Stickywrites

Yep, that’s what MTW Thailand is!  Tim Mills is a very talented artist and graphic designer, and has updated and bee-yoo-ti-fied our team’s website.  Check it out. It’s amazing: www.mtwthailand.org

It’s been an eventful July & August. We shared some time here in Bangkok with Bethany, about 2 weeks, before one of our supporting churches, Park Cities Pres, came to Thailand for a trip. Bethany and her friend Anne, as well as Andrew & I, joined in the group’s plans to go to Vientiane, Laos, and then Nong Khai, Thailand. We also had a day in Chiang Mai and a half day in Bangkok for tourism and rest tacked on to the end of the trip. In Lao and NK, we mainly visited high schools or primary schools, where we taught English, entertained, and gave testimonies and performances for a couple of hours. Andrew and I gave our testimonies in Thai for the first time!  Although we had shared with people before one-on-one, never had we stood before a large group of people and presented our testimonies!

Here’s Andrew at one of the schools….the kids are truly captivated by foreigners who can speak Thai.

We also led a soccer camp in Vientiane for 9-13 yr old boys who played much better than all 3 of us (since Andrew, Beth and I were “coaches.”)

People here pretty much start playing soccer in the womb, so they are pretty incredible players even at a young age.

There were 3 musicians on the trip, so they performed a couple of different places, like churches, the medical clinic and the City Hall in NK where we hosted a concert. Here is a shot of the musicians on stage performing at the River of Life Concert. Here is our family shot from the concert, where the Church staff bought us all matching “staff” shirts, also known as the Queen of Thailand’s trademark sky-blue color.

This little guy made an appearance at a restaurant in Nong Khai. They are called Tuk Gaes. They make a frog/bird like chirping, hiccuping noise at night when they find a good place to echo their sound off a wall. Oftentimes at night I hear a TukGae crying in the garden next to our townhouse.  I’ve always wanted to see one!

We loved getting to meet some new people from our home church on this trip and it was great to be able to share the people that we love in Nong Khai so much with people from home. A colliding of worlds! We did get to spend one half day in Bangkok with the team, doing some touristy things – like going to a temple: Wat Pho (home of the reclining Buddha)

and the Erawan Shrine, which ‘blesses’ the huge shopping mall you can see behind it.  Most homes, shopping malls, and buildings in general have these spirit houses, which Thais believe guard and protect the buildings from spirits.  People will usually set out fruit and vegetables in the mornings as their offerings to the spirit house.

Notice people making offerings of coconut, burning incense, and bowing to the Buddha here.

In Chiang Mai we were able to go to an elephant camp!! While it was amazing to see what they have trained elephants to do (play soccer, paint masterpiece paintings, bow/curtsy, swing their trunks, etc) it was also kind of sad to see how they discipline them and keep them in captivity their whole lives so they can train them to perform for tourists.

This is the process of painting

…and here are the final products from the 6 elephants.

Artists!!

We visited an umbrella-making factory, which Chiang Mai is famous for, and also saw a traditional Thai dance performance. Bethany and I at our best.

We really enjoyed having Bethany & Anne here and they were so much fun to be around and a huge encouragement. We miss you!!

Nows the time to bring up Hello Kitty. Check out the following link: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/Feature_Stories/ODD_Hello_Kitty_Cops.html

Talk about the “picture of cute”. It does not matter what age you are in Thailand, but Hello Kitty, stuffed animals, and cartoon-branded products are not just for children. Here, it appears that it is an ageless brand since most of my students, who are over 30 yrs old and college-aged people LOVE Hello Kitty paraphenalia. Just about all the women I know have a Hello Kitty purse, cell phone dangley, cell phone case, T-shirt, or accessory. This is such a different place than the U.S, where kids shy away from anything “childish” (such as cartoons or cutesy things) by the age of 10, am I right? HK here is stylish, a mark of trendiness. Or so it seems!