Thailand...wow

Hey guys,

I have been here almost a week which seems strange...I feel like I have been here forever already. We have been getting to meet alot of Thai students which has been really great. I actually went and saw Prince Caspian (the 2nd Narnia movie) in Thai..no subtitles or anything with several of our friends. It was pretty great. I could understand a few lines but mostly I just remembered what they were saying because I had already seen it in English. It was still good though ;)

After the movie the thai students helped us get a tuk tuk which is a motor scooter type thing with a cart thing attached to the back that has seats (great description I know ;) and then they drove in front in their motorscooter to show the driver where we lived. They are the sweetest people I have ever met...they really want to take care of us and make sure we get what we need. It is definitely the Lord using them to make sure we don't end up in Cambodia or something.

We took our first song tow by ourselves the other day which is a truck that has seats in the bed but they are raised and it is more like a bus..it has railing and a roof and everything so it is safer than I make it sound (that is for my mom and dad ;). We got where we needed to go and back home which was amazing and really encouraing. It was pretty funny though because the driver stopped in front of our apartment without us even saying anything to him...I guess everyone on our street knows we are here and where we live...they call us farangs which means foriegners and they only use it for white people. The people are really kind and they just smile all the time. Thailand actually means "land of smiles" so i guess it makes sense.

Some of our best buds so far are Art, ninja, Aoy, nick, noop, pat, mimee, dream, and mint. They all help us get around and help us order food although we are getting better at that now that we have started knowing the names of our favorite dishes. They love practicing English and we have actually had some pretty good conversations with them already. Beth and I spoke to ninja over dinner one night and talked alot about what his beliefs are. It seems that even though these people claim to be buddhist they are actually animists. which means they believe in spirits and they like to give sacrifices to the spirits in these little spirit houses that are everywhere. Ninja actually prays to Buddha but if you learn about buddhism you learn that they don't really believe in a god and that Buddha never claimed to be a god. I think the Thais pretty much just believe whatever fits them best and they call themselves buddhists. It is interesting and hopefully we will get to have more conversations like that one we had with Ninja.

That is about it for now, Our classes start on monday which is a little scary because a lot of students have already signed up to come. I hope we can do a good job and make it fun. Sanook (fun) is very important to the thai people even in class. Please just pray that we would prepare good lessons that help us get to know the students and that we would be bold in making friendships and not shy away from talking to them just because we don't speak much thai. Also just that we would be spiritually rejuvenated because being in a place with no christians is definetely draining.

I really appreciate all of your prayers and I have loved reading your comments to me...they have been so special. Thank you so much. You are all amazing!

I will post again soon hopefully ;)

~Rachel aka Kai-mook