Day 20 (Thursday 6 March 2014) by Robert

The internship is going by too quickly. It’s always hard when I begin to realize the interns will leave Chiang Mai soon. When we spend so much time together learning, growing and serving, it’s hard to even think about parting ways in about a week’s time. 

Today was a major preparation day for the upcoming Leadership Camp with the refugee student in Maehongson. We finished writing and printing and laminating all the teaching materials and books that we will give to the 66 students who attend the camp. So, we worked while we did the equipping lesson on the Discipline of Seeking Spiritual Guidance. Here is a page explaining what we'll be doing teaching to the refugee students. 

Vern cooked amazing Indian food for cell group and Melody cooked flatbread to go with it. 

We had more than 30 people show up for the meal and cell group.

 I think Pui was really tired after a long day at work.

 Gift, Jan, Shuen and Ying - 4 beautiful Christians.

 Crazy young girls - Wi, Na and Geng.

 Durian head Balloon and Ben.

 Becky and Un chilling after cell group.

 Mama Zone always has a beautiful smile.

We celebrated Joy Weeden's birthday after cell group. I think it's really cool that Karen (right) loves Joy so much.

Day 19 (Wednesday 5 March 2014) by Gillian

This morning's equipping session was quite intense, because we did 2 topics instead of 1, in order to finish it all before Shuen leaves. The first topic was Service, and the part that really stood out to me was the differences between self-righteous service and true service. Self-righteous service seeks recognition, the good feelings from doing tangible things for others, and ultimately serves others to serve itself. True service, on the other hand, does things seeking only God's approval, and serves because of God's call - not because the mood is right. It made me reflect quite a lot and made me realise how often the service I seek to do is really just self-righteous service. The second topic was on Confession, which was also very relevant to me. Too often, people feel the need to put up a front with church people - acting as if you're all holy and life is going great, creating pretentiousness among people which just becomes a barrier to the close, warm relationships God wants us to have in church. Though it was a heavy morning for my little brain, it was good. It gave me things to think and reflect about, and of course, I hope to bring these things I learn back home.

In the evening we went to Gethsemane as usual, and spent some time with the kids there. Shuen played takraw for the first time and mannnn she is SO good. Her serves were pretty accurate and she even hit the ball with her head once! Then said "That was pretty cool but I'm never doing it again" HAHA. She was the only girl playing and I think a lot of the kids were quite amazed because they'd never seen a female visitor play with them before (because takraw is kind of considered a boys' game). Impressive, Shuen. Impressive.

Karen got all excited when it was time for dinner because we were going to go for suki chang puak. Those of us who never went there before were quite confused about how excited she was but hey, if there's good food, we're game. Although at that time, I still had no idea what suki was. Everytime we eat out, I can't read the menu and would just go with whatever people order for me. No awful mishaps with that strategy so far. So if you're still wondering, suki is basically glass noodles with veggies and meat (fish/chicken/pork). Sounds mediocre but it's AMAAAAAZING. My stomach was so happy it got all ready to digest more food; so we had mango sticky rice and roti with condensed milk after that. SO GOOD. We do get such roti in Singapore as well but I never bothered trying it since I usually like it savoury but..I think that night opened the door to roti with all things sweet for me.

With happy stomachs, we headed back home to get some rest.

Day 18 (Tuesday 4 March 2014) by Ben

     We went to D.S.2 this afternoon.  While it looked quiet when we first arrived, the kids quickly came out and started hugging us.  I love how quickly these kids can make friends.  We played Takraw as is tradition, taught English, played other games, and sang some songs.  Next week we will be at the leadership camp and won’t be able to come to the home.  The week after that, we will be in Cambodia.  After Cambodia, the interns will leave.  It was hard for them to say goodbye this time because it’s the last time they will see those kids on this trip. 

     After D.S.2, Vern, Wijit, and I went rock climbing at a local gym.  We met up with Jan (pronounced Yan), from the Chung Doi Church.  It was really fun to have some guys fellowship time around a sport.  Rock climbing requires you to put your trust in another person.  When you fall (and you always do) that person is there to catch you.  We had a great time climbing and then enjoyed dinner together.

Day 17 (Monday 3 March 2014) by Kara

Mondays are our rest days.  For  a rest day, it was quite eventful.  Wi, Shuen, Gilian, and Vern decided to utilized\ the cheap and wonderful Thai massages.  They came back feeling relaxed and rejuvenated.  Wi has lived in Thailand her whole life, and today was her first day to have a Thai massage.  She came out of the massage and said she should have asked for two hours.  Ha! I think she thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thai Massage Outfit

At 4:30 we left to go to Robert’s house.  We arrived and helped prepare the chicken and salad.  While we were waiting for the chicken to come off of the grill, we played two truths and a lie.   We ate a delicious meal of bar-b-q chicken, salad, mashed potatoes, fresh mangoes, and brownies. It was so delicious.

After eating a delicious meal, Lin Fei (Robert’s neighbor’s friend) told us she would make tea for us  using traditional Chinese methods.  We had no idea what a treat she had in store for us.  Lin Fei previously owned a hotel in China and would charge lots of money for people to observe the process she goes through to make her tea.  She brought over all her stuff and began.  First, she starts by using only water from a mountain stream.  She travels up the mountain and collect large amounts of water from Doi Sutep (a nearby mountain).  Today she used special leaves called Boasting Tea leaves.  They are special because they turn a certain color only after being bitten by a certain kind of worm.  A kilo costs about $4,000 US Dollars! She was so sweet to use some of it on us.  There are many rules of this tea ceremony.  First of all, she must wear certain garments and not use any kind of perfume.  The first pot of tea must be thrown out, and she must never show the bottom of the pot.  While pouring tea, she must pour from right to left.  After we received our tea, we learned it was polite to tap once on the table to say thank you.  She made us several cups of tea.  The tea helped settle our full stomachs.  With quenched thirst and full stomachs we headed home.

Our delicious food

Enjoying each other while the chicken cooks

Photo bomb

Wijit was the grill master

Wi pretending to be the grill master

Gang & Dusty

All the beautiful people that we ate with

-Kara

Day 16 (Sunday 2 March 2014) by Vinod

It's Sunday! Which means church time!! YAY!! We had such awesome time worshiping God and the singing was amazing. P'Act lead the songs and James preached about Jesus's idea of family versus our idea of family. It was great! Once worship was done we started planning for the awesome evening ahead.

We later joined a church activity at the Doi Saket 2 orphanage. Ben and Kara were the ones in charge, so they planned the whole thing out and the others helped. We had lunch around 12.30pm and left for Doi Saket 2 at 1.30pm. When we got there there were so many people and I was so excited! We had 20 members from Payap's sister church, Cheung Doi. 

We started off with learning a little about the history of the orphanage by one of the house parents and then we moved on to some games. It was great cause everyone was so into it! We started off with this dancing game which is like musical chairs, but without the chairs. =) The dancers had to freeze with a pose when the music stops playing. It was so funny! P'Sean, P'David, Branson, P'Berm and Daniel (Branson's friend) were such good dancers but obviously everyone brought the house down dancing and had a blast in the meantime.

One of the House parents telling us the history of the orphanage.

Time to Get Your Grove On!!!!

After that we played a few more games and did our skit, which were practicing for after worship. It was about Daniel and Lion's Den. Kara narrated and P'Ying translated it into Thai. Balloon was Daniel, I was King Darius, Becky was an angel, Gillian was the angry official and Branson and some kids from the orphanage played the lions. Its was so fun because we had to act for twice the time we practiced for, cause we didn't expect the translation to be so long. HAHA! Once we were done with that, Kara taught the kids how to fold an origami cootie catcher. It was a pic of a lion. The kids had to color their own lion and fold it. It was so good seeing the kids have fun doing the craft. Once they were done we took a group photo and called it a day, but to our surprise we had a spontaneous Takraw competition. We had 2 teams from Payap, 1 from Cheung Doi and 1 from the orphanage. The kids were so good and they won! 

P'Ying leading the Children's songs in Thai.

Takraw Champions!

We left the orphanage around 4.30pm. We chilled at the Zone awhile before deciding to go for an early dinner and a movie. Wi wanted to watch Robocop so everyone decided to go too. We met up with Chris and Joy (the Weedens) in one of the nearby malls. Chris, Joy and I decided to watch Pompeii because we watched Robocop already. It was an awesome way to end such an eventful day!

Dinner

Movie Night!

Day 15 (Saturday 1 March 2014) by Gillian

Saturday morning began with a run at Phayao! We left the Zone at about 6am, and reached the Fun Run place around 8.45am. The road was long and winding, and it was SO cold in the morning. Everyone sitting at the back of the truck got frozen. We started to thaw as the sun came out, albeit extremely slowly. As everyone began arriving, we all just hung around chit-chatting, played some games, ate some food etc. At 10am, the run finally began! The sun was blazing high in the sky, so I thought it'd be an excruciating run, but to my surprise the air was still quite cool and it wasn't too bad. I guess it was much better also because the air here isn't as humid as it is in Singapore. There were some games in the middle of the run, which were pretty fun, and I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. Some walked, some jogged, and some of the kids even cycled. Shuen and I paced each other for the most part of the run, and we completed the whole 5km route together :) YAY.

After burning off all that fat (okay not really), we treated ourselves to some pizza at The Brick Oven. It's really cool because the restaurant was really nice and chill, and the Phayao church meets on the second floor on Sundays. Melody, Shuen, and I shared the Seafood Supreme pizza and MAN, seafood pizza is great. It was a little spicy for Shuen though so she ate it slowly with lots of water in between hahaha. Fantastic pizza <3 Lots of garlic, squid, prawns, crabmeat, and cheese. Is your mouth watering yet? It should be. Blogging about lunch now is making me hungry again.

After lunch all of us were feeling so tired, and we headed back to the Zone to bathe, chill, and rest. Overall, it was a good day with good food and company!