So… where to begin…
On November 30, Emily and I took a little excursion to a town a couple hours away. It’s main attraction is the Bridge Over River Kwai, which I’m sure you’ve heard of (I don’t want to go into all the details now about its history…). When we arrived in the town, we took this little bike thing to a museum. It’s pretty much a regular bike with a little covered seat attached to the back. Emily and I were barely able to wedge ourselves into that little seat (yes, that implies that I’m gaining weight). The little museum that was pretty unprofessional, but still interesting. It had tons of pictures and articles about the bridge, the forced labor, and the horrible conditions. Next, our driver took us to the cemetery where all the soldiers were buried. Then we went to a second museum that was more put together than the first. Upstairs they had a little cafe, and since Emily and I hadn’t eaten any breakfast yet, we ordered little cheese and lettuce sandwiches. They were pretty bad, but we were desperate. Finally, our driver took us to the Bridge Over River Kwai. We were able to walk over the bridge, which, by the way, is pretty unsafe; I’m surprised people weren’t falling into the water all over the place. It was kinda funny too: people would randomly come up to us and ask to take their picture with us, or, better yet, they would just come stand by us, smile, and get a picture with us without our knowing. Kinda makes you feel like a celebrity… At the other end of the bridge we saw an elephant. The owner wanted us to feed it some bananas. We did, and had a huge audience of Thai guys laughing at us.
Next, we went to a Tiger Temple. They had a lot of other animals in there too, like pigs, camels, water buffalos, peacocks, and a few others. The tiger part of it was pretty disappointing. Down in this canyon, all the tigers were behind ropes, tied down, with employees all over the place. You had to pay heaps of money to get in there to get a picture with them, and even then, the tigers were so drugged, that they weren’t even interesting. They could barely lift their heads on their own. We watched one lady who wanted a picture with the tiger’s head in her lap. The trainer had to pick up the head and just plop it into her lap. Pretty sad… A little later we saw a few cubs that weren’t drugged. We got our pictures with them and got to pet them some too. Our last place to visit was a 7-tiered waterfall. Because we had wanted to visit so many places in one day, we didn’t have very much time at the waterfall before it closed. It was still really pretty though. By this point, we had a song taw taking us around. When we left the waterfall, he had to speed to the bus station to see if we could catch the last bus back to Suphan Buri. We missed it, but the driver graciously offered to drive us there himself. What a guy…
We finished the last two weeks of teaching at the school in Suphan Buri, and then came the graduation. P Aor invited a lot of visiters to come and help out with the program. On Friday the 5th, P Aor, Emily, and I cut up tons of vegetables and got as much food ready as we could for Sunday. From the start, P Aor had wanted to do a buffet at the graduation. She also wanted to involve her mom in preparing the food–anything to somehow expose her to Christianity. So, her mom agreed to make a noodle dish and fried rice, while the rest of us made vege trays and cut up the veges her mom would need for the fried rice. I don’t think I’ll ever cut up as many onions as I did that day; the tears flowed…
Michael, who came to the restaurant before, also came that weekend to help out with the preparations and also to be a part of the program. On Sabbath, he gave the kids a little talk for Sabbath School and taught them a hymn: I Will Sing of Jesus’ Love. P Aor wanted all the kids to sing that hymn at the graduation.
Finally Sunday rolled around. We were up bright and early to get last minute stuff done. The certificates were all ready with the kids’ names on them and our signatures. The graduation was to start at 8:30 a.m., but we arrived at the school at 7:45. Originally we had wanted to hold the graduation at the restaurant, but P Aor’s mom wasn’t too thrilled with that idea, so the school agreed to let us use their big meeting room. The kids started trickling in, and our guests arrived too. A pharmacist from Bangkok, who is also an L.E., set up tons of books on the back table for the parents to look at. The Griswolds also came as well as a couple Thai families the work with them. Doctor Ai, who had visited us before, came to set up a little health clinic for the day, and she brought a couple other doctors with her.
Just before 8:30, we all gathered in side room to pray for the ceremony. Then we all took our seats, and Joelle, the Griswolds’ daughter (supposedly the MC of the program) announced the first thing on the program: Opening Song: I Will Sing of Jesus’ Love. The only problem was that Joelle didn’t know that song. It was kind of awkward and she was pretty embarrassed. Finally we got someone up there who did know it and the program was underway. P Aor gave a short talk, telling the parents who came a little about what we did in the class and how well the students did. Then I got up and reviewed the kids over the first half of the stuff they learned to show the parents. Afterwards, the L.E. gave a 45 minute sermon in Thai. I don’t know what he talked about, but the kids lost interest after the first 10 minutes. When that was over, Emily reviewed the kids over the last half of the material. Though the kids did their best over the last 5 weeks, they really haven’t learned that much English. If P Aor wasn’t up there mouthing the words in Thai, there’s no way the kids would’ve been able to get through that review session. I guess P Aor’s main purpose for this class was to tell the kids about Jesus. I think that’s great. The only problem was, she didn’t really start at the beginning, so the kids were confused from the start. I admire P Aor’s passion for these kids though, and I’m sure some of them did get more out of it than I think. Anyway, after Emily was done, Michael gave an hour sermon on righteousness by faith. Pretty heavy stuff for kids who don’t know who Jesus is yet. They had a really hard time staying quiet as Michael talked. Finally we came to the certificates. Michael, Emily, and I got up onto the little stage with a Thai girl that came with the Griswolds. She was holding all the certificates because she could actually read the names that P Aor called. The kids were already sitting in order, and P Aor had put the certificates in order as well. The kids came up received their paper, got their picture taken, and returned to their seats. After doing about 12 students, the Thai girl up there with us accidently dropped all the certificates onto the floor. Since their was no way to put them back in order again quickly enough, we would just have the student come up, hand a certificate to them, get the photo, and then take the certificate back to use on the next student. It was pretty humorour to say the least. I think total we had about 65 kids that “graduated.” When that finished, a few of the students came up and thanked us teachers for coming to teach them. They had tried to memorize a little speech in English, and then another kid would be up there with them to “translate.” Pretty cute. Throughout the program, the Griswold kid’s and a couple others got up and had special musics. They had a couple violins and would sing as well. Though they hadn’t practiced much, I’m sure the kids enjoyed it.
When the program was finally over, we headed over to the outdoor cafeteria to have our buffet. P Aor’s mom had dropped off the food and then left immediately. The food she made was pretty good, though a little spicy for my liking. I’ve never seen so much fried rice! It was in a gigantic pot, and there was over half left over. After eating, the kids went back into the meeting room, and we handed out Thai Bibles to them. We had been raising money over the past weeks, and received the Bibles just in time for the graduation. Michael and P Aor spent about an hour and a half going over how to look up verses and how to say the books of the Bible in Thai and English.
Finally, it was time for us to say good-bye. They took us out side and got a few pictures of us with all the kids (which I’ll try to put up later but have to use the computers at the internet cafes instead of my own laptop). Then we gave students hugs and headed back to the restaurant. A few kids that live near us tagged along–mostly the ones that grew the most attached. One boy in particular, Oh, wouldn’t let go of my hands. He’s about 13 years old. He got out his cell phone, and for the millionth time, got tons of pictures of Emily and I. He wouldn’t let us go, so we had to just pull away. He waved to us til he couldn’t see us anymore.
Back at the restaurant, Emily and I packed up out stuff, and waited for the L.E. to drive over. Since he lives in Bangkok, he offered to drive us, Michael, and P Aor there so we could catch the bus back to Chiang Mai. Before we left though, the five of us ordered a few different dishes from P Aor’s mom for dinner. That was the first time I had ever eaten at the restaurant even though I’ve been there for 6 weeks. It was pretty good, though, again, spicy. We packed all our stuff into his little car; there was so much that he had to sit on the trunk to make it shut plus we had to carry a bunch of stuff on our laps too. We made it to Bangkok, and the L.E. helped us find the right bus. It left at 11 p.m., so we spent the whole night on the bus. Since I didn’t have a window seat, it was one of the more uncomfortable rides I’ve had with pretty much no sleep. We arrived in Chiang Mai at 8:30 the next morning and were picked up by a little old lady that goes to the Academy Church. We drove back to the center, did bunches of laundry in the washer, and took a nap.
I was awakened by Melissa calling me on my cell phone. She had arrived back from Malaysia the night before and was making a brochure on the computer with Rob. She asked me to come up and give her some pictures to put on the brochure. Long story short, I ended up finishing the brochure myself which took til about 11:30 that night. Melissa is taking it to GYC, and she’ll have a booth set up. So make sure you look for the Jesus for Asia booth and spread the word to others. Don’t expect too much from the brochure though…
Anyway, we spent about 2 days at the center. On Wednesday the 10th, I packed up all my stuff at the center, including my huge honkin’ suitcase, and me, Emily, Phoebe, and Rob headed back into Chiang Mai with Melissa. We dropped her off at the airport, as she is headed back home and then to GYC. The rest of us ran a few errands before catching a bus to Bangkok. I ended up buying a small laptop to use for the remainder of my stay here in Asia. My other one has been acting up and I didn’t have time to get it fixed before leaving for Cambodia. We caught a bus at 9:30 p.m. to Bangkok–once again an all-nighter. The next morning we took a bus to a little town right on the border of Cambodia. None of us really knew what we were doing, but we somehow managed to get our visas for Cambodia and crossed the border without much of a hitch. We had a taxi take us to the edge of Siem Reap, and then from there we had to take tuk tuk’s to the school. It took a bit of convincing to get the drivers to take us there, cuz it was already dark and they said it was really dangerous. But I guess as the saying goes, Money talks… They got lost on the way, and Tim Maddocks, the guy who runs the school where I’ll be teaching, had to come pick us up in his truck. When we reached the school, his wife Wendy fed us, and then we moved all our stuff into the house where I’ll be staying for the next 4 months. Holly met us at the door. She has been there for the last month subbing for one of the teachers. She’ll be going back with Emily, Phoebe, and Rob to the center on January 4, but I’ll be staying til April 10, I believe. We settled in and hit the sack…
The next morning, I had my first experience taking a shower wearing a sarong. Sarongs are just a huge piece of material that you wrap around yourself if you have to take a shower outside. I had never used one before and I always worried that if I did it wouldn just fall off. Fortunately, the ones we used had elastic at the top, which helped to keep them up. We take showers on a cement slab outside. There’s one of those old fashioned water pumps that we use to get the water. Makes me feel like a real missionary. Later on that morning, Holly took us into town to show us around. Since Siem Reap is such a touristy town (because of Ankor Wat), they have lots of ethnic restaurants. We got some amazing vegeburgers, which probably wouldn’t have been that good if I hadn’t been so hungry for American food.
On Sabbath, we went to the church on campus. It’s fairly large but has no pews, so we sat on the floor. The whole service was in Khmer, but fortunately the Sabbath School was mostly in English. Most of the Sabbath was spent in sleep. There had been an ongoing amount of nights where I had gotten 5 or less hours of sleep, so I really needed to catch up on it.
Since this trip to Cambodia is mostly a vacation, at least for the rest of the SMs, we all wanted to visit Vietnam while we were so close to it. Tim told us that he would be going into Phnom Penh (which I believe is the capitol of Cambodia) for a wedding early the next morning, which is halfway to where we needed to go. We decided to ride with him as far as we could and figure out the rest later. That meant we had to leave at 3 in the morning. Ugh…
We all got up this morning at that ungodly hour and piled into his big flatbed truck. There were about 15 other Khmer students in there that were being dropped off at their homes for the holidays. It was a pretty bumpy ride as most of the roads here aren’t paved. We rode back there for about 3 hours, and then Tim had to drop off the truck to get some repairs, so we took a van the rest of the way. Total the ride was about 7 hours. The 5 of us, me, Emily, Phoebe, Rob, and Holly, got a couple room at a guest house, and then ate in a semi decent mall food court. From there we went to a travel agency to see about getting visas to Vietnam. It’ll take them til tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully we’ll be able to catch the bus into Vietnam. We’re all pretty excited about seeing the sites there, but I must say, I pretty tired of traveling and would really like some time to just relax.
Well, that’s about as up to date as I can get you right now. Right now the plan is the the other SM’s that are with me will be going back to Thailand on January 4, and I’ll be staying here in Cambodia at the school teaching til April 10. Then, I’ll go back to Thailand for a month, and leave with Emily for home on May 11. Course, plans always do change…
