Goodbye from Mexico

Okay, everyone, I'm leaving Mexico tomorrow. Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouragement while I've been down here. I'll see some of you tomorrow! Bye!

Just a Quick Note from Thailand

Not so much time to write, but I thought I'd write a quick update just to say I'm still so alive and well and things are great around here! In about an hour, I'm going with about 10 other interns (from Payap and the other church) to the border with Burma to get renewed visas! Yay! Please pray that our trip goes well without too many adventures!!
Okay so a few things that have been going on in the past week or so...

• I have now had several students in more than one class, and this past week I've had three very fun (but I'm not sure how educational : P) classes. All were totally unplanned beforehand, with extra people (people not signed up for that class)...One of them I taught with Casey, and the story is way too long to tell now, but it was interesting discussion, to say the least! And in the other two, I pretty much just had them tell stories, draw pictures, and have fun!
• A couple more fun questions/comments from people:
  Is your arm hair naturally blonde, or do you make it like that? (this person went on to tell me that she liked my arm hair...hmmmm)
  Are you afraid of getting fat? Several people have said this, and I'm not sure exactly what it means....I think I just won't ask!
• The first time I've ever heard someone decline playing leapfrog for religious reasons--Tum was wearing a Buddha icon around his neck and didn't want to disrespect that.
• Having an eight-year-old crazily energetic girl from church try to teach me colors and other random Thai words!
  
• My friend View decided to go jogging with me on Saturday...she speaks like 10 word of English and I speak like 5 words of Thai...it was an interesting experience, but pretty fun!
• I went to go see Harry Potter 5 last Wednesday! Yay! I had fun, but it was such a weird feeling after it was over--leaving the magical world of Hogwarts and realizing that I'm still in Thailand!
  
• Yesterday we went rafting on bamboo rafts! Fun, but a bit scary...I went on a raft with Bank, May, and Mark...and we crashed so many times, Bank's hand got bruised and really swollen, May was terrified the whole time because she can't swim, Mark got pulled under the water at one point, I saw the hugest centipede imaginable and had a lovely big spider crawling on me, and Bank's cell phone and camera died...but we all survived and had a good time!! : D
• Last Thursday we made Mexican food for cell group and some of the Thai people were complaining that our hot sauce was too spicy!!!
• Last night, after everyone left, we had to clean up a whole bunch of food and junk that people had just left in the kitchen...and then we were cleaning out the fridges...and then Casey and I were about to throw out the chocolate "icing" we had made earlier (it turned out to be pretty nasty because we didn't have powdered sugar), but instead of throwing it away we had a chocolate icing fight, making a huge mess, filling the building with the aroma of chocolate, and having a super good time!

Well, I think that's the highlights...maybe...I hope you all have a great week! Please keep praying for all of us and our friends! Especially pray for students who haven't really built relationships with people besides interns yet...pray that they can be friends with the Thai Christians and keep coming around even when we're all gone!

The wheels on the bus go round and round (in Mexico, I don´t know anything about buses in Thailand)

Wow, the time has really flown by! I have learned so much more Spanish than I would have thought possible, and still have huge amounts left to learn. I´m in the mood for a light hearted blog, so here are some random interesting things that have happened in or around buses during our trip:

• Carissa pushed a man off of a bus because he was bothering us (every time we tell this story people look at us with new respect)
• We took the wrong bus once and a nice lady helped us—I´m convinced she was sent by God. She let us get of the bus with her and told us which bus to take, grabbed her kids from kindergarten and waited with us until the bus came. She even told a fellow passenger to help us get off at the right spot. We thanked her a lot and I hugged her goodbye.
• We took the wrong bus a different time and then had to wait 20 minutes for the next bus
• We took the right bus and still had to wait 20 minutes
• We tried to take the bus from the wrong spot
• We tried to take the bus from the right spot and had to wait 20 minutes, only to find out that the 300 bus route no longer exists
• The bus throws us completely into the air when we got over bumps sometimes
• I frequently get pushed into other seats while I´m trying to walk, hence many bruises on my legs (Carissa´s not as clumsy)
• Not actually a bus, but once we rode home from church with 12 people and a parrot
• Then later we rode from a different church to a park with 18 people in a different minivan
• Waiting for buses + wet streets = occasionally getting splashed with street water
• I met two girls from North Carolina and had a long conversation with them
• We didn´t know which bus to take or where to get off and we asked people and they helped us (this happens a lot)
• We didn´t know which bus to take or where to get off and we asked people and they didn´t help us (this also happens sometimes)
• We tried a new bus route to school today and liked it.

Okay, that´s all pretty boring, but I promise I´m write more substantial stuff later. I love you all!

Marcella

Marissa is Learning New Things...Every Day!

So three more weeks have flown past without any blogging by me...Sorry again, y'all!!!
A lot has happened, and I am so in love with this place, and it's so crazy to think that I'm leaving in three weeks!
Okay so this is not going to be very well organized, but here I go...

Some recent activities:

• English Camp a couple of weeks ago for our English students--It went really well! We got to know several people better because of it, had a ton of fun and bonding time with people, and some people possibly learned some English!
• New commitment to going out to jog in the mornings...yes, I'm confessing that I haven't been very good about that until the past two weeks! But it's actually been pretty cool--I usually see several people I know and get to say hey.
• Marvin, the Australian apprentice, left for Germany to spend time with his grandparents for a month...so I won't see him again before I leave! Sad!
• Last week (Thursday), a group from Boerne, Texas came and they'll be here until Tuesday...so this past week has been especially crazy and filled with activity!
• On Saturday we went to a really cool waterfall...The rocks are not slippery at all, so you can walk up and down easily! It's a strange feeling, walking on a surface covered by rushing water, but so so so neat!
• Thailand Fourth of July party! We had a party with tons of people from both Christian zones and the Boerne group...I ate one hotdog, but I must admit that I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the papaya salad that I went and ate later!
• I learned how to write my name in Thai! Yay!

Some really cool firsts:

• First experiences with live Thai music! Several of the guys that hang out around here are in a band, and last Monday I went with them to their practice. And had tons of fun! It was pretty loud, but sounded great. And then on Friday night we went to hear them perform at Freshy Camp for law majors. In addition to learning a bit more about Thai music, it has been great to get to know these guys a bit better. They're good at English and love spending time around here, playing guitar, chilling, and asking questions...so they've gotten to be pretty good friends with us and come to cell group and other activities!
• First Fried Thai Bugs!!! Yay! On Friday I ate a fried bamboo worm and something that looked like a wasp...They weren't the greatest ever, but I didn't die!
• First Student to come twice! Wednesday was a very special day for me because, for the first time since I've been here, I had a student come for a second time. Her name is Nan, a hotel & tourism major in her third year, and apparently I haven't scared her off yet! I've had about 14 students total, but they are all either really busy, shy, or forgetful...so they aren't very consistent about coming to English class...It's been good to have time in the afternoons to just be downstairs and hang out with whoever comes around, but it's also nice to know that I have at least one person who will come!
• First visit inside a Buddhist temple (wat). On Saturday I joined the Texas group for orientation, which included going to look at different temples. So my group went inside the oldest temple in Chiang Mai (Wat Chang Man). It was an interesting experience, to say the least--going into a place of worship as a tourist, with a couple of Buddhist students as guides...walking in there with them and seeing them go and bow down and pray to a gold statue of Buddha...I wonder what goes through their minds when they join us for the first time in our worship...
• First time to watch a movie (well, part of a movie) totally NOT in English. One night several of the Thai kids decided to watch The Classic, a Korean movie, dubbed in Thai...
  Since there wasn't anyone else around, I watched about half an hour of it with them...even though I didn't know exactly what was going on, it was pretty funny to watch and guess!

Great questions I've been asked:

• Are you half Thai?
  My name sounds really similar to a Thai name, so I've started introducing myself with that name. So people always comment on the fact that I have a Thai name, and one girl looked very puzzled and asked me if I'm half Thai! And I laughed....
• Why are you so big?
  This guy named Bob was shocked when he found out that I'm only 18, so he asked me why I'm so "big"...and then speculated that it's all the hamburgers in America...
  It's so funny to have people think that I'm older here! Definitely not what I'm used to...
• Are you slim?
  I honestly have no idea what my friend Nok meant by that one, but it made me laugh a whole lot!!
• Why are you white?
  Uhmmm...because of DNA?!?

Interesting conversations and interactions:

• One of the new girls around here, Wiew, came with her friend Dome...they're both pharmacy majors, studying English with Mark. Wiew is really shy, but Mark discovered that she and I are exactly the same age--same day, same year! There have been a couple of times when I have gotten up and been on my way either to jog around campus or to go get breakfast and then ran into Wiew, waiting by her dorm for Dome to come and walk with her to class. Those times have been pretty cool random opportunities to wait with her for a while and try to talk (with the little English that she knows and a tiny tiny bit of Thai)!
• Speaking of people I see when I go out jogging, one time this week I saw two of our new friends, Bank and May, while I was out getting sweaty and gross. I hadn't really talked to them much, but it turned out that later on (that day or the next), Casey and I hung out with them for a long time at the milk shop, and they really enjoyed talking with her! It's really cool to see that even though I did't have much to say to Bank, he connected with Casey really well (they're both crazy and love to laugh! : D)
• People are a bit more straightforward about some things here. For example, I have been told things like "I like your skin color," "I like your hair better this way than that way," "You look fat," and "You're cute" by people that I barely know. It seems kinda weird at times, but I'm getting used to it!
• Sunday night, Walking Street (huge once-a-week market):
  I was walking around with Pun when we were suddenly greeted enthusiastically by five giggling university students (from another college, not Payap) who needed to interview an English-speaking foreigner for a class. So I got interviewed a couple of times, with a whole lot of laughing and asking them to repeat so many questions! Well then we decided that, since they needed one more person, we could go find someone else from our group for them...well....we walked...and walked...and talked and laughed some more...and walked...and then finally we found Adam, so they interviewed him, told him he is handsome and smart, and said good bye...
• Conversations with Ball (pronounced Bon): He is the crazy funny guitar player in the band, and occasionally he starts asking questions and talking so much! His English is pretty good, and he works a lot to improve it (possibly to impress his girlfriend, who is from Australia)...anyway...we have had conversations about difficult English words to pronounce, his family history, how to say "not funny" in Thai (which inevitably makes people laugh when I try to say it), and hair. That's right, we had a long conversation about how we care for our hair, how often we get it cut, etc...this guy has shoulder length hair, styled in layers once a month! Crazy kid!
• Today I explained (or tried to explain) the difference between "every day" and "everyday" to some Thai people...I don't know why I even tried! : P
• I've been so blessed by getting to know the Christians here, and hearing their stories. Every Thursday at cell group we have people share their testimonies with us, which has been so so so amazing! It's also been wonderful to have Casey and Erika around! I've learned so much from them and definitely enjoyed friendship with them!

Prayer Requests:

• All of these new people!!! For the really new ones to build closer relationships with everyone...and for the people who have been around for a while to be more interested in learning about God! We always have a lot of visitors in cell group, some Sunday morning, and one kid even came to a prayer time we had last Wednesday! Also, there are several girls going through "the red book" (a Bible study for people learning about Christianity) with some of the Thai Christians!
• Pun, a very sweet Christian girl, is having a very stressful time right now. Her mother just found out she has cancer and wants Pun to quit school to go take care of her as she goes through treatment.
• For all of us to stay motivated, not get worn out or distracted!

Thank you all so much for your prayers and encouragement!

God bless the rains down in Mexico

Greetings, friends and family! I hope you all know how much I love you and appreciate your prayers. I´m sorry I haven´t blogged more (but at least I´ve blogged more than Marissa... haha). Anyway, nothing desperately exciting has happened in the last week, but I´ll try to make something boring sound interesting for your benefit.
This week, Carissa and I started ¨normal¨ language classes. Previously we´d had one on one tutors because we came in the middle of a term, but now we´re in classes with other students--5 in my class (although my level has another section), and two other people in Carissa´s class. I´ve really enjoyed being with other students so far! When I was the only one, I felt discouraged sometimes because I felt like I wasn´t learning as much as I should, but now that I have other students to compare myself to (I know that sounds bad!) I realize that we´re all human and that I´m actually doing really well in my studies! The work is also a little less, since before we were trying to go as fast as possible, so it´s nice.
The title of this blog refers to what´s happening outside right now! Thunder and lightning just started as well, so I might have to cut this entry short if the internet cafe people decide to not risk injury to their equipment by blackouts, which happen sometimes. This is the rainy season in Guadalajara, and although it´s beautiful, I have gottten wet a couple of times so far.
Okay, so here´s a nice Spanish word for you: guera. It means (sort of) white girl, and it´s what people holler at me when I´m walking in the streets. While I was walking over here today, I heard guera twice and guerita once. I´m definitely more popular here in Mexico than I am in the US! Oh well!
So please continue to pray for me! Pray that I´m able to continually learn more Spanish, and pray for my relationships with the Mexican people here in the church. Pray that God shows us ways to reach out to people and serve him! I hope you all are having a great summer, and I really do appreciate and love you!

Marcella is pretty smart for a gringa

Okay, I'm fully shamed now by Marissa's stellar blog. Shame on me! First of all, I love you, everyone! All my wonderful friends and family, I hope you're having a great summer! Email me sometime!
Carissa and I are doing language school down here. The school we go to is called Harvest, and I'm just about to complete level 3, so next week I'll be able to start level four with their regular classes. So far we've been in individual one-on-one classes, but we'll join other students next week. I'm really learning a lot of Spanish, and being able to use it quite a bit! Every time I feel like I'm doing well, though, I realize how much I still lack. But I am able to have conversations with people and generally get around.
We spend a lot of time with the family we live with. One of the sisters works in her pharmacy all day, so we don't see as much of her, but we eat and talk a lot with the other sisters and their children, especially their daughters. Yuli is 13 years old, and a good friend of the Schroeder twins, so we're having a lot of fun getting to know them, hanging out with them, and trying to be an encouragement to them. Since I'm a missionary kid, too, I feel like part of how God might want to use me down here is as an encouragement to the parents that they made the right decision, and to the kids, that what makes them different is a blessing, not a curse.
Chadd has encouraged Carissa and I to look for ways to serve and be used by God, so one of the ways we've found is to offer to babysit at any time for any reason for any of the missionary families here. They all have wonderful (but tiring) kids, and since we're only here for a short time, we feel like helping them is something worthwhile for us to do. All the missionaries here are such godly people--it's really a blessing to be able to get to know them and hear their stories!
This Friday we don't have language classes, and instead we're going to help Carola Garcia, a Mexican missionary, with her kindergarten class. Getting to know Mexican kids is fun, but challenging! They accept our butchered Spanish more easily, but tend to be difficult to understand, since half the time they themselves can't pronounce words correctly! The little girl we live with, Sarahi, counts: uno, dos, tes, cuato, cinco, sies, siete, ocho, nieve... and instead of veinte says vente. She's pretty cute, but sometimes hard to understand. I call her my amiguita, so now she calls me her amigota. What is it with friends named Sarah and fat jokes?!
Anyway, I'm having a wonderful time down here. We get comments when we walk around the neighborhood, but not too many, and we're well taken care of by everyone.
The only food I've eaten down here that I wasn't thrilled about was, ironically, a shrimp cocktail. I'm sorry, they look like worms! But I ate them anyway (with crackers over them so I couldn't see them) and they actually tasted fine as long as I didn't look at them or think about them.
Okay, so please pray for us! Pray that God reveals how God want to use us here, and that we find ways to serve the church and the missionaries. Pray that our language learning goes well, and that we make good friends here. Pray for our health! We've both been a little sick off and on. We're in a big city, so pray for our safety. Praise God for the good experiences we've had here so far, and pray that God continues to use us!
I love you all!

Marissa would prefer not to eat chicken blood, thank you!

Okay, so I'm really not good at blogging...very sorry, everyone!
I have now been in Chiang Mai for 2.5ish weeks and I am still loving it!

So here's the kinda general weekly schedule for me, just so you know:
Sunday morning: church at 9:00 (ish) right up the stairs from where we sleep. It's all in Thai, but a lot of it is translated, and for the sermon we get these cool little earpiece headphone thingies (that's the technical word, of course!) that let us hear a person translating into English without having the whole church have to listen to the translation...if that makes sense...
So then we split into classes for men and women, and sometimes that's translated, sometimes not, but it's always fun. I love the ladies' class! And supposedly Casey and I are supposed to teach it on July first (so I'm pretty sure that day class will be in English!)
Monday is our sabbath day. Nothing planned officially. Lots of fun!
Tuesday through Friday:
In the morning we have equipping time (devo, Bible study, discussion of spiritual disciplines, etc...) and then at lunch we wander off down the street to eat lunch on the campus of Payap University...And that's where I get to have two solid hours of feeling ridiculously awkward and confused (but in a good way, of course!) From 12ish to 2ish we eat lunch and then go around and either meet new people and advertise free English class or talk to friends that we already know...
3 to 6 we are available for English lessons (but we don't necessarily have class that whole time--just when people schedule it with us)
On Thursdays from 6 to 8 we have dinner and cell group, which is super fun...
and on most nights we go over to the "milk shop" next door, owned by the church secretary, and we hang out, drink yummy stuff (milkshakes, coffee, tea, whatever...) and have lots of fun...
And the weekends have various things scheduled...

Ok so that's the general schedule. Now (if you're still reading) I'll tell you some of the highlights of the past couple of weeks!
Last weekend we went to a small village a couple hours away (up in the mountains--Beautiful!) where we did an English camp for students at a school (about 12ish years old) and then did service projects (some of us with people from the church there, some of us helping paint at the school)...
Then on Tuesday morning we went repelling together (team bonding!) at a place called Crazy Horse. So of course that was incredibly fun!
Every Sunday night there's a huge market called Walking Street, where there are sooooo soooo many people all up and down this long street. So we've been to that a couple of times, but I haven't bought anything because it is sooooo overwhelming! (But fun!)
On our first Monday a couple of us went up a nature trail to an old old Buddhist temple, which was pretty interesting and had a gorgeous view.
We went on a scavenger hunt on Friday night (Friday Night Live, with the people from the other church)...We went around trying to get pictures of things like a cat, a dog, a white person, a tiger, a funny T-shirt, a Thai toilet sign, a sentence of words from different signs, a person in the group standing between a couple, a "We love Hip Hop" sticker, and so many more...My group didn't get too many pictures, but we definitely had a good time!
Today (Monday!) we went to a waterfall. I decided not to swim so I was just going to hang out nearby and enjoy the beautiful day (it wasn't too hot...) When we got there, there was another group of people there enjoying themselves (in a way that's a little different from things I usually do, if you know what I mean!) Only one of them was "wasted" -- the others were just a bit tipsy! So a couple of them (a guy and a girl) sat beside me and we had some interesting conversation: me with my tiny tiny bit of Thai, them with their tiny bit of English and tipsiness. To make a long story short, today I had the unique experience of getting asked out by a drunk Thai man who told me I had a cute smile. So I laughed and said no; he asked if we could be friends, and I was like "sure..." and then decided it was time to walk around for a bit! Then he tried to ask Casey out too, but she also blew him off. Sad day for our tipsy Thai friend!
(one of the apprentices did talk to all of them for a while though, and they said they would call him about learning English, and they told us to come visit their steak place some time...so...who knows!)

Ok, so some of the really cool things about living here:

• The church group is really close, really friendly, hangs out alllll the time, super fun, and reminds me of the Minter college group in a lot of ways. (awww I miss them!)
• It's a beautiful place, so many cool things to see!
• The food is delicious! I ate a huge plate of Pad Thai tonight...yummy!
• People are really laid back, really fun, really willing to help you try to pronounce all the super difficult words.
• We spend so much time in prayer and spiritual formation.
• Hearing the stories of all the Thai Christians who have sacrificed so much in coming to Christ from Buddhist backgrounds--their faith is so encouraging!
• I love all the interns and apprentices, and it's been so much fun getting to know all of them.
• Things are cheaper compared with prices in America. My amazing dinner cost under one US dollar...
• No one thinks I'm crazy for having a greenish tint in my hair! The people who have noticed think it's cool and were confused when I told them that I wanted it gone (but it is going away gradually, don't worry).
• The milk shop. Yum Yum Yum.

And some challenges/things that aren't as cool:

• The language is super difficult. Five tones, and if you use the wrong one you may be saying something completely different! Example: I was meeting girls at lunch one day, going around and trying to repeat all their names. They kept laughing at me when I said this one girl's name, and only later did I find out that I had been calling her the sound that Thai dogs make. Oooops!
• It's hot. Sweaty. Gross. (But we have air conditioning and fans, so we're surviving!)
• It's really hard to go meet random people and try to talk to them when they are scared to use their English and I only know like 5 words in Thai.
• A lot of chicken dishes come with chunks of cooked-up chicken blood that I have to remove before eating...gross... (but I can usually avoid getting those foods!)
• Teaching English class. I've only "taught" one alone so far, and it was super awkward. It was supposed to be with just one girl, but then three guys came in the room with us, so...we had an hour of awkward getting to know each other conversation. Right now I have six girls signed up to study with me at various times through the week (some of them in pairs), so I'm really hoping that all that goes well! We don't really have any training or guidelines, so we'll see...
• I have homework to finish for my crazy Maymester class! : P

And some things that I would love for you to be praying about:

• All of the new people coming around and hanging out with us--there are several that enjoy spending a lot of time with us, so hopefully they'll start getting interested in learning more than just English...a couple of them even have come to cell group or Sunday morning worhsip...
• Getting to know people on campus better...we've met a lot of random people, but not really built relationships with too many of them.
• Learning more Thai! I think it really helps people be more interested if they can see that we're making an effort to communicate in their language.
• Teaching English, not feeling so awkward!
• This weekend we'll have another "English Camp" (but really just a fun weekend with our English students) for college kids. Hopefully it will be a great time of building stronger relationships.
• All of the interns and apprentices, that we stay focused and enthusiastic about our work here (that's me, Casey, Amp, Un, Mark, Marvin, and Jason)

Okay, sorry for the super long blog...maybe next time it will be shorter! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Let me know what's going on with all of you!