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!