TEACHING AT SANTISUK

Hello again from Bangkok, Bangkapi district actually

Well, we already have the first half of our teaching assignment completed at the Santisuk English Speaking school here in Bangkapi district. Our team teaches from 7:00 am until 9:00 pm  Monday through Thursday, which started on Feb. 6. Lyndell has an early morning class from 7:00 to 9:00 as does Gary and then after an hour break Gary has another class from 10:00 to 12:00. There are four levels for English training at the school each lasting for one month. There are also some advanced classes after the first four have been successfully completed. Lyndell has been teaching a Level 2 class with some help from Moriah, while Gary has two Level 4 classes.

Santisuk English School (also site for Peace Fellowship Church)

Poster of three new teachers at Santisuk English School

Curriculum samples

Pastor Cable teaching on the Biblical true meaning of love for Valentine's Day

Some members of Lyndell's class

Moriah's Valentine gift to students, balloon kitties

Gary's 10:00 class

In addition to class time we are encouraged to spend as much time with the students as their often busy schedule permits. Usually that involves eating breakfast with the first class at 9:00 and lunch with the others at 12:00.

Breakfast with students

Besides our regular times with the students we try to schedule other outside class events where we can continue to develop relationships. So we have been invited to several outdoor street markets, a tour of the Grand Palace including a major temple housing the Emerald Buddha, bowling, a movie (Les Miserables), and playing card games, badminton and table tennis.

Two halls and a pavilion on the Grand Palace grounds

Temple of the Emerald Buddha (sorry no pictures permitted inside)

Guardians of a temple at the Grand Palace

His looks alone should scare anyone away

Lunch with students after touring the Grand Palace

Fried rice in pineapple boat

Sea Bass Delight- delicious

Tuk tuk ride leaving Grand Palace

The days seem to be flying along at a rapid pace with so much to do besides class time preparation and grading essay papers. Friday evenings we have a gathering for a meal followed by a worship service  in the Thai language at Peace Fellowship Church at the Santisuk School building and graciously translated for us.

Friday evening outdoor service

Sunday mornings and extending into the early mid-afternoon our team members are divided up into different cell groups for times of worship, prayer, sharing from the word and some Bible teaching. Sunday evening we can attend an English speaking service at the church if we are not involved with some activity with our students. Thus, it has been difficult to actually find some time to make a new blog entry since we first started teaching a couple weeks ago.

Our Sunday morning cell group

Lunch with cell group in apartment

Moriah enjoying baby Mercy at cell group

Lyndell getting her grandmother fix with baby Mercy

Pizza party at our apartment

Good price for fish heads- must be the season we guess

We could choose the squid which is really popular here in Thailand

Frogs as another option with insides hanging out to assure us they are fresh

Decided to try the fish with bodies attached

Snapper grilled on the street to perfection

Top it off with a Passion fruit shake for Valentine's Day of course

Belated Valentine's Day greetings

Removal of hair using a thread snapped across the face- looked painful to us.
Gary said he will stick to his safety razor, thank you

Day view of Amphawa Floating Market in Samut Songkram Province south of Bangkok

Boating with students and a fellow teacher couple Darrel and Diane  

Going down the lazy river to a site in order to view the spectacular fireflies at night

Night view of Amphawa Floating Market cooking food on the river

Eating dinner prepared on the river

Here are the nicknames of our students, which everyone seems to go by here in Thailand, since their real names are often long and quite difficult to pronounce. There are fewer men because they don't seem as interested in learning English as do the women. The men are Yo, Prince, and Nont. The women are Pong, Tid, Wan, Noy, Muay, Jube, Phet, Hanis, Nan, Bow, Noi, Sung, two named Mai and two named Ice. The classes are small which gives greater opportunity to get to know the students better.

Class time offers many moments for some good laughs as the students really enjoy attempting to repeat over and over the words that are difficult for them to pronounce. As an aid to learning we include some time for singing simple Christian songs such as "Jesus Loves Me", "This Little Light of Mine", "Beloved Let Us Love One Another", "Sing Hallelujah" and so on. With each song we give some explanation of the words we are singing.

Part of each day's curriculum includes a Bible story that the students read for their comprehension section. Most of them have never heard these stories before and are very interested in learning more about things like creation, and the miracles of Jesus.

One student said that he had a hard time actually believing that the miracles like bringing someone back to life were true. Another one said that she had a difficult time believing that Jesus could have stilled a storm. Yet another mentioned that Jesus seemed very much like the prophet Mohammed of Islam. Statements like these and others open up opportunities to demonstrate the uniqueness of Jesus. We explain that even in the time of Jesus people were amazed when they witnessed these miracles because they were events the people had never seen before such as a man named Lazarus being raised from the dead. Even the disciples of Jesus marveled when at his word the seas became calm and wondered what kind of man could do such a thing. Throughout all the recorded miracles in the Bible Jesus was clearly revealing himself to be more than a mere human being. He could heal the sick, make the blind to see and the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak, command the lame to walk, feed thousands with a five loaves of bread and two small fish, cast out demons from the tormented, turn water into wine, and even raise the dead back to life because, amazing as it is to believe, Jesus was God in the flesh. The one all powerful God can do anything He chooses to do including forgiving us when we repent of our sins and trust what His Son has done for us by suffering and dying on the cross.

Another young woman commented that she understood that the most important person in Gary's  life was Jesus, but the most important person in her life was the Buddha. She felt that whenever she had a problem she could go to the Buddha and he would help her although she still struggled with some issues including anger. Gary asked her if it would be best to ask a dead person or a living person for help. He explained that although the Buddha was a good man who apparently said many good things, died and has not been seen since. Jesus, however, died and came back from the dead and spent 40 days with his followers before ascending back to heaven and promised to return to judge the world. Christians believe that this living God is now able and willing to help His children whenever they call to Him in prayer.

Thailand is a contrast in beauty and darkness. The land displays its natural beauty during the day in the smiles and creative artistry of the people. However, we have been told that at night the dark side resurfaces as evidenced by the high incidence of prostitution, human trafficking and all that goes along with that business. This serves to remind us that the evil one has a strong foothold here. There is a dim light that has been introduced to Thailand many years ago that needs to shine brighter to display the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. May the Lord be merciful to send more workers here so that light may become a blazing flame of God's truth and glory so that many will come to receive His offer of eternal life through faith in His Son.  

Sunset over Bangkok

Grand Palace

Farewell Chiang Mai and Hello Phuket

Greetings from Thailand

We said good-bye to the city of Chiang Mai on Monday Jan. 28, but not before spending some time with a remarkable 35 year old woman with three young children whose husband was away in China working to translate the Bible into the Tai Lue language, which is spoken by certain people groups in China, Thailand, Burma and Laos.  She also shared with us stories of her own ministry to sensitive jungle areas of Burma, sharing the gospel and providing Bible training to new believers. This is a woman with no apparent fear of man because of her strong faith in God to provide and protect her as she works for His kingdom. Her work has led many to Christ including military leaders who have been used by God to provide the necessary protection needed to accomplish her ministry. We have chosen not to give her name nor include any pictures due to the sensitive nature of her work. She said that the village people are always so happy to receive what she has to offer and there are more to reach than she is capable of doing alone.

 Critters like this one we happily said good-bye to in Chiang Mai 

Mingling with the open market vendors in Chiang Mai was always a very interesting time as we sampled various delicious native cultural dishes, smelled the various fragrances both pleasant ones such as those from flowers like the Jasmine blossom or unpleasant like those from the stinky displays of drying fish or simply looking in wonder and trying to imagine how anyone could eat such a thing. One item that is banned from many hotels and from being transported in public vehicles because of its terrible mid-stage rotting onions or manure smell is the infamous Durian fruit. We actually got up the nerve to try eating some and after getting it past our nose (Gary found it more difficult than did Moriah or Lyndell) found it to be remarkably quite delicious. We found it quite interesting in that we were given a plastic bag to hold it, so our hands would not be contaminated with the unpleasant smell, which could last for days.

Brave girl trying Durian (notice plastic bag)

Outdoor street dining and an example of some wonderful traditional Thai cuisine.

Traditional herbal medicine pharmacy

Squid anyone? Actually very good when fresh (after cooking of course).

Hopefully no hoof and mouth disease here.
(We haven't been hungry enough to try pork knuckles and tongue yet)  

Decisions, decisions which tea is best?

You must choose your herbs carefully for Thai cooking.

A few unique fruit juices not usually found at Super Walmart.

We decided to make one last visit to the temple "monk chat" and found a young man, named Chaidech, who had been a monk for about 7 years trying to earn merit for a better life attempting to avoid the evils of this world by becoming a monk. We spoke to him and shared stories of Jesus and how Jesus has earned the necessary merit (righteousness) for us, as well as paying the penalty where we have fallen short.  He mentioned that his best childhood friend had become a Christian and was studying at a seminary in Sweden. This friend was always telling him that Jesus loved him, but he was not quite sure what that meant. He had ever never really heard the gospel before, so we took the time to make it clear to his understanding before praying with him and bidding good-bye. We also gave him the challenge to begin reading the book of John and asking God to open his mind to the truth on how to attain eternal life and avoid the judgment. Our hope is that we may have helped him take one more step towards a commitment to Christ and finding Him as his greatest treasure.

Young monk who showed an interest in our story.

Rules before entering temple
(Lyndell and I had a difficult time observing #7)

Next on our agenda was to fly to Phuket, avoiding the train this time, and meet up with the six others who were coming to Thailand from Minneapolis to join us for the work we would be doing in Bangkok. Phuket is a vacation destination for many travelers around the world because of the natural beauty of this location in southern Thailand.

Sunset over Siray Bay,  Phuket Island

Since our friends did not have the previous experience we had riding elephants they signed up for a tour to do so and we decided to join them when we learned we would be riding on a chair this time instead of bareback. We had visions of Hannibal's elephants crossing over the Alps to invade Italy as we comfortably ambled along a well worn path through the jungle.

Two cute little monkeys

A genuine Thai elephant massage.

Which side is our most photogenic, our front view?

or our backside?

Maybe this water buffalo would be more economical.

The next day our group chose to take a tour boat for a six hour cruise of several smaller islands that afforded a unique opportunity to view and take pictures of the magnificent artistic handiwork of God utilizing wave action and the rise and fall of the ocean levels thousands of years ago.

 Our tour boat on the Andaman Sea

James Bond Island

Cn you tell Moriah has been working out in the gym?

Many pictureque steep cliffs made finding beaches difficult.

Looking for a landing area.

We spot an opening as we approach the shore by canoe.

We decide to paddle through the opening in the cliff wall.

Beautiful pool on the other side.

We didn't take Moriah along just for a free ride

Paddling back out through the cliff opening.

The few days we were able to spend in Phuket for some R&R with our friends were a bonus we eagerly took advantage of while on this side of the planet. Now that the new coming members of our team had rested up a bit from the long flight from the USA we were all ready to travel to Bangkok and check in to our upcoming month long lodging arraignments nearby the school where we would be teaching. We are all eager to meet our students whom the Lord has ordained for us to teach and introduce to His saving grace.

Saying good-bye for now.