Mexican food!

During the past 6 months I've gotten to know some really great people at my school. We've done all sorts of things together, and since school is ending we wanted to celebrate togther one more time before we all went to do other things. Soooo, we planned a Mexican fiesta! The guests included Phimjai, Jutatip, Jack (Jutatip's husband), Bruce, Ping, Becky, John, Lancy, Sarah, and I. Once again we had so much food that Ping and Bruce made us bring bags of it home. It was so good! The fellowship was also really great. We've developed and improvised version of spoons, where the loser each round has to do the Thai chicken dance. It's great. I'm so glad for the relationships we've formed here and I looked forward to see them develop in the future.

Cambodia!

Wow! Talk about going to a different country. Nothing (not even Bruce's description of the country) could fully prepare me for all that I experienced there. Even though Thailand is a developing world country, it is still one of the richest SE Asian countries and has many of the same freedoms that I enjoy as an American.

When we landed in Phenom Penh the first thing I literally said looking out he window was "where the heck are we?" There weren't any buildings I saw over 8-10 stories high, compared with our skyscrapers that go on for what seems like ever.

I just gave Sarah a knowing look and was like, "well all right, adventure here we come." And an adventure this trip was. The key goal was to get a new visa which took two days, Friday and Monday. All the time in between was just one thing after another.


Instead of giving you a day by day journal, I'll just point out the places, history and people that were significant. We were given instructions by our volunteer coordinator to find a tuk-tuk driver by the name of Sophat aka "Camel" and he would take us wherever we needed to go. He was incredibly nice and super awesome. He literally did take us everywhere. After we finished at the Thai Embassy Camel took us to a Cambodia arts and handicrafts store called Tabitha House where we could buy silks and souvenirs made by land-mine victims and needy women and mothers.

Then we also got our first dose of recent Cambodian history specifically relating to the Khmer Rouge. We visited the S.21 prison as well as the Killing Fields. Gruesome and sobering, but it was extremely interesting and educational. Even though I saw everything there, I realized that I will never fully comprehend what it's like for them to live and grow up there.

The other people we visited there were Jeanette and Naomi who are doing mission work there with their husbands. It was great to tour around, go to markets and get to know them better, and I am pretty positive that wherever Jeanette goes in Cambodia, she's known by everyone.


When we left there, I felt like I had learned a lot, and happy to be exposed to another culture and mission field. Here's our pictures from the trip.

Mission Skype

Thanks to the wonderful internet telephone service Skype, I was able to participate in the first ever Misson Skype at my alma mater.

It was really great to see many of my professors! I even gave an impromptu shout out to Dr. B! Even though it was nearly 1am and I was leaving that day on my visa run to Cambodia after going to school, I am really thankful for the opportunity I had to talk about missions here in Thailand!

School, Work, and Valentines!

There is something great about feeling like you had a full day where you accomplished a lot of important stuff. Today is one of those days for me. School was great. We learned about bananas. No, I'm not kidding. In module 5 we get a new story everyday and today was about different types of bananas and how they are grown. The great part is that every other word was gluay(banana) so I felt really smart reading fast ;D

Then Sarah and I made a trip to the office where Dang and I discussed planning for this summer and the 3-4 short-term/PLI teams we have coming to serve. When we got home I spent the afternoon and evening emailing people about that, and making arrangements for MissionSkype that Concordia is hosting next week.

To top the whole day off, I got 2 homemade Valentine's in the mail. One from my parents which said that I was "Generous and Thoughtful" on the front, and on the inside it said that they must be such great parents! They make me smile sometimes! Then my Valentine from Sarah Lee in Deutschland had a Valentine story complete with stamps, a castle, a frog and a prince! Ich hab dich ganz viel lieb auch! Thanks guys!

Sigh, ok well, time to do my Thai homework! Later!

Pepsi and other things...

I have been meaning to write about several things that I encounter on a daily basis, but always forget when it comes time to write a new post, so here it is (at least as much as I can remember).


In the Thai language there are only 8 sounds that can be heard at the end of a word: m, n, ng, w, y, and then p, t, and k. P, t, and k however, aren't actually sounded out, so you have to stop the sound before it's spoken. I know that sounds weird but it's hard to explain. Anyway, so this tends to be a problem for Thai people who try to say my name. Because they haven't ever learned to end a syllable with a hard t sound they can't say Bet in Betsy. The closest they usually get is Bessie, or most popular Pepsi. Even when I'm being introduced to new people they usually have to hear my name several times and then a light dawns and they say, "ohhhh, like Pepsi!!!" One day one of the teachers from school even started giving some of the other girls and another teacher other cola names. So now we have Pepsi, Pepsi Max, Sprite Zero, etc. It's quite fun. Tomorrow, I start a new module and I'll have this teacher, so we'll see if she just calls me Pepsi or tries to say Betsy instead!

Moving on to other things. During Chinese New Year we discovered just how many Chinese or Chinese-Thai people there are in Thailand, because anyone of Chinese background closed up shop for an entire week to celebrate with their families and communities, including our favorite THAI garage kitchen where we eat lunch everyday after school.

Ok, while everyone in the upper-northern hemisphere of the world have been uncomfortably chilled/buried under several feet of snow or several inches of ice/living in sub-zero temperatures, the weather in Thailand actually cooled off quite significantly. It went down to at least the upper 60's at night, low 80's during the day. So while for the foreigners(farang as the Thai say it) were finally comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt or at least put on a light sweater or wrap, the Thai were walking around in winter coats and layers! It was crazy. Everyday in class the teachers would talk about how cold it was and how sick people were getting because of the cold weather. I'm pretty sure when Sarah, Beka, Stephanie and I showed up at the pool to go swimming one day the people had to have though we lost our mind.

Which brings me to my next odds-and-ends. Here in Thailand it's people with light skin are considered to be the most beautiful of all, which is opposite from Americans who like to be sun-tanned. Well, here people walk around with umbrella's all the time or they wear hats and long sleeves even when it's boiling hot out because they don't want their skin to get darker. There are all sorts of products and advertisements for skin whitening creams and treatments you can undergo at these beauty salons. I can't even find a decent face wash that doesn't have a whitener in it. So, when we show up at the pool during the day, Sarah and I are usually the only people in it because no Thai people will go in it when the sun is out.

Ok, that's all I can think of for now, hope you enjoyed!