CM Internship: Day 22 (Saturday 8 March 2014) by Vinod

This Saturday was very different from the others. We decided to head out to Kenk's village(one of the thai student that Shuen taught English to) in Mae Sape, it is in the mountains near Khun Yuam. We left Payap at 7 am. It was a long 6 hours drive. On our way to the village we stopped at this beautiful waterfall, Wachirathan Waterfall. We took some pics and admired God's beautiful creation a little while and were back on our road trip to the village. We stopped at a few gas stations along the way. The road to the village was really narrow and windy. Wijit, Tan and I got car sick. We stopped at a gas station nearby to pump gas and to give a wheelchair to this really sweet boy. When he was born his oxygen got cut off so he hasn't been able to walk since.

After spending some time with them we continued our journey. Wijit, Tan and I felt a whole lot better. The next stop was Naa's village in Maeming. Her parents were so generous. They served us fried egg and rice for lunch. It was so good. We thanked them for their generosity and had a prayer. It took us two to three hours from there to get to Kenk's village. Once we were there, we were welcomed with open arms by Kenk's family. They had such a nice place. The best part was they had a pet monkey named Brown. It didn't take too long for Balloon, Ben and I to befriend that little guy. We had about 3 hours to rest and headed to Kenk's house where were we had our dinner. This was an exciting moment as we had to catch, kill and cook the chicken ourselves. Balloon was in charge of the killing and Wijit and Tan was in charge of cooking. It was a special day because not only it was a new experience for most of us, it was also the day where the guys cooked and the ladies went out and enjoyed themselves. I helped Wijit, Tan and Balloon to clean the chicken and start the fire because they used firewood to cook instead of a gas stove. It was a wonderful and new experience for me and I had whole lot of fun.

We then had dinner together as one big family. As it got dark and our bellies were full I was looking forward to sleeping as we had a long day travelling and I was feeling tired but to my surprise the day was just about to begin. Robert had planned for us to meet up with all children in the village. We were to head to the village church. Balloon was in charge for all the games and Wijit was in charge of songs with the kids that night. I was a little worried at first because I was tired and had no intention of playing with the kids but all that changed as soon as I saw their faces. They were so excited to meet us and they all had such a wonderful smile on each of their faces that I forgot how tired I was and just jumped in to have fun with them. I could really feel God's presence there and then. The kids were really sweet and fun to be with. They loved balloon because he was so funny and fun. We sang songs and played games with them for about 2 hours.

Once we were done, Kenk's dad invited us to go shrimping. We all went because none of us has ever been shrimping before. It was an incredible experience. Kenk, her younger brother, her dad and Balloon were so good at shrimping. I on the other hand couldn't catch a thing. haha. It was embarrassing. Wi and Melody were really good too but they caught fishes and tadpoles instead. We then headed back to the village around 10.30 pm. It was an awesome day for all of us. Making new friends, strengthening the ones that already exists. Admiring God's great creations and so much more.