Off to a Village… September 30, 2008

The classes with the AENON people are now over. Though the classes were good, it’s nice to have a little more rest and free time. On Sabbath, we had Sabbath School in our little classroom and then walked over to the academy church. The teacher from AENON did the sermon. We went back to the clinic for lunch and several people from the church came as well. There’s a couple here that just got married last year that are teaching at the academy. They came over for lunch, and it was nice talking to them and hearing some of their experiences. They invited us over for dinner tonight to play some games. Should be pretty fun. After lunch Melissa did a little talk on dress reform. It was interesting information… That night we piled into the truck and drove the hour to Chiang Mai to go shopping. First we went to Tesco (like Wal Mart) and then we went to the night market. That was really interesting. We wandered up and down the streets; it’s so big I was afraid we were going to get lost. I got some dried fruit and nuts to take with me into the village because I’m sure I will be wanting some familiar food from time to time. We were there til about midnight and didn’t get back to the clinic til 1:00 am. Fortunately the next day was pretty relaxed. We had one class in the morning and then had the rest of the day free. I organized some of my stuff and took and long and needed nap. Melissa had gotten sick during the night and was in bed all day. She would get really dizzy if she even lifted her head. Yesterday was also a pretty free schedule, mostly because Melissa was still sick and couldn’t really run things. She got a little worse and now has hives and is breathing really hard. Pastor Phamor took her to the hospital, but they didn’t help much. She hasn’t really gotten any sleep because she’s been itching all the time. Yesterday we just worked on some posters on the 8 laws of health. We’ll be using those in the village since we most likely won’t have a projector to use power point.

Today we’re having classes starting at 10:00, where, hopefully, the pastor will give us more details on the village situation. We haven’t really heard anything concrete; everything has been second-hand information. From what I gather, me, Emily, and Rob will be in a group together, and we will be going to a village that’s only about 30 minutes away. I don’t know anything about where we’ll be staying exactly or how the food situation will be, but that’s part of the adventure, I suppose. I’m hoping that maybe we’ll be able to come out of the village and come to the pastor’s house once or twice during the next month or two to get internet access, but I really don’t know if that’ll be possible yet. So, if i don’t post a blog within the next 2 months, don’t be worried; I’ll just be out with the mosquitos and villagers enjoying a whole new way of life. I’m kind of excited to be able to experience this, and I’m glad God gave me the opportunity.

Oh, here’s just a few more photos I had. I’ll try to take a lot in the village, but I don’t know if we’ll have electricity for me to charge my camera battery…

Some fruit I’ve enjoyed: an orange and some rambutan

Kenny, the Bible teacher from AENON, and Jen, one of the Thai guys that works at the clinic and helps with the translating

(from back left) John Wood (one of the founders of Jesus for Asia), Brian, Rob, Phoebe, me, Emily, Holly, Jen, and Kelly. 2nd row: Mam (the translator who is coming with my group to the village), Ricky, Ying (translator), Mew (translator), Melissa Miranda, Bee, Paul (the pastor's blind son), and Boo Boo (translator). Front row: the AENON group, except the middle guy.

The SDA Academy Church

Well, that’s about it for now. Pray that I don’t get malaria out in the village and that God will be able to use me and my very limited medical abilities. Love you guys!

Classes with AENON September 26, 2008

This week has been really busy. This group called AENON has been doing all our classes. Apparently they are from a Bible school from Malaysia. There are three students, all guys, and a Bible teacher. They taught us six classes. Kenny, the teacher, taught two prophecy classes and a Righteousness by Faith class. The three students taught a How to Study the Bible class, a Homiletics class, and a Fundamentals of Christian Faith class. Some of the classes were pretty good; the only problem was that none of them speak very good English. We really struggled to make connections between their different sentences. We had all six of those classes each day, which didn’t leave any free time other than meals. I’ve been on the kitchen crew twice this week, and both times I had to wake up at 3:00 am to get everything done.

Originally our group of SM’s was going to split up to go to the different villages and wherever else this Sunday, but since AENON only taught Bible classes, Pastor Phamor decided we needed a couple more days of health classes before we went out. I’m glad of that, but that also means we have to wait until Tuesday to find out where we’re going and who we’re going with. So much mystery!

The little washer that they have here hasn’t been working very well, so today I got my first experience of hand washing. It took me a long time, but I have quite a while to get used to doing it. I never realized how much wahers save time! I haven’t really gotten used to the food yet either. Everything is cooked–no fresh stuff unless you buy your own. Fortunately, we are having some American style food tomorrow for breakfast and lunch. I’m pretty excited.

Man, the ants here get into everything. If you spill something, they get to it before you have a chance to clean it up! Any type of insect or even reptile that is dead is as good as gone. Today I saw a dead Tuque (or however you spell it), which is a pretty large lizard, on the cement. It was completely covered in ants, which had already eaten through about 2 layers of its skin. They’re everywhere! We’ve had some interesting critters in our dorm room too. We even had a squirrel running around; we couldn’t get it out of the dorm. I didn’t even know they had squirrels in Thailand! What the buffalo…

Tomorrow the plan is to have Sabbath School at the Health Clinic (where we’re staying) and then we’ll go to the Adventist Academy church. In the afternoon, Melissa Miranda is going to give us a talk on Dress Reform. Should be pretty interesting… On Saturday night we’re going into town to pick up things we might need; it’ll be pretty hard since we don’t know where we’re going yet. I have a hunch that I’ll be going into a village and not to the radio station, but we’ll see. The AENON group is leaving on Sunday morning, and we’ll pick up where we left off with the health classes.

Hopefully I’ll be able to put in one or two more blogs before we leave for a month or two. It’s a good thing we are here in Chiang Mai for a couple weeks before we go out into the villages so I won’t have too big of a culture shock. Thanks so much for your prayers!

Real Food! September 22, 2008

Well, today we finally got our first real meal! We had fried rice, lettuce, and this potato curry stuff that was really spicy. For lunch we had papaya salad and a noodle dish. The papaya apparently is an aquired taste; I didn’t like it at all, but others loved it.

In today’s classes, we leaned about teaching people the health message in easy steps. Instead of New Start, we learned God’s Plan. It involves the same things, but instead of having trust in God at the end, it has Godly Trust at the beginning, the most important. Tonight we have more classes, which isn’t normal, but then again nothing here is! A group from Malaysia is here; they call themselves AENON. I don’t know what that stands for yet… Apparently they are going to help teach some of the health classes.

I did laundry yesterday for the first time. I had the luxury of using the washer here, but I won’t be able to use it again… Of course everything has to be air dried, and all my clothes now have this weird smell to them I guess from the air. Fortuanately, here in Thailand, no one cares.

Tomorrow morning I have to get up at 3:30 in order to shower, have devotions, and then go on kitchen crew. I’ll have to get used to getting up at such ungodly hours from now on… I’ll be getting some cooking practice in though, and since I’m don’t even know how to cook American food very well, this ought to be interesting!

Just something to pray about… The program here has some financial needs. They want to built a TV studio because they want to broadcast Christian TV nationally. They already have the permission and the land to build the studio on, but they lack funds to begin building. Just pray that God will impress upon people’s hearts to help out with this project. GB!

Starving! September 21, 2008

Well, things are still going pretty good. After the first day of only drinking water and the next two days of only coconut water, we were allowed to eat a little fruit, which was on Sabbath. It tasted sooo good! Unfortunately there wasn’t enough of it. Plus, we only eat 2 meals a day here, or we will when we start eating, but that won’t be too difficult after doing that this last summer.

On Friday, we had pretty much the same schedule with worship, chores, and classes, but in the afternoon some of us went into town to buy a few things. It’s pretty hard to find stuff in the stores when you can’t read the language and you can’t ask the people who work there. On the way back from town, it started raining really hard. We were in the back of a covered pickup, but the sides are open. The rain was coming down so hard that all of us got soaked anyways. There was lots of lightning and thunder too.

On Sabbath, we went to the Adventist church at the Adventist academy a little ways down the road. The church is actually relatively large and really nice inside. They have a nice grand piano inside and even a balcony. The academy has quite a few students so the majority of the church was filled with high school students and younger. The principal of the school is an elderly white man who has lived in Thailand for 8 years, so he speaks Thai pretty well. We went to his Sabbath School class.

After church, we spend a relaxing afternoon back at the school we are staying at. To be more clear, where we’re staying is not an actual school. It’s a health school that Pastor Phamor started and he provides a place for the students and patients to stay while they are there. Right now we’re the ones using up the dorm rooms so no one else is with us besides the translators.

We found out later that the night before, during the thunder storm, two little boys from the Adventist orphanage were roasting some food over a fire under a small shelter. The roof was struck by lightning, and one of the boys died and the other was seriously injured. We went to the funeral that night and the next morning. It was a really sad story…

This morning we got to have some rice porridge along with our fruit. It’s pretty bland but at least it’s something, though eating food just makes me feel more hungry. The fruit is realy good though; we’ve had pineapple, coconut (which I’m not too fond of yet), oranges, a grapefruit type thing, dragon fruit, mangostein, and rambutan.

After the second part of the funderal, which lasted for about two hours (we couldn’t understand a word of it), we had a couple classes and worship. Oh, here’s a few pics that I didn’t have on my computer before. Sorry they aren’t rotated the right way (I’m not that computer savvy):

Emily Yoder (an SM) sitting in our pick up truck

Toliets…

Out high-class showers…

The dorm

Learning how to give a hot foot bath

Pastor Phamor showing us some natural remedies

Me drinking my coconut water

The one and only classroom

Last night, the three guys were on their way to the pastor’s house at night when they say a hugy python stretched across the road. They got a video of it or else I probably wouldn’t have believed them. It was about 10 feet long! Hope I don’t run into one of those anytime soon…

This program isn’t quite like any of the other SM programs. It isn’t established really because this is pretty much the first year. We don’t know what we’re doing from one day to the next, but I guess that’s what makes this an adventure! From what I’ve been hearing from those who’ve been here a couple months already, this involves other things besides health ministry. So who knows what I might be doing…

Well, it’s time for kip and I’m definitely ready for it. The sooner I go to bed, the sooner I get to have my first real meal of Thai food!! PTL!

Settling In… September 18, 2008

I finally made it here to Thailand safe and sound. The flights were long and uneventful. In Japan I met up with Emily and Brian, two other SM’s, and we flew to Bangkok together. We spent the night in a hotel and then flew to Chaing Mai the next morning. Melissa Miranda, I guess you could call her the directer, met us there. Another SM, Rob flew in at about the same time. He and a few others have already been here for a couple months. We loaded up all our stuff into the back of a covered pick-up truck. With all out luggage, there wasn’t much room for us. Then we found out that we were picking up the rest of the group at the train station and all their stuff (They had been in another town for a few days). Somehow we fit everyone in, though it made the hot, humid air even worse. I ate my first and only meal at a little Buddhist restaurant. All of those are pretty much vegetarian. After that meal, I found out that we would be fasting for 4 days: the first with only water, the next two adding coconut water, and the last adding fruit. I hadn’t been planning on that or I would’ve eaten a lot more! We went to the bank where I exchanged American money to Baht. It’s about 33 or 34 baht to every dollar. We ran quite a few errands before heading to the school where we are staying for 10 days. By that time, the loss of sleep was really catching up to me. I got settled as best I could in the little dorm room I’m sharing with Emily. The school pretty much consists of a dorm for the guys and girls (in the same building), a kitchen, and a building with a classroom, a couple bedrooms, and a couple pretty fancy bathrooms, well, at least when compared to the ones we normally have to use.

I slept okay that night, though I woke up at about 3 am unable to sleep because of the jet lag. The landscape and weather here reminds me a lot of Belize. It’s really pretty, but has a lot of strange bugs that I’m not too excited about… We had worship, skipped breakfast of course, and had our three classes: Bible class, Medical Evangelism class, and Hydrotherapy. These classes are either taught by Melissa or Pastor Phamor (He’s a Thai pastor here who really has a passion for medical missionaries. You really have to pay attention during his classes because he has a very strong accent). In Bible class we’re talking about the sanctuary message, in medical evangelism we’re learning about nartural remides, and in hydotherapy we’re learning just that! Since this training is only 10 days instead of the month I thought we’d get, they are trying to pack a lot of info into a short time. It’s hard to absorb everything but I’m praying that God will make my brain a huge sponge. We also have about six Thai students who are living at the school with us who will go with us into the villages to help translate. After classes, we had chores. We either clean out the classroom, dorms, and wash rooms (bathrooms ), did landscaping, or gardening. I have pictures of a few things that I’ll try to put on later. The toilets are ones you have to squat on, and you have to bring your own TP; the Thai people don’t put TP in the bathrooms because they just use soap and their hand… Pretty sick! The showers we use is just a bucket full of water that you pour over your head a few times. It works, I guess. Gardening consists of weeding, weeding, and more weeking! After chores, we have evening worship and then a half-hour prayer time together. The rest of the evening is free, but there are tons of little things to do…

The rest of these 10 days are pretty much going to be on that same schedule, until we start eating again and then we have to begin breakfast prep at 4:30, which means getting up a lot earlier if you want to take a “shower” and have devotions. This morning I woke up early again since I’m not used to the time difference quite yet. Then they had us do a “salt-water flush.” Pretty much, we had to drink a whole liter of salt water in 20 minutes or less. It’s supposed to clean out our system, and if you go over 20 minutes, it starts affecting organs it shouldn’t. It was harder than I thought it would be. A lot of people ended up throwing it back up, but I managed to keep it down. We all were “running” to the wash rooms for a while after that… We had a breakfast of coconut water and had worship, chores, classes, more chores, worship, and then now… At the moment I’m not too hungry which is surprising, but I’m sure I will be tomorrow. I’m just feeling pretty weak and really dizzy when I stand up.

After these 10 days of training (which I thought were going to be a month), the plan is to split up and go into the villages teaching what we just learned. Right now that seems overwhelming with so much info stuffed into my brain, but the people really do need this informations. Afterall, the health message is the right hand of the gospel, and the right hand opens the doors into people’s hearts.

We have internet access at the pastors house, which is about a 20 minute walk from the school. I’m still in the blue about a lot of things, but it’s definitely an adventure in more ways than one… We’ve got a good group of SM’s over here, but the need is great. Being a mostly Buddhist country, the people are shut off to other religions. That’s why we have this “wedge” into their hearts.

Thank you all for your prayers. They really do make a difference. I miss you all, and feel free to e-mail me so I know what’s happening in your lives too (alijodeacon@gmail.com). GB!

A New Adventure September 14, 2008

Well, I’m off to Thailand in just a couple days now… I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing specifically, but I know it will have to do with helping people in the refugee camps with their different health problems and teaching them how to live more healthfully. It will be a great experience for me, and I’m sure it’ll help me figure out what I should do with my life. I don’t know how often I’ll have internet access over there, but I’ll try to post something every once in a while.

These past couple weeks have been pretty hectic since I only decided about 2 weeks ago that I would go to Thailand. Previously I’d been planning on going to Souls West in Arizona. I colporteured this last summer and the summer before and had heard a lot about that school. Meanwhile, on their way to Southern University, my dad and brother, Mitchell, met up with one of his friends, Emily, who told them of her plans to go to Thailand this year. My dad was really interested and came home and told me about it. The more I thought and prayed about it, the more it seemed like the right thing to do. After all, I’ve done LE work for 2 summers and I think I at least need a taste of other forms of evangelism to see what God wants me to do. Last Friday, my dad and I went to San Fransisco to get me a new passport (my other one still has yet to be found). Fortunately we were able to get it that same day, and my grandpa was able to take it with him to L.A. to get me a visa two days afterward. We were hoping for a non-immigrant visa but were only able to get a visitors visa with 2 entries. In other words, it’ll last me 6 months. I’m hoping to be there 9 months, so I may be able to extend that time on the visa while I’m in Thailand. I got my Typhoid shot on Wednesday and also malaria pills that I’ll need to take while I’m over there. God has really blessed me as I’ve been trying to get all these things done last minute…

My flight leaves Sunday afternoon at 1:35. It’ll be an 11 hour flight to Narita, Japan, where I’ll be meeting up with two other people in my group (the group I’m with is from Southern Adventist University). Then we’ll take a 6 hour flight to Bangkok where we’ll spend the night. The next morning we’ll fly to Chiang Mai, which I believe is where I’ll be staying for the time being. We will have a month of training on different health issues before we actually go out into the refugee camps. It’ll definitely be an adventure!