as well as possibly leading a Bible-English Class. There is also a possibility that we may help with a church plant while we are there—which would be such a neat opportunity! If this pans out, I am sure there will be many more posts in the future on this topic.

Other Ministries
During our “free time”, John will be taking some time to introduce us to different established and new missions opportunities. We will be the “guinea pigs” for future teams that come. For instance, before the Spotswood team comes, we will have the opportunity to experience some of the projects that they might work on and give feedback on them. This might include things like the prison ministry, or working with women who have been rescued from bars and helping provide them with sustainable occupational skills. We would also help set these projects up for the team for when they come. This way when our team, or other teams come, we can better connect them with suitable ministries.


Thank you for being excited with me, and for praying over me. Please feel free to comment on any of these posts if you have questions or comments. I love getting feedback (and will love it even more when I’m half-way around the world)!