Mark in Chiang Mai December 2010
Showing Love to the Angkor Wat Kids Since March 2007 groups from Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and Thailand have been working with kids that live near and around Siem Reap, Cambodia, trying to bless these children with a future. This past December groups from Singapore, Thailand, and Japan joined together in Siem Reap again to work with these children. With Robert Reagan our intern team took the twenty-four-hour bus trip from Chiang Mai to Siem Reap and arrived just in time to eat dinner and rest before the others arrived the next day. When the other groups arrived, we hit the ground running. Outside of town we surveyed two schools where we would be teaching English for two days of our trip. The kids were very excited to see our group pull up, and while the leaders of the group talked to the administrators of the school, the rest of us enjoyed playing around with the kids. It was great to see their smiling faces and experience their free spirits. After a worthwhile day at the schools, our entire
group had a multi-national devotional time. The next two days we spent teaching English at two different schools near Siem Reap. My group taught the birth of Jesus story with a picture book. In the afternoons at the schools we had games for the kids to play.
Time for Fun - After Prooan and I rode the ferris wheel for his first time.
One of the games requiring the kids to grab with their teeth a marshmallow from a flourfilled pan was hilarious. Flour was flying everywhere and everyone was having loads of fun. The school kids really enjoyed learning, eating, and playing with our group. On our last day in Siem Reap we visited the ancient temples, including Angkor Wat. This is where many kids sell items for tourists, and in past years the groups that came spent most of their time blessing these children which is what our group did. Our group really enjoyed just spending time with these children on the last day. The children knew the best places to take pictures and the cool places to go in the temples. Also these kids were extremely excited to have us there to hang out with them. The kids knew that when we arrived, we were not there to buy things, but to hangout with them. It was a blessing to our group as well as each of the kids to just relax and have fun together. This trip made a lasting impact on each of us.
Holiday Season Thai Style
Christmas Tree - Kara, Amanda, Hilary, and I after decorating the tree.
Prayer Requests • • • •
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Pray for strength for the interns as we start a new year and are dealing with some homesickness. Pray for my Chinese classmate Woot that he’ll feel more comfortable around the Zone. Thank God for all of my Chinese classmates. Pray that He will use me to shine His light to them. Pray for my English student Da as he has started coming to church. Pray that he makes connections at church and God will open his heart. Thank God for this opportunity to serve here in Thailand
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For me, this is the first time in my life that I did not spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family. It was hard for all of the American interns to be away from family, but we shared the holidays together with our new friends. For Thanksgiving Robert Reagan’s family invited us to their house to join the famlies on the Phayao missions team and the other families on the Chiang Mai team. We ate delicious turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce and so many other “thanksgiving” type foods, enjoyed playing games and finished the day thanking God for all the blessings in each of our lives. I am blessed to be a part of this family in Thailand. Christmas was a little different for the interns though. Since we all knew that Christmas would not be the same in Thailand no matter what, we decided to take a vacation with one of our friends to his home town for a few days around Christmas. It is a nice bonus that his family lives in a beach town in south Thailand. We were able to have fun together on the beach in Pattaya, Thailand, for Christmas. As an intern team along with P’Berm, we were able to relax and just have a good time with one another. As the holidays come to a close and we start back to school, we are thankful for our families in America and we also thank God for the blessings he has given each one of us during our five months in Thailand.
Stay.ca.tion at the Zone
Since the Chinese students in my Thai class could not go home for the school holiday we decided to have a day where they could come to the Zone to cook and relax together. On Tuesday after school let out about forty students arrived at the Zone around 9:30. Some students began preparing food while the others played games. The food took a little longer to cook than expected so we took those who were not cooking up to our third floor large open space. We played many fun interactive games which made everyone extra hungry. We all played several games we know from America and then they taught us a crazy Chinese game that was very exciting. When lunch time came we had plenty of food for everyone to eat and get seconds. It was amazing how the students just jumped in the kitchen and cooked so much food from their home country. In the afternoon some of the students prepared over 800 Chinese dumplings and
some others ran around taking pictures for a picture scavenger hunt. There was some down time after that where we all watched music videos and played cards. All of our activities were great for forming closer relationships with the Chinese students. Dinner came around 6:00 with more dumplings than we could possibly eat, even though they were delicious especially for the hardworking cooks. Everyone enjoyed eating and simply being with each other all day.
We ended the day watching the movie “Elf ” together. It was a very long, but fun day for all of the students. I know many of them are starting to feel more comfortable around the Zone. We pray that God will open doors of opportunity for each of my classmates to find God while here in Thailand and that they can take their beliefs back to their hometowns in China when they return next year. Please pray that the forty-three students learn more than just Thai this year.
Circle Up - The group at Stay.ca.tion joins together in a few new games to pass the time while lunch was cooked.