Greetings!
I have officially been in Thailand for over a week! It has been a great couple of days, definitely stretching but incredible. My first week I was living with my director Michelle in her home. She lives in a slum community called Samaki, which is a considerable large slum community. For the first day, a German missionary family that lives near by took us around the community and to Bangkapi Mall. The mall was awesome! It was cooler then most places but it had a huge movie theater and waterpark on the top floor! I know, crazy! The next couple days consisted of us learning a bit of Thai..mostly working on the five tones--if you didn't know, Thai is a tonal language therefore they may use the same word that has five different meanings depending on the tone. In addition to learning the tones, we also spent a lot of time in the Samaki community and did lots of walking around. I had an incredible week in Samaki! I ended my time there attending house church in the community which consisted of seven Thais and a handful of us interns. It was such a special church service which was very informal but felt like a huge family spending time with our Lord and Savior! After church service, the entire church went to a Badminton gym and played for hours! It was hot, extremely sweaty (no air-ventilation in the gym) but so much fun! It was a great end to our week.
Then came Monday morning, the exciting day where Michelle took Natalie and I to our community which is about one hour and a half west towards downtown Bangkok. We were welcomed with open hands and excitement! Todd and Karen, the missionary couple that will oversee Natalie and I in our community joined us and introduced us to the whole community. We met all of the community leaders and Todd took some pictures with all of us. Apparently, we are the first Americans to every move into this community and area. Later on in the day, we went to downtown Bangkok and visited our language school which is starting tomorrow--that took most of the day with traveling and getting a little lost. After we got home, Natalie and I worked a bit on our apartment and then the community President, Vice President, and other women from the community made us dinner which was delicious! The women then told us that they want to make us dinner every night. What a huge blessing that is, especially knowing these families don't make much income. Natalie and I felt extremely welcomed in our community and had a wonderful evening talking and looking at pictures. Unfortunately, I had some problems with leg cramps which proved to be very frustrating--I think it was because we were so busy yesterday that I did not drink enough water. But today I am on top of my water and am definitely going to try harder! One of the funniest things in my community is the women really want to get me in shape, therefore we will be doing aerobics every evening. Haha! The most comical thing is they kept talking about how big americans are while they were feeding us a very sugary dessert! It was quite a night!
I can't wait to share more about what is to come these next few weeks! Please continue to pray for Natalie and I while we begin this new season with our community.
**The picture shown is of my aparment complex. Natalie and I live on the second floor.
Blessings!