Update from Thailand

Thailand.Oct25.13

Sawat dee kha! (Hello!)

It's officially outreach time.
let me give you a somewhat condensed version of the past couple of days.
On Tuesday in Bangkok we had orientation. Quite an amusing/informative morning, that was. In the afternoon we had a scavenger hunt (we students split into groups of 3 and explored Bangkok).
In the evening we went to a very large mall, where I was thrilled to find a Starbucks-!!!!-
My first Starbucks in 3 months. Salted Caramel Mocha. I think I may have been floating through the mall out of sheer bliss.

On Wednesday we went on a prayer walk through Bangkok.
We went to a temple, a palace, and another temple (which was located on top of a giant hill). We walked 300+ steps to get there... My legs are still sore :)
We prayed at each place for different things. It was awesome.
Not to mention all the modes of transportation throughout the day:
Buses, trains, boats, Tuk tuks, and lots of walking.
That evening we squished ourselves into a van and drove 5 1/2 hours nonstop to Korat.
We were warmly welcomed by our hosts and shortly thereafter caught some serious zzz's.

Thursday morning we woke up, had a time of worship together, ate breakfast, and headed out.
We cleaned out the building that we are now staying in. It's a lovely place! Seriously.
I'm stoked and feeling extremely blessed to spend the next 3 weeks here.
We got ourselves settled in, then explored the area.
And in the evening we ventured out to the mall. Guess what? Another Starbucks!
:)

But today was the best day yet.
Our first official day of outreach-ing. :D we went to a high school and taught English! It was soooooooo much fun.
There were about 200 students for the 11 of us.
So first, we split all of the students into 5 separate groups. Each with 2 of us YWAMers as teachers. Some groups had translators, some did not. Thankfully, Rebekka and I had a wonderful translator. Otherwise, our class would have been a mess.
So we started with about 2 hours of "English Class" with our group. In this time, we introduced ourselves and prayed for our time. Then we had each of the students introduce themselves, tell us how old they are, when their birthdays are, and stuff like that.
They also had a worksheet that we helped them with. Most of the kids had no trouble with it, though.
Then we all read about the prodigal son together. (At this time we were able to share about God's love. We had no restrictions on telling about God while at the school, so we went for it as much as possible :D)
Then we sang "Jesus' love is sweet and marvelous". I made up some hand motions and we had some fun with it. Especially when the students sang the song in Thai and did the motions with me :)
Eventually we stopped for lunch.
After lunch, we were informed that we had another hour and a half to teach our groups.
Rebekka and I had an "oh, shoot" moment then, as we'd already gone through all of our teaching material. But we came up with things to fill the time, although they were not incredibly informative regarding the English language. :P
We played "duck, duck, goose", which was adorable. The kids got the biggest kick out of it. Everyone was wearing socks and the floor was slippy, so it made for some amusing playtime. We also played "red light, green light" for a bit. After that, we sat down and I shared my testimony. It was sweet, at one point I mentioned how I used to feel like I was not very beautiful or confident, and when the translator said it, all the kids said "aww! :("
But I got to tell how God has changed my life, so it was awesome.
Then they asked Rebekka and I to sing for them... So we did what we could on a whim.
I think we sang 3 or 4 worship songs before I found myself leading the group through the hokie pokie. Hahaha! Good times.

After our class time ended, all of the students came together again and we played some songs, people gave testimonies, and we did a skit.

At the end of our time, we thought we'd finish with the song, "Oh, Happy Day". All of us were on a stage, doing hand motions and dancing around. I can't explain to you what joy filled my heart to see 200 students having fun and doing the motions along with us.
Then it went crazy.
Our wonderful musicians played covers of a few super popular songs (One Direction, Taylor Swift) while the rest of us were pulled into the crowd ;) we jumped and danced and sang. It was practically a concert. Lots of fun.

It was an amazing day, and I'm so glad that we were able to speak openly about God.
I'm really hoping to see the students again during our time here. God is really, really giving me a heart for them.

So anywho.
That's what's going on.
I'll try to keep you updated, of course!

Chelsea