Christmas

Christmas has been a whirlwind here. We started with all things Christmas in November and have been doing nothing else since it seems like. Our school has a classroom decorating contest, but we have to use all recyclables. That was a challenge, but it ended up looking really good. We made candy-canes and wreaths out of toilet paper rolls, a Christmas tree out of handprints cut out of green plastic bags, snow from shredded paper, and boxes the kids brought in to wrap presents. We also made a TON of snowflakes, and decorated some of them with glitter.









We also had 2 staff parties, one of which we had to come up with a performance, that was also performed at the outdoor program. I think we did a pretty good job!








We also have 2 nights worth of a Christmas program, and each night has 2 parts, an indoor and an outdoor program. We spent many hours preparing our 4th grade performance... a kind of acting out of the 12 days of Christmas. The outdoor program consists of all the grades performing some kind of dance, skit, or song. The indoor program is put on by the music teacher and each grade had a song or several songs to sing. After all the hours of preparation, practices, and decorating, it all ended after a few hours on a Friday and Saturday night. It was fun though, and I've already got ideas for next year.

A Thai Thanksgiving

(Yes, Thanksgiving was last month, but as you can probably already tell, I'm late in most of my posts, so bear with me.)
It's funny that when you find yourself living overseas, you realize that a lot of the big holidays that we celebrate at home aren't celebrated in the rest of the world. It makes sense, but it's not something that you realize until you get here. Of course Thailand wouldn't celebrate Thanksgiving, there are no piligrims or indians here... my kids have never even heard of the Mayflower :P So Thanksgiving day here was just like any other day. We went to school and did all the things we do every day. I was lucky enough to find a live stream of the Macy's Day parade! That was awesome, but I had to stay up until midnight to finish it... eek. But we were able to have a huge Thanksgiving feast that Saturday. All of the staff got together and had a wonderful party. We had it at my apartment, so we cleared out all of our furniture and brought in tables. It's amazing how we fit soooo many people into such a small space! We tried to make it look as festive as possible, down to cutting out fall leaves out of construction paper. We had wassail (mmmm), turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, a philippino dish that was fantastic!, broccoli casserole, and sooo much more!
There aren't many pictures from the day, because we were so busy eating and enjoying ourselves, but here are the few that I do have:

Overflow...

This is a video I just found while looking through my India pictures. The day I got back from India I was exhausted and came home to sleep, but there was water dripping from the faucet in the bathroom. I touch the faucet to see if I could fix the leak or somehow plug it, and it came off in my hand. Here is what happened next....

Pie in the face.... for a good cause

The 6th grade class here at GES has been having various fundraisers throughout the year. There is a guy who used to teach here, Mr. Matt, who has since moved to Cambodia and opened an orphanage. Jenelle, the 6th grade teacher, is going there for Christmas, so her class is raising money to send to the orphanage. It's been really neat to see the ideas they come up with for fundraisers. They've had movie days, a haunted house, pizza sales at lunch, and more that I can't remember. But the most creative so far has been a ticket sale to pie your teacher in the face. On Friday all of the students that bought tickets got the chance to pie us in the face, although there's not really pie here, it was more like a plate of homemade whipped cream. What was even worse was that it was warm, so it was like being hit in the face with thick warm sour milk. It was kind've gross, but the kids had a great time! I was one of the lucky ones that got away with only 3, but other teachers sold out at 25... they were troopers!
Here are pictures from the momentous afternoon:

India anyone??

Okay, the much awaited blog post (this is for you mom).
I find it difficult not only to find time to write, but to find things to write that are worth writing. Life in Thailand isn't much different from life in America. I wake up, go to school, work a little after school, eat dinner, go to sleep, and do it all over again. It's pretty cool doing it on the other side of the world, but life goes on like normal. There's not much of interest to write.
BUT since I did just get back from India, I guess I can fill you in on that. Our semester ended October 15 and we had the last 2 weeks off, so I went to India with 2 other teachers. We stayed at Asha Mission . This was my 4th time back to India and my 3rd time to Asha Mission. If you go back to my posts from last year you will see some from there. I am always excited whenever I get a chance to go back and see the kids. There are 32 now.. 4 more boys just came a few months ago from the leper colony. We just did the usual, get them up at 5am, have prayer time, get them showered, get dressed for school, eat breakfast, and head to the bus stop. Then devotions, breakfast, and teaching the 4 new boys that stay at home. 12:00 we go pick the kids up from the bus stop,change clothes, play, eat, afternoon prayer time, homework, play, night prayer time, dinner, read the Bible, and go to bed (usually on the roof!). I was only there for a week. It was sooo short, especially when I have no idea when I'll be able to go back, but I'll take what I can get. They have all grown and changed so much in the past 10 months. We celebrated birthdays, did crafts for homework, and bought new flip flops. My Hindi improved a ton, but unfortunately now that I'm back in Thailand all I can think of is Hindi. Oh my.
After 1 week at the orphanage my friends left to travel and see the sights and I flew to the NE part of India to the state of Assam. My dearest friends Amanda and Jessica were there volunteering in a hospital that they will both more than likely work at in their futures. Amanda and Jess were 2 of the 4 girls I was with last year. They are incredible and such an encouragement. I only saw Amanda for a few hours in the airport because she was returning home after being gone for 10 months. Jessica and I got to spend an amazing week together catching up and encouraging one another and just relaxing in the amazing countryside of India. We hung out with the student nurses and visited patients. We even went on rounds a few times!
The time passed much too soon, and it was time to come back to Thailand. India will always have a special place in my heart, but coming back to Thailand was like coming home :) I know without a doubt I am where I am supposed to be.
I only have a few pictures, because it's difficult for me to take pictures and be there playing at the same time, so playing won out most of the time, but here is what I have:






Here are some pictures of the girls who I spent 3 months with last year... some of the most amazing girls I've ever met! I wish I had a picture from this past trip, but these will have to do.




Here are the 2 pictures I have from Assam. It really is a beautiful place, full of tea farms and rice fields!




Now we are in high gear for Christmas. It might seem early, but we only have 27 school days before Christmas break, and there is soooo much to do! The Christmas program is a HUGE deal here, and each class has several performances to do, on top of decorations and costumes and parties. There's no Thanksgiving holiday here, so there's really no reason to not listen to Christmas music. I've been in full swing for a week now, and plan on making snowflakes to hang throughout our apartment and make wassail and Christmas cookies and I've got a line up of Christmas movies we are going to watch :) I'm sooo ready for Christmas!

India

It has been a whirlwind of a week. Between getting report cards done, writing finals, teaching, and getting ready for India, there has been little time for rest. But it will be SOOOO worth it. I am so excited and so blessed to have the opportunity to go back. I never know when it will be, but I always leave feeling that I will be back one day. This one day happens to be exactly a year from my arrival there in 2009... how awesome is that??
Please pray that God would sustain us. It can be a very tiring experience, but I hope through the hand of the Lord I will be able to give it my all and still come back feeling somewhat rested and ready for next semester.
I feel so inadequate. There are some amazing women that have gone with me and now before me, and they are big shoes to fill! Pray that the children would grow and be discipled through our time there and that they would know they are loved, not only by me, but more importantly by our heavenly father. Pray for energy and rest and just a sweet time with these children that I love!
I won't have internet, so this will be my last post until I get back in 2 weeks.
Thanks for the prayers and support!

A collage of Pictures

Sorry... I'm really bad at keeping this updated. Instead of writing a bunch of words about what I've been up to, here are some pictures:

GES had a talent show a few weekends ago:






The 2nd and 4th grade went on a field trip to Safari World, a small animal theme park (reminded me of my Disney Days... on a much smaller scale of course!):
















A fun night out to the Bangkok Spanish club's Venetian Mask party:



More to come. We have one more week left of the first semester of school. I've been here 4 1/2 months! I can't believe how quickly it's gone by (and how behind I am in so many of my classes!!). Tomorrow is a workday and we will spend it putting in grades, getting report cards ready, and planning for next semester. Then I'm off to India for 2 weeks!! I'm super excited, although there is lots to do! Don't expect an update from me while I'm there, because more than likely I won't have access to internet, but I will post pictures and stories as soon as I get back :)