Here I Am!

Thai me up!

God has already done amazing things in two days. There is so much to tell you, but I will keep it short. I am writing this from an internet cafe three doors down from our apartment. Our apartment is four stories high with a roof that overlooks the city. It is so cute! The downside is that there is no air conditioning, and it is hot hot hot!! The intense heat awoke myself and the two girl (Danette & Rachel) with whom I share a room at 1 a.m. This, however, provided us the opportunity to eat ritz crackers and laugh and tell stories by flashlight. We finally crashed again around 3 a.m. We are so jet-lagged!!
The toilets are interesting to figure out, and I must confess, I miss American bathroooms. I won't go into the gory details, but let's just say, the toilets don't exactly flush in our house... :)

One story I must share! On the ten hour airplane flight from San Francisco into Japan Danette and I sat next to a Japanese student who was studying English in San Diego. Before the plane even took off, the Lord gave us the opportunity to share the gospel with this student. We asked him who he thought God was, and he admitted he had no concept. After sharing about the Bible, God and Jesus, salvation, Heaven and Hell, we asked him what he thought. He was amazed- no one had ever shared this with him before. And it made sense to him. Pray for him and that he will get a Bible in Japanese and find a church so that he may learn about
Jesus and join us in Heaven.

In the two days we have been here, I have already experienced so much.
I am now fluent in Thai. Or, I wish I was. There are five tones, each which changes the meaning of one single word. I can say "thank you,"(kop khun kha) "hello & goodbye"(sa wat dee kha) "excuse me/sorry" (katouet kha) and I can order my favorite dishes, which so far are gow payt guy (chicken fried rice), qweuy tuow (noodles & meatballs) and gow payt guung (shrimp fried rice.) and the cafe yen ban (blended mocha coffees) are up there with starbucks! I have eaten with chopsticks, shopped in the market, learned basic Thai money (31 baht per $) and showered in a room (yes, the showers are not separate from the bathrooms. It's all one big room - as Scott, our supervisor said, "the idea is to get the whole room as wet as possible.)

Today the Thai students gave us all nicknames. Mine is Ying Lek, which means "little girl." It's the most literal translation they could find for my real name which is "virtuous maiden." So now I can say "chan choo ying lek kha." and also "sookong"- which means shopping. Obviously the most important word! ;-)

Well I love you guys and will update whenever I can. Keep praying for us and for our students. I give you the "wai" and say "sa wat dee kha!!"

*flush a toilet in my honor* :)