Two Repeats

For those of you that have tracked my blog for 3 years, these will just be reminders. Yet they are so picturesque of Thailand that I must share them with you again!

I went strollin around King's Park today in the abnormally cool weather and spotted a monitor lizard in the water. Yes, we have these lizards chillin' at the nearby park. Isn't that awesome? (The photo wasn't taken by me because I didn't have my camera. I borrowed it from another internet site.)
Do you see the bumper sticker on this car? This story was told to me two different times, and its so interesting, I relay it on to you. So, the story goes...the owner of this car had some bad mishap like a car accident. So, he went to the Buddhist temple and asked the monk why he was having such bad luck with his car. The monk asked him what color it was. The guy said his car was blue. The monk responded, "well, that explains it, RED is your lucky color! Go buy a red car." The guy doesn't want to buy a red car so he just buys a red bumper sticker that says, "This car is red." He thinks the bumper sticker will give him good luck. (Thank you, Jane, for the picture!)

Foreign yet the Same

I have never taken a philosophy class, partly because it wasn't needed for my major and partly because I had no particular interest. Yet as I study the Buddhist religion in my language class this month, I feel that I am in a philosophy class. I am trying to get my mind to step into another world of thought that has existed since about the time Jesus came to Earth.

God provided me with such a wonderful conversation a couple days ago. A new friend and I talked about religion together. I was able to use a lot of my new vocabulary to ask him questions about Buddhism and his way of thinking. He in turn, very curiously, asked me about Christianity. Amazingly enough, we understood each other most the time while speaking in Thai.

Please pray the Lord helps me to understand this Thai worldview in such a way as to speak his truth into it. Though Jesus may be a foreign idea to these people, He will bring such hope and light into their lives! We are all still people with the same needs--needs to be loved and rescued from our efforts to reach righteousness on our own. Thank you for your prayers.

Church Retreat!

Wow, what an amazing retreat. Really, I think this was my favorite one yet! The theme of the retreat was, "Love God's Word, Love God's World." We learned about how to approach the Bible as well as how to be active Christians in our society. There's a lot of pics below, with praises to go with each.

If you haven't heard yet, there's some huge flooding problems in rural Thailand. We stopped on the way to the retreat center to help prepare emergency packages for the flood victims.

Our gang of 70 or so people at the church retreat! What an amazing bunch of people. God grew the relationships amongst the church members and established great connections among the visitors. Praise God!
The bus ride to and from included techno Thai music as well as Lady Gaga. The thing to do is stand in the back of the bus and dance. I embraced the culture and did just that--making some good friends in the process. We must remember--be all things to all people in order to win some. :) And who wouldn't want to dance on a bus while it passed rice fields and palm trees?
Melanie and Katie as karaoke stars singing Bohemian Rhapsody. I think we left the small audience in shock but we had fun.
Another amazing answer to prayer--this whole group of fun, karaoke-singing, stylish college guys came! Praise God for how he is showing them who he is.
One small bit of the awesome waterfall we visited. I am pictured with Jane, who I am so glad was able to come to the retreat. Pray God continues showing his love in her life. (This would also be where my toe jammed a rock and hurt itself.)
And for you history buffs like myself, here is the Bridge over the River Kwae--a subject of a movie and numerous books. WW2 prisoners of the Japanese were forced to build this bridge resulting in many deaths as well. The book I read however, also discusses how amazingly God worked in the prisoner camp.

Clumsy and Beautiful

Thai people have a funny idiom about how only beautiful people are clumsy. Well, today, my pain in the toe shows you what they have to say about me. (Heehee!)

While playing in the waterfall yesterday, I jammed it pretty good on a rock. It's the middle toe on my right foot. It's turning pretty shades of pink and purple right now. Please pray for quick healing and no complications. May I have wisdom to know how to care for it. Thanks for your prayers!

(Yes, I have broken the big toe and little toe on the same foot before, so I have some previous experience with this pain and recovery process.)

Besides this mishap, the church retreat was awesome! Pictures and stories will be coming soon.

Upcoming Church Retreat!

Please pray for our upcoming church retreat! We have about 70 people leaving tomorrow through Monday. We will be headed to Kanchanaburi, which is a more mountainous area East of Bangkok.

Of the group going, we have church members, church visitors, believers, and non-believers. Please pray God works to grow his Kingdom through this retreat!

My New Black Hair!

It all started when one of my former Thai language teachers said, "Melanie, you're Thai people already. All you need to do is change your hair color." Then I talked to my friend, Leah, on Skype about it and she sent me the hairdye. Now, as you see, the experiment has begun.

Here's the question you ask: "Melanie, why have you dyed your hair black?"
Answer: Many reasons really....
1. Fun
2. An experiment on if I'll get less stares if I don't look so different.
3. Hudson Taylor: My favorite biography and also the first missionary to change his appearance to mimic the people he was ministering to. He was also the first white person most of China had seen, so it was very helpful to shave his head except the top part, dye it black, and braid it.

Either way, its temporary. Reactions start tomorrow--when I go to language school and then Saturday-Monday at our church's retreat!

First Class Down

Today marks the end of my first module back at language school. Wow, that went fast. None of the folks in my class will be able to continue studying, so I sent up a prayer for classmates. The Lord answered that prayer within the day. (Yet again, I was surprised by his response, though I shouldn't be. He is after all, in all, over all, and through all.) The school's allowed me to jump ahead to the Buddhist religion module which will allow me to study with two other American missionaries.

This next module is supposedly a lot harder with bigger vocabulary and longer stories though. It's like skipping a grade level. So, please pray the Lord helps me along as I start Friday. The module will last 20 days. I wonder if there's another hidden reason God wants me to learn the info in this module sooner than usual. I am looking forward to understanding the national religion better. Thanks for your prayers.

Dog on the Bus

At one bus stop on the way to language school, a dog got on our bus too! The bus fare-collector tried to get him off but he wouldn't budge. Guess what they did? They just let the dog stay on the bus! He rode with me the whole 45 minutes I was there and I got off before him! What a funny spectacle. It reminds me of a quote from "You've Got Mail."

"Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today, I saw one. It got on at 42nd, and off at 59th, where, I assume it was going to Bloomingdales to buy a hat that will turn out to be a mistake - as almost all hats are."
-Kathleen Kelly, You've Got Mail

The Powder Game

Our team played a great game tonight during our goodbye party for two of our interns. Really, the great part of the game was what happens when you lose. When you lose, the person beside you has to put powder all over your face and hair! Of course I lost and now I am a big cloud of white powder! Time for a shower! But doesn't that sound like fun?

The Buddhist Amulets

My homework is often used as a medium for God's glory to be shown to people. Yes, that is a weird sentence, but it is true and I am grateful. Through my microfinance homework in the USA, I met my Thai friends who helped me with my language as well as provided good opportunities to talk about the Gospel together. Now here I am with my Thai homework...
Last week, one story was about the Buddhist amulet necklaces. Most Buddhist wear a necklace around their neck with either a picture of Buddha or another monk on it. The amulet gives them power of some sort or another. I'm still growing in my understanding. My homework that night was to ask questions about the necklaces and Buddhism to Thai people (to help me in my Thai). I went to Mahathai and asked Noke for help (the middle woman pictured above). She replied that the Buddhist necklace is the same as we Christians wearing cross necklaces. So often, I receive this reply, "Oh, this thing we do as Buddhists is just like that thing you do as Christians." It's not the same! My friend Kieow stepped in to help explain that we don't believe the cross has any powers by hanging it around our neck. We believe God is in our heart--She explained it something like that.

Please pray for all of us to be clear in our presentations of the Gospel as we introduce Jesus to Thai people. I see so many confusions with those that have any experience with Christianity (which are few). Please pray God grows me in my understanding and ability to explain what I believe to Thai people.

Sweet Som-O

Last week, Som-O took my hand and walked around Mahathai with me as I said hello to people before our weekly prayer meeting. Som-O then told me she couldn't make it to the prayer meeting this week. So, I knelt down and asked her how I could pray for her. My conversations with Som-O have been some of my most dear conversations while in Thailand. She shares straight from her heart with me. As always, she asks for prayer for her parents, their arguing, her father's gambling habit, and alcoholism. So, right there by the road, we pray together. With my hand on her shoulder, I ask God to be her Father, protector, and show her his great power.

As we finish, her friend Mai walks over curious at what we're doing. Som-o explains to her that we're praying. I ask her if we can pray for her too. Som-O lets her know the kinds of things we can pray for. Mai shares that she'd like to pray for her grandmother to stop smoking and drinking. So, the three of us together pray again for Mai. Afterwards, Som-O shares her struggles that she hasn't seen God answer our prayers for her father. I remind her that God has brought her mother to church regularly now. We can trust him that in time, our other prayers will be answered in some way as well. Please pray God works in these girls' hearts and they become amazing Christian women.

Tang and Mote's Wedding

My favorite part of the wedding--the parade taking the groom to the bride's house.
What a Thai wedding looks like.
Beautiful Thai style fancy outfits.
All the girls who live in our house.
Yu and I
Tang and Pramote grinning at each other at the reception.
Our group as wedding singers singing a silly song at their reception.

Class Pictures

Our language class went on a field trip to see a spirit house after reading about them in class. You can see the ornate shrine behind our class in this picture. The owners of the mall constructed this spirit house to house guardian spirits. If they offer food, drinks, incense, and flowers to the spirit, it will keep their mall blessed and without harm. My classmates are shown here with me.
Here's my cute teacher. She keeps the class fun and interesting.
While on our field trip, we took some cute pics around the mall. This one is funny, I think.

A Sweet Gesture

Today as I walked downtown Bangkok towards where I was meeting my fellow missionary women for lunch, a truck passed me. The guy in the passenger seat stuck his head out the window and blew me a kiss! :)

Cross Tattoo

The Japanese girl in my language class has a cross tattoo on her ankle. I asked her if it meant she was a Christian. She responded with, "Oh, I just picked out the design because it was pretty." She didn't really know what it meant. The cross is just another fashion symbol here now. So strange....

It's a good time to discuss our faiths in class as we study the Buddhist faith this week. I'm thankful to be learning more about it and this culture, but it also saddens me to hear what they hope in.

My homework tonight is to write (in Thai) about my faith. My Japanese classmate wasn't sure what to write about because she said she didn't believe in anything. Pray God works in the hearts of all of us in the class as we study together. We take a field trip to a spirit house tomorrow.

Terrors from Down Under

I may have boasted about not having but one food poisoning instance last time I was here. Therefore, in the last 5 weeks of being here, I've had some stomach issues twice already! In the middle of the night I was woken up with pain. I barely made it to the wedding this afternoon because of my health. I have, amazingly and praise God, improved a lot and am feeling much better. I'm not at 100% yet. I'm not sure if I'm eating rotten foods or its a virus? So, along with the other happy and contemplative blog posts, I add this one.

Please pray for my health. Pray my stomach strengthens again and I have no more bouts of stomach issues. Thank you.

Tang and Pramot's Wedding!

Two of our Thai staff are getting married tomorrow! Tang used to be my housemate, and I have worked with them both even before they graduated Bible college. Please be praying the Lord is glorified in their union! It's our first church wedding, so its especially exciting. I'm a wedding singer, along with a lot of people together!

Here are their very special, all-done-up, Thai wedding photos before the wedding. We're all dressing up Thai style for this. So excited!

Buffaloes and Reincarnated Cats

I surprised you, huh? Yep, I'm a former writing teacher, I know how to get your attention! But the title is true! I have stories about both!

On my way out of our neighborhood today and on to language school, our bus passed 7 water buffaloes!! They were just chewing on the tall grass. That made my day. I just thanked God for letting me see them. They remind me of the countryside and rice fields which are not so present here in Bangkok.

My Thai language teacher is Buddhist--presently celebrating the 10-day Chinese Vegetarian Holiday. Over the next rest of this month, we're studying the Buddhist religion and history. Today, we somehow started talking about eating dogs and cats. Thai people would eat dogs, but not cats. They believe cats were little boy monks in their former life. So, they don't eat cats for that reason! And definitely not black cats, because they also think they are bad luck.

The Life of a Thai Laborer

This story especially struck me with its harsh reality, as I read it in language school today. You may hear it read in Thai by following this link.

My Doodle Illustration of the Story (sorry for the blurryness)

It's 5am already and Mr. Sang gets out of bed. His wife, Wannah, is preparing rice while his children, Den and Dang, are still sleeping. Dang is three and Den is four years old. Den should be in school already but Mr. Sang is unable to think of a way to register him because they don't have a permanent residence.

Mr. Sang used to be a rice farmer in the Northeast of Thailand before the drought. He and his wife moved to Bangkok four years ago to find better work, and now work construction. They live at the construction sites while they work on the buildings. The daily wage of $6 each covers their daily expenses unless a child gets sick and someone has to stay home from work.

Mr. Sang heard about an accident that happened at the site last week. Many workers fell from a platform hanging from the 9th floor and died. Mr. Sang feels uneasy because he uses a similar platform everyday for his work. What if he was to fall and die? How would his family be cared for?

Mr. Sang begins to smell the salted fish cooking. He thinks of his children. They are so skinny. His wife discusses this issue with him often. They can't provide enough food for them. Mr. Sang would like to have more money. So, he buys lottery tickets, hoping to one day win and provide for his family.*

*Translated by me.

I'm thankful that studying at this school not only grows my knowledge for the Thai language, but also the culture and people. My first course's mid-term test is tomorrow morning.

Stuck in a Door

Have you ever felt invisible? Well, surprisingly, I have never felt this feeling in Thailand before an incident today. Usually I am well stared at for my different color skin, eyes, hair.

Today I wasn't seen though. While getting on a bus heading home, I got up the first step before the bus started moving. Then, the door started to close on me. I got stuck between "in" and "out". My Thai language wasn't readily on my lips to know how to say, "I'm stuck in the door, sir!" Thankfully, another lady by the door screamed that the door was stuck on somebody and I was released! Once in, I said to everyone, "No problem. I'm not hurt." The people were very sweet by acting like nothing happened and not looking at me (a common cultural way to handle mishaps). As I got off the bus, the driver looked at me to check if I was okay. I smiled and joked with him by saying, "Okay, be careful, I'm getting off the bus now." I got a few special honks as they drove away and a smile to say sorry. :)

A Typical Day?

I remember asking that question to missionaries...and now I get asked this question myself....what does a normal day look like?

Days are unpredictable here. If you try to plan them, it will only make you frustrated. Today has been an unusually full day:

6-8AM travel
8AM-12PM language school
12PM-2PM travel
2PM-5PM help put flooring in at a house in Mahathai (help translate too)
5PM-9PM birthday party for English student
9PM do homework!
10PM BED hopefully

Who knows what each day holds, but God does promise to give us our Daily Bread. I often wish he'd let me know more than just what today holds, but he promises one day at a time. I'm thankful for the relationship-building I was able to do today and that God was seen by those people in me.

Mid-Term test in language school on Wednesday. Please pray!

Visiting Isaiah and an Elderly Lady

To be seen as different by the world, we must act different! We were challenged by the book of Isaiah in the Bible, chapter 1 this morning at Sunday School. God says he can't accept the people's sacrifice because he sees people's blood on their hands. This "blood" doesn't only mean they killed people...it means they oppressed those who needed defended, they befriended thieves, and they neglected widows and orphans. How are we looking different? How can we be different-looking to the world? Are we acting like God's people?

After church, we went out in groups to visit the community. My group went to Mahathai, where one teammate, Pat, and I ended up at an elderly woman's home. She seemed so lonely. She started sharing her story with us--full of heartache, poverty, and confusion. Pat shared with her the story of the woman Jesus met at the well. He encouraged her of God's great love for us. It was good for me to sit with her, and at times hard, yet a good reminder of how I must listen to those in need and embody Jesus in my life. Please pray for this woman to know Jesus.

Umbrella Service

As usual, right when I walked outside today, the rain clouds gathered. (That sentence sounds like a Charlie Brown cartoon.) I headed to the grocery store anyway without an umbrella because I was too lazy to turn back around. I bought what I needed, and once I reached the checkout line, the rain started pouring down! I thought to myself--well, it's either wait in this store for an hour or get wet...neither too exciting of an idea because it was a hard rain. As I walked outside, I saw five security officers for the grocery store escorting customers to their cars with huge umbrellas. One guy escorted a party of three to their car because his umbrella was THAT big! I told him I needed to call a taxi. ( Usually I use the two-bench trucks, but it was too far to walk in the rain.) A security guy pulled on a poncho, got a flashlight, a bike, and biked off to call me a taxi! As I stood there, I just smiled at the sweet service of the Thai people. Wouldn't that be nice at Wal-Mart when its raining?

This week, I have seen so many similar images of the servant's heart of Thai people. This one motorcylist slipped on his motorcycle near my house. Two others stopped and helped him get back up! A blind man got on our bus the other day, and a man helped him find a seat and then helped him get off at his stop. Such sweet people. I need to appreciate their hearts and be willing to ask for help more often from them.

Fried Alive

New food story of the week--going to have to make this a new tradition. :)

A man biked over to where I was sitting with my friend at Mahathai, selling itty-bitty shrimp he was pulling behind him in his cart. My friend, Won, bought a bag full as it started to pour down rain. We ran into her house. I sat at the stool beside her as she prepared what she said would be fried shrimp. Won washed the itsy-bitsy shrimp and put them in a bowl. Then she added flour and some ground-up chili pepper and such. While mixing it together, the shrimp were still jumping around in the flour mix! After that, they went straight in the frying pan and came out looking kinda like a funnel cake full of teeny-weeny shrimps. Now that's the freshest shrimp I've ever eaten!

Rating: 5 Stars

And More Photos...

Here I am listening hard at our team's planning retreat since we are usually speaking in Thai. Surrounding me are a few of our Thai staff, Pawn, Kieow, and Chai.
I found a picture of Katie to include. Katie got here last week and will be serving with us nine months. She is an answer to prayer as a provision for our English school. We needed another teacher to keep the school going! She is also a friend of our future teammates, Trey, Kiki, and Lisa. Praise God for the many harvesters he is raising up in Jackson, Mississippi! Please pray Katie's transition here goes smoothly.