more "firsts"

So these past couple weeks I got to be on campus for my first time since being a student. My first day we actually got to share the gospel with a chinese girl, and then my second day we got to share the gospel with a japanese girl!!!!

we got to meet a lot of students that our staff have been trying to reach for a long time. My friends Jessica, who has been working with Bridges for the past 3 years is training me and showing me the ropes. She said that we don't normally get to see that many people. Most of the time students don't seem to be home very much. So I have been very blessed to have so many people I got to meet my first week. It's been cool how many people I already got to meet.

Tonight we are doing a Christmas outreach and we have students from all over coming with us to a church that has an outdoor christmas play thing. Then we are hanging out with them afterwards to see what they thought of it, and also just have fun and get to know each other better. There's a lot of work to be done to set it all up, but this is the last major even before our confernce over New Year's.

Please be praying for me as I am helping plan the hang-out time for the conference, and have some other small jobs, so please pray I would be able to get everything done that I need to.
Thanks!!!!

Speaking Thai!!!!

As the past few weeks have been pretty busy, I have wanted to put so much on here, but I really haven't had much time.

If you don't know already, I have finished raising my support!!!!! God has been so incredibly faithful, and I am so overjoyed!

It is really hard to believe I am here right now. Here being my friend's Heidi and Gordon's house in Lansing. Last week was my first week on campus. I got to shadow some of the others here on campus with Bridges, and kind of live "a day in the life" but really it was a week.. anyway, so last week we got into conversations with a Chinese girl and a Japanese girl about the gospel, and it was really cool. My friend Jess said it is really uncommon to find people at home, but almost everyone we visited were home. (or in their dorm rooms I mean)

I finished out the week feeling pretty good, not too overwhelmed and excited for getting on campus, except that this week is planning week, so we aren't really on campus that much, we are just planning for next semester.

Although today was a bit special. I found out where some Thai girls live, and I went and knocked on their door. I got to meet 4 girls who were estatic about knowing a foreigner that speaks Thai!!! their eyes were pretty much bugging out of their heads when they realized I could speak Thai pretty well, so next week we will be going out to eat some Thai food together and get to hang out a little! I am way excited!!!!!

That's all for now, but hopefully I will have more time to write tomorrow.

baby face

So what do I do a lot during the day? well, when I am not working on support stuff, I am helping my cousins out and watching their three kids while my cousin is getting treatments at the doctor's. What is my favorite part of the day you may ask?

Well I get a small amount of time when kids are playing together or taking a short nap or something, that I get to hang out with the newest member of their family, gabriel. Gabe and I get to talk for a little bit, I make laughing, noises and baby type coos and he coos back. It's lots of fun seeing him try to talk and make noise for the first time.

I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have any pictures, but trust me when I say he is way cute!!!

rain

So the other day I was walking and listening to a sermon via podcast, and I had been going through a lot of stuff, and was really just pouring myself out to the Lord.

As I was listening to the sermon and walking, just as the pastor starting explaining something and talking about the rain, I felt raindrops. and the sky didn't even look that cloudy! It was like God was saying he just wanted to make sure I knew he was there. right there. all the way.

wordle for last post

sorry if you are having trouble viewing my blog- it's probably because of the wordles, but I really enjoy them

here's a wordle for my last post!

Missing Thailand

Down town Chiang Rai

Today I was reminiscing to a friend about "the Italian restaurant." This restaurant was in downtown Chiang Rai. we went there relatively often, at least once or twice a monthbut then again, it was one of about 3 restaurants of American type food that was available to us. They had this absolutely amazing lasagne, but I think most things tere were pretty good ( although some of the specials were pretty special if you know what I mean :-)- well maybe you don't- but once one of the girls got the special and it was completely raw ( and I don't think it was supposed to be like that or that was not what she was expecting at all) and so she asked if they could microwave it for her. the waitress gave an interesting look, but wanting to please the foreigner, took the food back, and later brought it back the same was it had arrived- still raw. my friend asked again- can you just microwave it- the waitress sheepishly replied I think only the bar has that. again my friend getting frustrated, asked if the waitress could just bring the dish to the bar then and have the bartender microwave it. again strange look.... well then after a few more waiters and lots more confused looks- we figured out the thai staff of this italian restuarant had NO CLUE what it meant to "microwave" it. most thai people do NOT own a microwave, let alone use them on a regular basis. so once we figured that out, life was a little easier, but fun story....

Anyway, after reminiscing about the italian restaurant, I was remined of the other restaurant in town that had decent american breakfasts ( well there were a couple- but one we frequented more often at the beginning of the year). mind you we all ate american breakfasts in our houses, but it was fun to go out and breakfast was a pretty safe bet, and even though it was a little extra, it was nice to get out of the norm every once and a while, and the weekends or on days off, it was especially nice just to have someone else make eggs and "sausage" and bring you coffee or something. It was just such a fun little experience. Actually it was probably kind of close to being in europe, since the place is really set up for european tourists that visit this small norther city.

I am so thankful that I was able to have those experiences of european style breakfasts, with fun miscommunications, and friends that you make, because they recognize you as the same foreigners who come once a week or so for a year! as we ended the year,there was even this little coffee shop Doi Chaang, you might have even seen me where my shirt sporting their logo, but this little place became our stomping grounds. we didn't have air conditioning, and during the very hot days of hot season ( up to 110 degrees- or hotter even inside our house b/c of the sun), but during hot season we would go there during our free time to get out of the heat. they had food, coffee, cocoa, wireless internet, air conditioning, and cushy seats... what more could you want? so needless to say, the staff there got to know us pretty well. They knew what we were going to order even! when we told them goodbye, they we sweet and gave us free t-shirts to remember them by. I just miss all the fun times we had there, and I miss the little things like that. I often find myself longing to hang out at coffee houses still, and I do many times, but none are quite like the service and variety( of food and drinks etc..) that doi chaang had.

This thermometer was in my room and reads 90F I am sure I took a picture of it when it said 120F one day, but I can't find so 90F in my room( not including humidty) will have to do for now :-)

( here is a website that is more thai- looking to me- not so official- but more of the dai chaang stylehttp://phuketdir.com/coffeedoichaang/)

Wordle

Ok, so here's the deal with this cool picture/artwork thingy recently a friend of mine introduced me to this website, called Wordle. you can create your own just by pasting a page of text and the thing will generate what words are used most and pull it out of there. I think it's a lot of fun!

If this is your first time visiting my blog- or maybe it's been a while, I have been trying to update my blog more often, so some posts are more serious, some are lighter.... if you scroll down the page, you will find some stuff God has been teaching me lately! :-)