Valentine and Birth days... wheee!!!

Well, February has not failed to live up to the expectaions of busy and awesome. In keeping with what is becoming my habit, the first part of this update will be Ton Kla, the second half will be me personally. Part of me wants to separate these two into two separate posts, but then I would literally never update one or both of them. So for now, this'll do.

The camping trip was amazing. Two of the guys from TK came, and then there were about 12 or so-ish students from BK plus the people who help out so we ended up with a goup of around 20. When we got there, we set up camp, then went down the waterfall to play. Then when we got back to the top, we played a little kick ball and frisbeeeee. The night time activities included a lot of singing, great food, star gazing and the Akward Cupid Shuffle around the campfire. Awesome. The next morning we woke up, ate and broke down camp, then walked over to a gazebo near the mouth of the spring to have church. This was followed by going to a deeper part of the water to have 3 baptisms. This was followed by two of the people who came with us deciding to give their lives to Christ.

The next week, the team from Florida came into town, and on Monday they went out into the area around TK and handed out the Hope video and and talked to people, and found a suprising amount of people who claimed to know Christ but don't go to any church for various reasons. I'll get back to that. I missed out on the first three days with the team (exception being lunch on Monday) due to work and working with the girls to plan out Thursday. Then Thursday morning the team came to NCU before lunch, and then during lunch handed out the flyers that Ekk made.

Pretty swank, eh? Dan also got to play some music for the students as they had a concert there during lunch. Then they sat down with my English majors and talked with them for part of their grade, then they went to Tk and decorated.

After they had dinner, we played games and hung out with the students, then made valentines. All in all it was a great night.

The next Tuesday night we had TonKla again as usual, but I was unable to be there because I was teaching. According to the girls, we had about 7 or 8 show, and they had fun. They played telephone pictionary and told the story of... Noah and the Ark? I think that was the next one on our list. Yeah, anyways. This week we will do normal stuff, then the following week will be finals week, so we will tell the story and then watch a movie. Beyond that we still have not discussed really with the students, so we will do that on Tuesday.

Another new develpment, one of the girls who came to the Valentines day party, also went with Sa to the BK vday party, the CD vday party and wants to study the bible with her, along with a couple of her friends. So starting on Monday they will be having a girls' Bible study (girls in the sense that no guys are coming yet, not in that they aren't allowed). The company has let us borrow a book shelf and a fan. Awesome. And Rob and Jordan's home church has made a very genrous donation to help us with bills and such. So praise God for all of that.

This leads me into the part of my post that is mixed TK and me personally. The TK part is that there are some really cool opportunities opening up in front of us. We are trying to figure out to be a meeting place for the believers in the area, and for the students that go to North that are already believers, and there are a few. Also looking at offering more in depth cell group type meetings for those who want more than just the stories we do on Tuesday. The me personally part is I am try to decide how much I am supposed to be a North and TK each. I'll get back to that.

For me personally the first half of this month has been very draining. It's been basically non-stop. I'm about fed up with my bank back home and all the dadgum fee's it charges me just to get money out (in addition to the ones here). It has been wonderful, but draining.

And even though I was very excited when I was first told that they were putting through the contract for me, and it was something that I have been asking them to do, I feel a pull inside of me telling me to make this descision carefully. As it is, teaching and side projects for North consume a large amount of my time. Most of my time. Especially the side projects that I sometimes get blindesided with, and making tests. I am not a very nice or graceful person to be around when it comes down to creating mid-terms and finals. If I sign a full time contract, well, its just like becoming a salaried employee in the states, they own your time. Even though on paper I only need to put in 35 hours per week, I know that will be more like 60. at least.

And the main reason I am doing it because of the financial security it offers. A set amount of money coming in at the same time every month is very attractive to me at this point, as is the pay raise, how ever much that is.

And I know it's not time for me to quit. Abondoning my students, and dropping out a position I have said I would fulfil is increadably the wrong way to go about it. But I don't know if I should be taking this contract. I realise this is rambling and random, but that's the state of my brain on the issue right now.

Moving on. Valentines days parties were awesome. Had a crapload of fun eventhough I didn't get any rest at all.

And then yesterday was my Birthday. Yay for being 25. Yay even more for lazing about my room until about 5, and then going bowling with friends. I want to say thanks to all my friends that read this that sent me various types of birthday wishes, and those who were able to come to my party. All in all it has been a crazy, awesome, increadable month. and we still have a week left.

Please pray for TK and me as we move to the end of the semester, and we have some descisions to make, or more accurately, we need to seek out the best direction that God has chosen for us. Yay finals, yay fun, and yay for watching doors open all over the place.

love y'all

Lotsa fun stuff

Sooooo, The last few updates I have done have been strictly email. I think that may become the norm. The only problem is, I can't ever remember what the last update I sent out happened to be. So I just have to guess.

I think it was after our second meeting where we had more than two people come. This past weekend was the English camp for NCU that TK and BK partnered in working on. We met up at Baan Kanoon at 06.30 and got all loaded up into the van, and left at a little after 7. Made one stop at a gas station for breakfast, and then headed up to the Phuing Fah resort up in the Mae Sa area. ( http://www.phuingfah.com if you want to see pics of the resort, will add a link to the facebook folder once the pics get uploaded... that may be a month or so) We unloaded, put out all the gear for everyone so we could start setting up stations. Then we found out that the vans coming from NCU had broken down on the way, so while they were waiting for replacements, we started the camp with the kids that had just driven straight there. That was the first bit o' excitement. So we went through the first rotation, and about midway through the second, the rest of the students showed up. So we were able to get them all assigned into groups and then put with their peoples and they didn't really miss that much. So that worked out well.

For the stations we had

Karaoke
Postcards - a craft station where they got to make postcards and write on em in English
Active team games - they did the human knot, a game where they had to keep the ball in the air, and one team got to do group juggling.
Card games - I'm pretty sure every team played uno/crazy uno
Sports- frisbee, football, and soccer which then got turned into a relay
Picture Scavenger Hunt
Scrabble - they played in teams
Vocab practice - Make as many words as you can out of "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" (i think thats the sentence, if not it's close)
Dancing - learning the Cupid Shuffle
Valentines Cards

So they went through half before the amazing lunch, and they went through half after the amazing lunch. By the end of the day, everybody was worn out. But it was fun. Some of the students there are supposed to send us the contact information for their school so that we can talk to the school about doing an all day camp there. So thats awesome.

Then on Tuesday we had our third meeting. We had eight people come including three juniors from Hang Dong high school who had come to the English camp. We talked and did homework, and then played the game where you have to navigate the minefield blindfolded, listening to your partner (they had to do it in English, then they made me and Tessa do it in Thai). Then we told the second story out of our series, the story of the creation of the Angels and the fall of Lucifer.

Then we played more bull.. they really, really like bull.

Tomorrow, we are taking a few of the student who come to TK and joining up with a lot of people from BK to go to Namtok Jet Si (the seven color water fall aka the sticky waterfall. sticky because the whole waterfall is calcified (or, uh, lime-a-fied, though fairly certain its the first) which gives you great traction) to go camping. Spending the night and coming back on Sunday.
Next week we are forgoing the normal Tuesday night for a Thursday night Valentine's day party with a group who will be in town from Florida. That's gonna be awesome.
So our prayer thanksgivings/concerns for this week are:

We have a small group of students interested and coming, the English camp was amazing, it looks like some new opportunities are opening up, all the support from people here esp. at the English camp.
Safe travels, good parties, opportunities to share, sensitivity to God's direction as we move forward and as we decide what to do for the summer.

As to what's been happening with me personally. February is gonna be busy, We kicked it off right with the English camp last weekend, the next day went to a fellow teacher's dad's funeral in Lampang, this week I've written and submitted to be torn apart two finals, gave a test, started on the last chapters of both of my classes, sat through a three+ hour lecture over how to use a new online English program for next semester (it looks like fun, but adds extra work to each class), tonight going to BK and tomorrow going to the water fall. Next week we go to CMU to defend our programs to an outsorce comittee for private universities (this is where the finals get torn apart), Thursday - Valentines day party, Friday - Senior farewell party for NCU seniors, Saturday - Payup/CD church Vday party (all day), Sunday - Vday party at a fellow teacher's church. Following week helping teach three three hour sessions for the seniors in speaking English (this may blossom to six sessions) etc.. last two weeks are preparing for, giving and grading finals. There are a few things I forgot to add in.


Said all that to say I may not be updating much in Feb. If you see me on Facebook playing Farmville, that has become my new sanity break. It's lots of fun too.

Also, found out that I should be signing a year long contract as a teacher at the beggining of March. Not sure what all extra that entails, but it does give me a secure monthly salary for the next 12 months, I can actually make a budget for myself that doesn't have to change month by month based on my income. first time, ever. Awesome.

So all in all, gearing up for the end of semester, and trying to stay a head. I imagine this is what surfing is like. I could be wrong though.