Christmas Break in Thailand!
My roommate Hannah and I got to spend two weeks in Thailand visiting friends and sight seeing. Such a cool experience. We both love seeing other cultures. We got excited when we saw the Philippine embassy! Home!
We sort of stalked monks because they are so cool. We are sort of obsessed now.
And maybe we take funny pictures of them....
And find monk children!
We finally found a free program called Monk Chat. These monks want to learn English and enlighten you about Buddism. Win win for us! We got to chat with these guys for a bit and discuss what life looks like for them. Such a cool experience!
I got to have my second elephant experience. This time I got to take some pictures with them. So cute and one of them slobbered on me.....yuck...
Tigers are a new one for me. They are so majestic.....
and really really scary....
One of my favorite things about Thailand was meeting up with three different sets of friends. In college I met Sarah. She grew up in Bangkok since her Father is works for Chevron there. I thought I was going to be working at Grace International School in Chiang Mai and so we touched base and talked a lot. We became fast friends and so, even though I never moved there, we got to catch up when I visited.
I'm actually not good at photos and didn't take many other photos of the people we visited. We got to spend half of our time in Chiang Mai with Darin and Staci Dunn and hang out with this little guy. He's so fun and we had a great time hanging out. The Dunns have been a huge support of mine as I moved to Asia and have been crucial in just about every move I have made thus far. They have been gracious to host me twice now (once in Phuket on their vacation last year and this time in their home in Chiang Mai). They are my Asia Wayside family.
Since I was in Chiang Mai this time, I got to spend time with my other Wayside family, the Cliftons. They left for the field at the same time I did and we had a lot of meetings and things together. We have bonded over a shared experience and Hannah and I had a blast hanging out with them. They were so gracious to have us over during their Christmas festivities and made it feel so much like home. We even got to sight see a lot ith Shelby (on the motorcycle) including motor cycles, mountain climbing, night markets, and all types of Thai foods. What a fun way to connect with my Wayside community. I'm so very blessed by the community that is around me here in SE Asia.
Ministry Day
HIgh school has a tradition called Spiritual Emphasis Week or SEW. We have chapel everyday and then on Friday we take the day to do a ministry day instead of school. We connect with several local ministries and our kids split up all over the area cleaning, building, playing with kids, running VBS and anything else that needs to be done. Often times these ministries are the ministries of our missionary parents. I helped lead a team going to a small but growing Christian school for kids in squatter communities. They have Kinder and 1st grade and each year, they hope to add a new grade as the kids get older and older. This was their entire school building and we cleaned it topped to bottom. This couple has three kids, one is a Freshman at Liberty University and they have a junior and freshman at Faith.
The other half of our team did a VBS up the street. This my co-worker Steve. He is an English teacher in high school and was hesitant to do VBS but found a quick bond with the kids over paper airplanes!
One thing I love about Faith is that our students are from all over the world and they become such good friends. In this picture is a freshman from Kenya, a junior from the Philippines, and a junior from Korea. They were doing a lesson on Jesus washing the disciples feet and so they demonstrated it by washing all the kids feet. Such a cool experience!
Touch Rugby
We had lots of fun this season with this varsity rugby squad. Last season the JV and Varsity sort of made one big squad for practices because of a lack of coaches. This year we were very much separate teams. While we sad to not spend as much time with JV, it made the bond on Varsity so much stronger and we learned at a very high level. What a team this is!
Twin Day! I am so grateful for older teachers and coaches who bring us youngins under their wings and mentor them. I am so blessed to be able to work under this fantastic lady. She teaches me so much about grace and patience.
About the only thing I bring to the program is dress up Fridays haha. This theme was rainbow colors and it actually worked. What a fun group this is!
We hosted the fist ever Faith Invitational. We held Varsity and JV women's and men's division. We entered a thrown together men's varsity squad (Faith only has tackle men's rugby) and they ended up winning their division. Both JV and Varsity girls also won their division. What fun it was to win in front of our own crowds. We were so proud of our varsity girls who beat the best team in the league 7-5, which they've never done before.
Even though we won, there were tears shed as it was our final game together. We will miss the seniors but look forward to next year. We are building something and see greatness coming our way.
PE Class
Sometimes in the boys PE class, they kill rats.....
Sometimes in PE, we have to get creative with the resources we have. Carpet squares serve as a pretty good putting surface!
Sometime in PE, we take a special day to work on our swing dance moves before a swing dance themed Sadie Hawkins.
Sometimes we shoot stuff!
Thank you Katniss Everdeen and Legolas for making archery cool to my students!
Thank you Katniss Everdeen and Legolas for making archery cool to my students!
Sometimes my personal bow is as tall as my students.
Sometimes, because of lack of space, my weights class has to flip tires across the circle:)
Faith Life
We had a fundraiser night and it was the Varsity boys basketball team vs an alumni and staff team. The alumni team went retro and had some old throwback jerseys. What a fun way to raise money!
Our kids know how to celebrate each other. Birthdays are celebrated well during school and sometimes kids get their lockers bombarded by their friends.
One of my good friends here works with a 19 year old girl with mental and some physical disabilities. I have not had a ton of experience with people with special needs but having her here has been an eye opener for me. We've grown to be friends and we laugh and play silly kids games. She has opened not only my eyes, but the eyes of the kids to loving people who are different than you. Such a good experience for us all.
There are many families from Texas that work at Faith and we have begun a tradition of celebrating Texas Independence day together. We made these fun shirts this year. It is fun to have someone understand your home culture more than other Americans do.
In my Tagalog language class, we learned how to make Turon. It is deep friend banana with brown sugar and a thin tortilla like breading on the outside. You can't go wrong with that!
So yummy! This semester my language class has turned a corner and I feel like I am really learning a lot. I am starting to use my Tagalog a little more with Filipinos and it's so fun to actually know what people are saying, even if it's only every 10th word! I have learned so so much about Filipino culture and food in this class. I'm so grateful for this opportunity!
My friend Crystal and I had a fun time dressing up for the Sadie Hawkins as chaperons! So fun!
Filipinos love a good photo opp, so when I went to take a picture of the guys at the fabric market pulling my fabric out, they posed for me. This is how one shops for fabric. It's an all afternoon event and often requires multiple men to dig out the fabric you want. I am having dresses made for weddings that I am soon. It is wonderfully cheap to have clothes made here! Praise the Lord because I cannot wear a Filipino XL because it's tiny.
Every year, the dorms all take a long weekend and go to Corregidor Island. I didn't take a ton of pictures of the historical artifacts because this was my second time there. We had a fun time exploring and I spent a bit of time helping this little guy through all of the tunnels and batteries (read, very big guns).
This is actually less stable than it appears. I may or may not be muttering under my breath for my friend to take the picture faster.
One thing about the Philippines is that there are tons of crazy bugs and insects. This was a new one for me. It is called a lot of things but the name that stood out to me was Demon Spider. I felt that was appropriate because it's the size of my hand. This is called Demon Spider cave. We went in and they are harmless (apparently) and I went about 15 feet in and said, "Ok, I've seen them. I'm done. There are a few on the ceiling and if one fell on me, my life would be over right then and there. Goodbye."
Spring Break: Boracay Island
Some very generous Filipino friends let us stay at their condo in Boracay. This is a pretty popular tourist destination and can be kind of expensive to visit. We had a free place to stay and found an overnight boat to get us there for less than $40. The way the Lord provides even for Sabbath blows me away.
If you like mangos, you need to visit the Philippines.
This is my favorite picture from our trip. It reminds me of misconceptions and how they can twist a scenario. This is simply a case of protecting their skin. However, they dudes look scary. They basically help people load into boats. You don't necessarily ever envision yourself grabbing this guys hand to help you get into a boat. This is definitely a kind culture.
The last night of our trip, we sat in the water and enjoyed watching God paint the sky. He works in marvelous ways and He reveals Himself in big and gentle moments.
Thank You!
Thank you so much for reading my updates and keeping up with me. I'm hoping to get a little more consistent with them next year. It's a learning curve for me. It's been quite a year and I'm excited to wrap up this year and be in Texas for the summer. I do plan on being back next year. I will be home for a wedding and to raise support. If you know of someone or a group that would like to hear about what God is doing here in person, I'd love to come tell about it in person when I'm back. I am at about 88% monthly funding and am hoping to work towards 100% this summer. Thank you for being involved on many levels with what is going on at Faith Academy. We couldn't do it without those who support us!