PRAY FOR BURMA!!!

For the second day in a row and against the orders from the military government, over 100,000 people marched on the streets of Rangoon today in Burma. The militia have been warning the crowds stating they have the right to use any force necessary, which brings up memories of 3000 people being slaughtered by the army in 1988.

The crowds were led by 30,000 monks, who were crying, "Democracy, democracy," and "May we be free of torture, may there be peace in hearts and minds as our kindness spreads around the world." The elder monks are being threatened to keep their "charges" in line or face stiff consequences.

Please be praying as this country is facing rebellion which could end up in a huge loss of lives. Pray that God's presence would be known there!!

Homemade bread and movies...

It's amazing what brings back that "homey" feeling: tonight my roommate, Jessica, made homemade white bread. It smelled the entire house up with the luscious and lovely yeasty smell. Oh it was wonderful! It is like driving past the Mrs. Baird's Bread factory on the trip from Fort Worth to Waco...good memories of many family trips!! We are all eating homemade bread toasty warm with melted butter on it and drinking hot milk tea (a Thai thing) and watching A Good Year. It is so wonderful being with friends, now more like family, hanging out, just being.

Some updates: Jessica and I are looking at buying a car together, which would be about $750 each. It would help out a lot with us being able to get around whenever we need to. It would end the long trips on public transportation to the grocery store coming home with huge buckets full of stuff and getting laughed at by the Thais who pretty much are humored by our very existence since we stick out so drastically. We could go downtown whenever we want instead of having to be there in the early afternoon so we can actually get a ride there. It would make a huge difference in our lives. But, I didn't raise the extra funds for that...so I'm putting the word out...if you feel led to give, the address and info is on the main blog page. I would greatly appreciate it, and am trusting God to provide. All my leaders here feel it's a good thing, and have a lot of peace about it as do Jessica and I.

I cannot believe that September is almost over...seems like I've been here forever and that my world could never be the same regardless of where I live, but then there are times that feel like I've only been here a second or two. I am taking Thai as part of my school schedule and have three classes a week with a lovely teacher, Kruu Dtum. She laughs at Jessica and I quite a bit, but enjoys our learning styles (I hope). I can now say "Sawatdii Kaa," "Sabaaydiima kaa," "Khopkhun kaa," and the responses. Basically, I can say hi, how are you, good, i'm good, thanks, see you later! I am learning my numbers too. It's really funny when you try to speak to a Thai person, the guy at the post office told me, "Oh you speak so clearly for a ferong. Good job...you speak thai well." I felt so proud of myself, but it is like a little kid that learns to say words, everyone gets excited and encourages them. That is what is happening with me.

This past week was busy. Every night we, the volunteers, had an engagement. Tuesday night - had dinner at the Haynes house - homemade roasted chicken, potatoes, carrots, and a sweet pumpkin roll. Wednesday night - the Penningtons picked us up and we went to a German restaurant, and I had Cordon Bleu, mashed potatoes, and salad (amazing)! Thursday night - the Fish's invited us over for meatloaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and sweet tea and IT ROCKED MY WORLD!!! Then Friday night was Mexican dinner night with the Tubbs. Kay, the owner of Kay's Burritto Casa (as you can see in the picture below) had been to Chiang Mai to get the needed stuff to make margaritas and they were delicious!! It was a wonderful night to finish off a wonderful week!!! Then Jessica and I, in addition to the Fox and Fransiscus families all ate at Hamburger #1 tonight for dinner - a lovely cheeseburger and french fries to end the week with...ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!!

Love you all...check out the prayer requests that I added to my blog...if you want to know how to pray for me!!

1/2 day of school today...

Today, we had 1/2 of day of school and you'll never guess why...

Yes, as you can see in the photo, that was our school parking lot! It was solid water from the street to the school (a distance of a block)! Students, staff and parents waded through almost knee high water at the street to about ankle deep by the school. After wading to the school, I heard that the water had small snakes (as some staff and students chased them around) in it and leeches (at least I now know what they look like)...HOW FUN, huh??

It rained from about 1:00am and continued to rain throughout chapel, when we had to turn off the electricity so no one was electrocuted. I went to my classroom and the air conditioner and most of the electric boxes were all completely submerged. As a result, we had to take 1/2 a day off of school. I know that I've never had school canceled for excessive rain and no electricity!!

This water continues from the street all the way to the school building (a distance of about a block or more) as you see here in the picture. Crazy, huh?

Only in Thailand...

It's been a month...

So as of today, it's been a month since I arrived in Chiang Rai, Thailand. And I celebrated the day by going to church, eating grilled cheese made in my new sandwich maker, exercising, and then playing my drum at worship for international church. For dinner I had another grilled cheese sandwich (because I am getting pretty good and don't have other food in the house), and hung out with friends. I am about to go read THE CANTERBURY TALES and then going to bed after a cold shower!

Blessings on you!
Me

Weekend Part Deux...the rest of the story...

And so imagine it's Saturday afternoon, and you just left the gardens of Mae Fae Luang after having a most wonderful time with my housemates and volunteer friends.

Next all of us traveled in the back of the truck to an Akah village not too far from Chiang Rai (about 10 minutes). As we arrived in the village, all of the children were gathered with the pastor of the village to learn songs for the next day's performance at church. First, we dropped off our bags in the bamboo hut, which would be our lodging for the night. There were three mosquito nets set up with two bed-pads in each with a blanket. Quickly, we picked our net-fellows, and went to dinner.

One of the main pastors of the Christian Akah villages and his wife hosted us for a most delicious dinner of greens and pork, roasted pork loin, rice, fresh cut vegetables, and some spicy sauce for the rice and pork. It was incredible. We ate out on a bamboo hut with a roof and no walls. It was a beautiful setting even though we got there after dark.

After dinner, we went to the kids' practice, and watched for awhile. Once they finished practicing, we got to play some games with them. It is crazy how the language barrier doesn't allow for duck-duck-goose or other what we think are common games. Damaris, a housemate, taught how to play a game called cat and mouse where there are four rows of five kids. Two kids are "it": a cat and a mouse. The cat has to chase the mouse through the rows of kids, and they hold hands. The mouse can say turn and the rows switch hands from vertical to horizontal whenever the mouse says, "Turn." Needless to say, there were lots of laughs. They even wanted the adults to play, which caused more laughs! (Check out the picasa web site at the bottom for all the pictures of the village too).

When games were over, we handed out apples to the kids, and went to bed. More specifically, we all changed into our pajamas and tried to go to sleep. I didn't sleep more than an hour, because I was dreaming of all kinds of gnarley bugs biting me and burrowing into my skin, causing me to toss and turn. In addition, around midnight, the roosters apparently got confused and started cockadoodling, which they continued to do until around six in the morning. So not much sleep...

In the morning, we got dressed and went to the village church (started at 7am), where everything was in Thai or Akah, so we sat and listened for words that sounded familiar. After not having sleep, most of us fought to stay awake. It was a beautiful service. I attempted to sing a hymn in Thai, and sang along to a few in English. Immediately following church, our hosts again made us a wonderful meal of rice, eggs baked omelet style with cilantro and spices, pork and greens, and the same spicy sauce. Every meal, I thank God that He is helping me not to get tired of rice!

After dinner, we packed up and went home, arriving around ten am. I quickly took a shower and went to sleep, waking up around 1:00pm in a foul mood as a result of the ridiculous heat...I was a ball of sweat and in need of another shower. The rest of the day, we all kind of hung around the house doing school work, blogging, hanging out, then at night, walked to the market like every night to get dinner. I had som tam (a salad made of cucumber, chilis, peanuts, green beans, and sugar) and two chicken fingers on a stick.

It is funny how you have this ideal in your head of what you won't do...for me it was being in Thailand - I wouldn't have thought a year ago I would be here and most likely would've laughed if you suggested it. Now, I am. When I got here, I thought going without air conditioning would be impossible, and now I live with a fan near me. I also thought all mattresses should be pillowtop, and now I sleep comfortably on one that is quite hard. When I stayed in the Akah village, I slept on a mat in a bamboo house, and thought I could never do that permanently. Then I woke up and saw the mountains around, and thought, "It wouldn't be that bad to wake up to that every morning!" It's funny how things change and sometimes so quickly...

For sweet pictures from my housemate Jessica, check out her picasa site. She will keep loading pictures, so if there is something I don't have, I'll note for you to check it out there!

blessings and all my love...
niqua bonaenae

PICASA SITE FOR PICTURES: http://picasaweb.google.com/jessica.pott

It's the weekend again, and it came and went!!

If you only get the emails, again this time - CHECK OUT THE BLOG!! GOT PICTURES!!!

I want to introduce you to Nappy-Do aka Rasta. She is our neighborhood dog that Jessica and I loosely adopted - she doesn't live with us and we don't feed her unless we see her coming back from the market. We talk to her as we walk through our neighborhood and she follows us around! I wish the picture did her hair justice...it is so Tina Turner!! She's precious!!

It's been a while since blogging, but this first week of school was a serious readjustment into using my brain again. It took me a bit to get started again after having such a long vacation and moving to a new country. But the week went by and it was smooth, outside of totally changing the way I used to teach in order to meet the needs of these kids. Keep me in your prayers as I adjust...

Here's my week in a nut shell:
Monday - first day of school, awesome, came home exhausted, bed @ 9pm.
Tuesday - second day, awesome again, came home, got a hair cut as you can see in the picture (check it out)...you cannot see the back which is way more layered than I have ever had it before and only for $4.
Wednesday - third day, after school, went to youth group and spoke about how the Lord is romancing all of us and if we just sit still, He will be better to us than we could ever experience anywhere else, got encouraging words from the kids after...thank you God!!
Thursday - fourth day, came home, and then babysat some friends' kids
Friday - fifth day, made it through the first week, and came home, changed into pajamas, watched a movie with my housemates, and ordered pizza delivery!!! yes, it comes all the way out to my house! We were all so excited!

Then Saturday...here comes the adventure...my principal, Ruth, picked all four of us here, and two other volunteers (me, Damaris, Sheila, Cece, Danielle, and Jessica), and we headed out to some of the oldest chedis (temple statues), but not before we took a U-turn in the road to take a picture of a water buffalo (like the ones in the Veggie Tales songs). In the picture on the left, the chedi is a shrine where they put relics of either Buddha or a local monk's ashes in the top for people to worship. Buddhism, as I am learning, includes tolerance for all religions, including animism, a fear of not appeasing the ancestors and spirits. As we drove through this area with the chedis, people honked randomly to let the spirits know they were there, so the spirits don't get scared.

In the center picture, you can see the wall of the city, which is so old that trees of significant height have grown out of the wall, as you can see! That wall in the picture is older than America!!

Another chedi we saw is on the right. If you look closely, you can see me, which shows you how tall the chedi is. We also saw Buddhas everywhere we went as you can tell from the pictures and they were all huge and golden and shiny, but so empty. It broke my heart to have people so tied to a religion that is empty without grace or redemption and no personal relationship or love. Pray for this country and its wonderful people!!

This picture in the middle is of Buddha floating on a beautiful boat that is probably two stories high with shiny glass mosaic put together with steel. The pictures never do the actual thing justice, sorry about that! Maybe if you click on them, they'll get bigger and you can see it better. The river behind it is the Mekong River, which is at its highest level right now. The Mekong River is what meets the Golden Triangle, where Burma, Thailand and Laos meet all in a triangle, as in the picture to the left and down. The pointy part is Burma, the green at the bottom is Thailand, and the green on the left is Laos. Behind the mountains is China - 5 hours away by driving (just fyi!). While we were standing there taking pictures, these kids dressed up in costumes (Akah and other tribes styled) came up and asked in a sing-songy voice, "Take picture, two kids, 5 baht, okay?" Since they wouldn't leave us alone, Ruth, my principal, said in Thai, "You take picture, two ferongs (white people), 10 baht, okay?" Then they walked away, after laughing at her.

Then we ate lunch at a Thai buffet, which was beautiful and delicious.

We hopped back into the truck and drove to the Mae Fah Luang Gardens, which are the gardens of the Queen Mother. Here are some beautiful flowers...indescribably beautiful. I have never seen so many flowers and so exquisite each one. The Lord is surely a creative God!





That is me with a waterfall, which was in the gardens too! Right after we took pictures with it, they turned it off, so we just made it!!





This plant just below is a carnivorous plant that catches bees and other pollen-carrying insects in it's cute little pouch, and uses them for their nutrients! For something so cute, it is pretty vicious!!

This tree on the right looked special enough to be included because when I saw it, I thought it should be in a Dr. Seuss book. Isn't amazing??

The picture on the left is the Queen's gardens which is the last thing you see before you leave. They are perfectly manicured and absolutely incredible.

While taking pictures there, we met new friends, who are from Thailand and wanted pictures with us. The one girl jumped into our picture and we all laughed and had a blast! Another girl took a picture with Danielle, saying, "Same hair, same skin, I take picture with you?" It was awesome!

As you can see, I am still at home among the mountains! My housemates don't think the picture is good unless I am laughing, and it doesn't take much to get me going.

So, the last picture is a bit sentimental, because my sweet roommate and very close friend, Danielle, leaves this week to go back to America. We all are very close, but since Jessica got here and moved into her bedroom, Danielle has been sharing a room with me. We have shared memories, cried and prayed together, and have formed a lifelong friendship. She will truly be missed. Pray with us, that she comes back (at least for a visit!)

Saturday night, we all spent the night in an Akha village, but my camera died and I couldn't take any more pictures, so I will leave you for now, and tell that story later this week! Honestly I think even with all the beautiful flowers and with all the history that we learned and sights that we saw, the best part of this weekend was getting to hang out in the back of a truck with some of the most amazing women I have ever met - all single and willing to leave their homes and families in various countries because God said GO!! Plus, we had lots of adventures where we would literally fall into the middle of the floor of the truck so we didn't fall out, as we sped hoppingly along at 120 kmh (pretty darn fast). At one point, we were holding onto the bars and barely sitting down in between bumps, trying to hold on, but hysterically laughing as Danielle and Jessica landed on each other on the floorbed of the truck. It was almost more than we could handle, but amazing nonetheless!!

I am honestly overwhelmed at each new experience that the Lord deemed me worthy to do this...travel to Thailand alone, and teach in a Christian school. It is amazing! The time I have been here feels like forever, but seems like just a few moments. I so look forward to ALL the future holds whether it is here or in the States...I am confident of this...there is one thing that I seek: to dwell in the House of the Lord forever and to gaze on His beauty. For me, Thailand is it.

And now to Beowulf and British lit...love and fried bananas!!

It's the WEEK-END!!

So, in the words of my sweet friend, Paul, "It's the WEEK-END!!"

This morning I awoke having slept wonderfully on my new mattress pad, which I recently bought at Big C. It does make the bed at least a bit more comfortable. Since in two days school starts and in a week and a half, Danielle leaves to go home, we decided to hang out for the day: Danielle, Jessica, and I. The three of us decided to go to this place on the river and take an hour ride by small gondola-like boat to a small village of Karen, Akah, Yao, and Lahu tribes to ride elephants.

This is Jessica, who just came in from South Carolina on Wednesday, and Danielle. That's the two of them sitting in the gondola boat at the beginning of the trip.

On the one hour trip up to the town, we saw some of the most beautiful scenery...so many different colors of green, trees and plants that I've never before seen, bugs that looked more like animals (couldn't get their pictures because they were too fast and my camera was too slow), and as you can see from the pictures - so much more!!All along the river, we saw small villages with open air grass huts where people lived and worked. Then a few kilometers further down were nice houses with gates and barbed wire. All of them living right on the water...and then the village with all the elephants!!

We all three loaded up on our own elephant and headed out of town. Jessica first, then Danielle, then me bringing up the rear. As we rode, the elephants would stop and eat leaves, break small trees and attempt to carry them along, and climb seemingly steep hills only to come back down and scare all of us, thinking we were going to fall off, as you can see in the picture to the right.

In the picture in the center are rice fields and mountains in the background. The things we saw were amazingly beautiful...I saw a new side of God's creativity and absolute beauty. The pictures, though done well, do not fully enable you to see how beautiful and lush and unique the landscape was. It was a gift.

The picture on the right was what we saw coming around a corner: a remote village Thai gang - teenage boys and younger walking around the elephant paths each carrying a machete. As we went by, they all smiled at us...even the one kid with the largest machete and a shirt that read, "Don't worry, be happy!" He was sending some mixed signals...

All in all, we had an incredible time on the ride...as you can see from the photos, we are still smiling at the end of the ride.

Once we finished the ride, we walked around the shops of all handmade crafts and bought gifts, necklaces, etc. We ate lunch (fried rice and veggies), drank Coca-Colas and water. While at the restaurant, I got to use the squatty-potty for the first time and managed to do it alright without peeing on myself or my pants...if you haven't done it before, I would imagine it's something like peeing in the woods while camping!!

As we got close to the boat, these guys asked if we wanted to take a picture with their boa constrictor, as if you know me at all, you know how scared I am of snakes, so I took pictures of the other girls with them. I wasn't about to have a snake that could easily kill me wrapped around me for fun!!
And that was the day!! We had such an incredible time and the photos are beautiful, but the memories will last forever!!
If any of you come to visit, we'll do this together! If not, you can experience it vicariously through the photos!

I sure do love you all and miss you!!

P.S. The last picture is of me on the elephant. Yes, I am talking on the cell phone. You cannot stop life from happening when riding elephants. It is a bit ridiculous!! I know...the guides laughed when the phone rang and then when they saw me talking, laughed again. Ah well, we made memories...the guys now have memories too of the Americans who rode elephants and talked on the phone!!