Hosanna.

Two blogs in one day. I have a lot of feelings.

There is a line in Hosanna where Hillsong sings "break my heart for what breaks yours".
I always thought I understood this line.  But understanding and actually living it is absolutely different.
I cry. But I don't know why.  Because there are so many reasons.
And then I am angry. Because it is not fair.  I am so confused.
And then I feel guilty. Because I don't deserve to feel at all.
So then I feel nothing.
I start to put myself back together.
And then there are little things. Here and there. That pushes me over. That breaks me.
And I fall apart all over again.

I hurt because she is hurting.
I cry because I know she is crying.

I wonder if God cries too when He sees her cry?
Does His heart break when He sees how broken all of us are?


John 14:1-4 NIV
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

Home.

Sorry! It has been one month since I have been in Thailand and I am finally putting up another post. I find myself apologizing a lot on this blog. Sorry again.
It has been a terrible terrible first week of school, which of course carried into the next week, and will probably be a terrible third week also.  But this is another story for another blog.
Aside from this, I miss Thailand so very much. I miss the people. I miss teaching them, seeing their faces, talking to them, and learning from them.
It's strange that these people, who I only spent a month with, who I could not even communicate with at certain times, got to know me better than some people who I have known all my life.
It's funny because one of the students asked to be my best friend.  And I said no because I said that you have to know someone longer before you can become their best friend. But knowing someone longer doesn't necessarily mean that you know them better.
I also said no because I felt like the students were putting me on a pedestal.  And I felt guilty. I didn't want them to think I was someone who I knew I wasn't, and then want to be a best friend of this person who did not exist.  I've made so many mistakes, have so many flaws.  I told them this.  And one of the student's told me that everything I do, I should do it because I love God.  I could be this person.  I am this person when God is the reason.  Only through God.  They already knew this.  They knew me.
It's strange that in Thailand, where I had no money, did not live like I did in the US, knew no one at first...was one of the most happiest I have ever been.  NBS became my home.

Awe.

I am starting to panic because I only have about a week and a half left and I feel like I haven't taken as many pictures.  I see albums on facebook with hundreds of pictures from a week long trip and here I am in Thailand for over a month with only about 200 pictures.  I am really bad a taking pictures; I forget that I have a camera all the time. I realized that I didn't even take pictures of the school so that everyone can see where I am working. Well, now I did. All my photos are on facebook so go there to look at more pictures.

Anyways I was talking to one of my students, Por, and he asked me if I was learning anything while I was in Thailand.  He was afraid that I wasn't because being American, I probably already knew more than he or the other students did about academics and Jesus.  He was afraid that the trade was not equal; that I was giving more that I was gaining.  And he is right, the trade isn't equal, but actually the other way around; I feel like I am gaining so much more that I am giving.  Truth is that they know so much more than I know.  Everything I am.  They are ten times more.  

I have friends and family who are proud of me for what I am doing. But then I see the students and what they are doing. And I am nothing.  And I am so humbled by this. I am in such awe of their love of God and other people.  

By the way, this whole conversation was in Hmong. Holla.

It's so crazy how I can pray in English and they in Thai and prayers get answered.  Sometimes, I forget how great God is.

Pictures of the school. For more go to facebook :)

My third year class.

So every Thursday the third years are driven to some part of Khon Kaen, dropped off, talk to strangers, and pass out bibles.

They are all so good at soccer!

This is Aer. A volunteer from Australia and I taught him how to shake hands and blow kisses.  He is quite the charmer.  He wanted to take a picture of us shaking hands :)

God is Love.

I have three weeks left in Thailand and I am starting to panic because I feel like it is not enough time! The days are going by so fast and, honestly, I have fallen in love with all the people that I have met here.  I feel like I could give more and learn so much more from everyone.

In fact, I was talking to God about how I felt like I wasn't giving enough and the next day Sue, out of the blue, had to leave to Bangkok for the week.  So this past week I have been in charge of all the English classes. And boy, has it been scary and hectic. But also filled with so much joy!

So this post will be mostly on the amazing people that I am meeting :)

The family that I am staying with are such incredible people.  They have so much love for others.  When I first arrived in Bangkok, I stayed at a church for two days before I took a bus to Khon Kaen.  There were people staying the night at the church also but I didn't think much of it. I thought they were just there to prepare for church the next day.  I just recently found out that they are not even from Bangkok but from the mountains in Northern Thailand. Because these people are from the mountains of Thailand, it is hard to receive a good education.  The church allows them to live in Bangkok for free so that they can attend school.  The family that I am staying with rented the church and renovated it.  Not only this, but the family has also set up other locations like this including places in which students come from Laos to stay and study. 

Above is a picture of a church that I attended last Sunday. It is another church that the family help set up.  These children were so adorable and energetic! Sadly, they live in poverty on railroad tracks.  The church picks them up every Sunday and teaches and feeds them.

There were missionaries from Australia so we had a worship night. I don't know where these motorcycles came from but we got on them anyways.  These are the monkeys from the third year class. I'm sitting with Sychanh and Mook and Kham mon are on the other bike.  Sychanh and Kham mon are from Laos and Mook is from Bangkok.  Sue and I call them monkeys because they are so crazy in class.  Yesterday Sychanh put seaweed on his teeth and pretended for the rest of the class that he was toothless.  Not to mention, these three are in there twenties.

This is Por, Arm, and Chin.  They are also my students.  Arm and Chin are kids of the other students at the seminary.  The whole family moved.  I teach the younger kids at night after dinner.

This is Key another student. And he just got BINOCULARED!

Lou is also a student. BINOCULARED!

The students at the seminar volunteer at churches every weekend, whether that is teaching, cooking, cleaning, etc.  These three are some of the kids that Lou works with.  It was awesome that they were able to come to the worship night!

Goy and Ii (im not gonna lie, I don't know how to spell her name, though this is just her nickname because I can't pronounce her real name!).  Ii is Arm's mama.

More students. We started dancing!

 And krumping? No just kidding. But really. We don't mess around when we are dancing for Jesus.

This week I also started volunteering at Ban Meata an orphanage for children who are HIV positive.  And oh my goodness are these children so lovable.

I usually spend the time playing or reading to them in English.

This is Mooham.  They were practicing a dance routine for mother's day. We sat down to watch!

 These kids love my phone and my camera. I show up with them. Give them to the kids.

And then must locate and pick them up before I leave.

And they are not bad photographers at all.  This picture was taken by one of them.

On another note, Por let me borrow a mosquito net! I can't even count all my bites anymore.  Oddly enough the first night I used the net, I received the most bites I had ever gotten.  Por said it was probably because I was touching the net while sleeping or my arms and legs got out. Who doesn't know how to use a mosquito net? O, right, me.

Tangent, the students and I made dessert (which was mashed sticky rice surrounding coconut or beans and wrapped in a banana leaf) for mother's days! Aroi (delicious)!

And these are the younger kids I teach at night. We were learning vocab by playing pictionary.  They didn't get the picture so Saxophone tried acting it out!haha

A Secret.

On Thursday, I got an amazing opportunity to go help teach English to the faculty of medicine at Khon Kaen University.
I had met the English teacher, Karen, at an English speaking church the weekend before. Karen is a nurse who volunteered with the UN at a Cambodian refugee in Thailand before she decided to start teaching.
She was kind enough to give me a tour of the hospital at Khon Kaen University.

Other hospitals recommend this hospital to patients if they need specific care or surgery. Very much like Ronald Reagan Hospital.  But, boy, was it different from RRH.

The hospital is divided into many different clinics.  The clinics are always packed and it usually takes up to two hours to get seen by a doctor, at the least.
The ICUs are big rooms with numerous beds only separated by curtains.
There were patients in beds in the hall way.

I am pre-med but I'm so ignorant about health care in general.
And I say ignorant because I choose not to know more.
For awhile now I've been secretly rethinking medicine. Not so secret anymore. Well, I postponed my MCAT twice. I thought that if I took my MCAT it would secure my future. And that was just scary. To know for sure what I would be doing for the next ten years and more. Every detail.
Scared that I wasn't doing medicine for the right reasons. I could forsee a mid life crisis.

Being here in Thailand teaching English, I didn't think I was going to encounter medicine at all. Maybe only if I caught typhoid or malaria.
But from my experiences so far, I feel like there is so much that I can give, and give in the field of medicine.
Before I left, I had really been asking God for guidance in this area of my life.
Please continue to pray for me!
Obviously I still don't have everything figured out but this is a good start.

I went to the night market. I think my favorite form of transportation in Thailand is by motorcycle. That's right.

My first class at Khon Kaen University.

It was Mother's Day this weekend in Thailand (the queen's bday).

I went to a King Cobra Show or snake show. I think I'm definitely a slytherin.

This kid is also a Slytherin. He's a parselmouth.

I went to the zoo with the family. And got ravaged by mosquitos.

 Khon Kaen University.

 Went to another market.  One of my student with his baby and his wife :)

Ginormous Cotton Candy

Would you like a side of insects with your rice? I puked a little in my mouth. 

I've decided that this is my favorite Thai fruit.

Content.

I hate this word.

But it keeps popping up.

Who wants to be content? I want to be more than content. I want to be more than just merely satisfied.

In Hebrew 13, it says to be content with what you have.

And in Philippians 4, Paul learns to be content in whatever situation he is in.  While writing this, he was in jail.

Maybe contentment is more than just being happy with what you have but really trusting in God instead of yourself.

Which is not any easier.

And I know that trust is not a virtue of mine.

But like Paul, contentment will not just happen overnight.

Here are more pictures!

Food! Going away breakfast for the missionary family who came to visit the school.  They were the ones who also treated all the students to bowling!

Cute little bakery. Also very good.

 Went to the lake with the family I'm staying with.  It had a little market in the park surrounding it.

Also rode a bike around the park. Had not touched a bike since I was in middle school. Almost killed so many people. So many.

The family: the two girls on the right were adopted, I thought that was awesome! They all have the most unusual names, from left to right: Idea, Saxophone, Guitar, Cheetah, and Dew.

The church that I went to on Sunday offers a music program in which kids can learn how to play guitar, piano, violin, etc.

The church was also visited by a missionary team from Korea. They praised dance!

They also did a "movement piece". I was a little skeptic of it at first as seen by the Asian man dressed as Jesus in the back but it turned out to be really good.  Ask me about it in person.

Turns out the majority of these missionaries were also doctors and nurses. Win!

They set up a clinic at the church.

They also offered acupuncture. Look closely at the woman's back and head! Ah!

Dinner that night consisted of sticky rice, shish kabob , and papaya salad.  I tried the shish kabob made from chicken stomach without knowing! 

In the states we call papaya salad "tham som", but here in Thailand it is "som tham". I get made fun of every time I call it "tham som"! Apparently "tham som", means that it hasn't been made yet.

And all this only cost 1 dollar!

Stupid little prayer.

So I haven't found the time to sit down and write how or what I am doing. I'm not swamped with things to do, I'm just not very good at writing so it takes time to put my thoughts into coherent sentences. And that might not even happen. So apologizes beforehand.

From the time I left Los Angeles to the time I got to Thailand, I found myself continuously asking "What the hell was I doing?"  I wasn't excited. I wasn't scared.

I was just sad.

Sad because I was alone. 

Pathetic I know. 

But this was more than just me not wanting to be by myself. I love being by myself: at home, at school.  I wouldn't mind vacationing by myself.

But I was going to be in another country for the first time, not knowing the language, not knowing anyone, and living in housing conditions that I was not used to.  And then I'm expected to teach English, which I have never done, to students who are my age and older.

What the hell was I doing?

Don't call it fear. I wasn't afraid, again, I was just sad.  

I think I had already assumed that I was going to fail at teaching and that no one was going to interact with me.

And so I just really wanted someone there for when this happened. Or that if they were there, it wouldn't happen.

So even if Thailand was shitty, looking back at it would have made it a shared shitty experience.

And shared shitty experiences actually become funny experiences.

Make sense?

So I did the only thing I could do. Prayed.

Prayed that I would stop feeling like this because it was stupid. And then I prayed for other stupid and adolescent things like for people to like me.

But for God, I don't think there are such things as stupid prayers. Maybe stupid people. Just kidding.

God really appreciates our honesty for the little things that we want, even as simple as mines.

The minute that I landed in Thailand, the family that I am staying with treated me as if we already knew each other.

The students are amazing; when I can't communicate with them in Thai, Hmong, or they just tell me to laugh it off because they enjoying laughing with me.

And whenever I think to myself "God, crap I'm alone and have nothing to do", someone comes along and wants to hang out or talk!

And this has happened more than a couple of times.

I have not, for a second, felt "alone" since I have been in Thailand.

Anyways, I'll quickly explain the pictures below!

Los Angeles traffic vs. Bangkok traffic
Bangkok : 1
Los Angeles: 0



You see those clouds, peed like a pregnant woman, never ending!
Had to take cover to the right.

Worship in Thai. Some of them apologized to me for not being able to do worship in English. I told them that it was totally fine because in my fellowship at UCLA, we do praise and worship in different languages all the time. Thanks IV.

 

First day in Khon Kaen, jumped in the trunk of a truck that fitted 10 people.

Entrance to a village.



Went to villages to talk to people about Jesus. Did I mention this was my first day in Khon Kaen.

Worship first. I get nervous talking to people about J, these students weekly go to villages in Thailand to share about J. Amazing.

 

Also offered back and foot massages to the people of the village.

Dirty pond, but had beautiful pink flowers.

The pond belonged to this woman who went and picked it for me. She is an amazing and kind woman. Talked to her with a friend who I just met who was my translator of course.  She is raising a disabled son and a baby in a house the size of my apartment bedroom.

 Took students of the school to bowl.  For the majority of them, this was their first time!

Filipino family who I met at the school.  The family moved to Thailand.  The little boy reminded me of my brother, Daniel.  He is trying to do a peace sign. So Asian >_<

These students keep busy.  Chapel in the morning from 8-9 am. Class until 4 pm. They help clean the school until 5 pm. 1 hour break. And mandatory studying in the library until 9 pm.  That's why Asian people are so smart.

Volleyball during break.  The students are sorta adorable.  They call me "aa-jaan" Kim.  Which means Teacher Kim.  I always have to tell them that "Kim" is fine!