English Center

Friday morning I packed up my stuff and we headed out to a small village to teach at a few schools. Those classes were a lot of fun. The first class was helping Kat and Patdi. I introduced myself, worked on asking them questions and them answering correctly, we worked on numbers, and we sang songs and taught them the hokey pokey! It was a lot of fun! After lunch with them and Chris, Chris and I went to teach another class at another school. This was a fun group too. We worked on basic introduction questions (asking them and them answering correctly in English). They did very well; even the tiniest young ones! After this class we headed over to the English center where I would be staying with Kat and Patdi for the next two nights. A group of us took a short walk around the village while waiting for the rest of the team to arrive. Fromthere, I sat in on a team devotion and meeting between Chris, the Attaways, Kat, and Patdi. It was interesting listen to them make plans and work together combining ideas to reach a plan. We went for dinner at a little noodle stand and then returned for that evening's English club. It was a small group of high school students, but they were fun to be with! Lots of laughter. The first part of the lesson worked on learning the first part of a new worship song in English. After that the Attaways reviewed a lesson of English phrases for working or eating at a restaurant. They practiced all of the phrases and then switched to taking turns acting it out. It was a fun lesson to watch. After wrapping up the lesson, everyone left to go home. I rode with Kat and Patdi to take one of the students home. We were all very tired once we got back so we said good night and all went to our rooms.

The next morning we headed out to meet everyone at the Barbee house. Chris, the Attaways, their two visiting friends, Patdi, and I loaded up in the van and headed out for a sightseeing adventure! We were going to see the Phra  Maha Chedi Chai Mongkol, one of the largest chedis or pagodas in Thailand. It was so beautiful with such intricate and extravagant details everywhere. There were multiple floors and we kept climbing up admiring all of the beauty. The last floor had a spiral staircase leading up to it which got smaller and smaller as you went up. There was a moment where I thought I should probably stop so I didn't get dizzy and off balance, but I pushed through to the top with everyone else. As we arrived, we all promptly plopped down Indian style, the correct way to sit on the floor so your feet aren't pointing out to anyone to offend them. See, I'm learning! I must be very careful not to show the bottoms of my feet to others. By this point it was almost 1 and I was starving! We all headed downstairs to find food. We sat down and let Chris and Patdi order whatever for us to all eat off of. It was quite a feast! After dinner, we looked around some shops before loading up before the rain hit. And we just made it in before it started raining! We headed back to rest and relax before our evening fun began. A few hours later, the Barbee family, me, and Patdi loaded up in the van to head to the carnival! We met the Attaways and their English club there. It ended up being a fun night. I rode a few rides and the ferris wheel and ate lots of yummy fried stuff. Started with a waffle with raisins cooked in it, had chicken and French fries for dinner, and grabbed fried ice cream before leaving! The kids loved the carnival for sure, and so did the rest of us. That made for a very long and busy day so once we got back to the English center, I barely had enough energy to shower and crawl into bed. I was worn out!

Sunday morning came, as did more busy schedules! The kids started showing up over an hour and a half early for worship, stories, games, lunch, English lessons, drama lessons, and guitar lessons! I had an audience looking through the window giggling and watching me eat my breakfast. The rest of the crew started showing up and then we got started. There were 75ish kids there! We had introductions of all first timers which included saying your name and doing a dance. That was fun. Then they led the kids in worship, both English and Thai songs. Then there was a big group game. From there, they told the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead while acting it out. They had discussion time for a while and then game time. They were didvidedinto four groups and given one roll of toilet paper each.the groups the proceeded to make a Lazarus in a limited time. Whoever made the best Lazarus got candy. The groups really had fun with this. After wrapping that up (literally, haha) they took prayer requests and prayed over them and lunch. The kiddos were dismissed slowly to wash hands, put out bamboo mats to eat on, and bring food up for each group. Since there were so many, the adults went downstairs to eat. After lunch came more lessons. There were 5 different groups that included English lessons, guitar lessons, and drama lessons. There were three groups of English lessons. Two of those groups were actually the older students teaching a group of younger students! That was pretty cool. After that ended, it was still a slow process of everyone leaving or loading up to be taken home. I loaded my stuff up in Chris's van along with several kids to take home. Unfortunately, we did not make it far before getting a call from Dora saying she had a car accident. Don't worry! It wasn't bad! We headed over to her, unloaded our kids, loaded her group of kids and took them home since they were within 10 minutes of home. We came back and it was still quite a long process of getting things worked out with the police and such. It really was a minor accident. Another vehicle was passing her and clipped the front side of her vehicle leaving some scraped paint, small dents, and knocking the mirror off. All worked out and we made it back to their house to rest for a few hours. After that, it was time to load up in the van and go eat dinner with the team and ha e a belated birthday celebration for Patdi. We has a feast! Lots of seafood! After stuffing ourselves silly, we ordered an ice cream cake and sang to Patdi. It was yummy cake! After finishing up dinner and heading back, I only had about an hour before I headed to the airport to close my time in Roi Et. I had a late flight, 10:30 that landed in Bangkok around 11:30ish. I had a taxi driver waiting to take me to the church for the night to rest before flying the rest of the trip to Ranong. That was a very long day so needless to say, I slept hard for those few hours I had to sleep in between flights!

Stay tuned for my first impressions of Ranong!