We live! Haha, sorry for letting an entire week go by since our arrival with no blog updates. I hope no one was holding their breath.
It has been an incredibly exciting first week. Where to begin...? I suppose at the beginning. We arrived in Bangkok late Friday (8/9/13) night. Much to our surprise, the airport was still packed at midnight. By the time we went through customs, got our bags, and got to our hostel, it was almost 3 am. Shower, bed. We spent the next day walking around our corner of Bangkok and got on a bus to Chiang Mai that evening. *Quick tip to anyone taking a bus from Bangkok to Chiang Mai - if it rains, your bags will be soaked, and be prepared to watch at least three horrible movies on very high volume back to back to back. Example: the first movie was a WWII movie about killing Nazis. The bus was full of Japanese, German, English, American, and Chinese tourists. It was a bit tense.
We arrived in Chiang Mai the next morning at around 6 am. We were herded into a song teow (taxi/bus/truck thing) with seven other people (apparently this is unheard of) and drove around Chiang Mai for 2.5 hours as the driver attempted to find everyone's hotels. What made it especially memorable is that it was POURING, and song teows are somewhat open like San Francisco trolleys. Much to our relief, we arrived at the Rathmells' house pneumonia-free. They had coffee, a dry home, and a KITTEN waiting to welcome us! I could not have been happier.
That morning we got to go to their home church, which was really cool. It's a very tight-knit community of mostly missionary families. They were all really warm and welcoming. We went there this morning, too, and we're really looking forward to getting to know the people there better.
Monday through Thursday we spent going to classes at the Discipleship House (D House) with the other DTS students. Including Alex and I and the "dorm parents," there are a total of 13 students. Most of them are right out of high school but David and Cessily, the "dorm parents," are closer to our age. It's been really neat getting to know the students and learning more about the Bible together. Every week at DTS there's a different focus. This week we learned about using peer coaching to develop deeper and more meaningful relationships, and we learned how to study the Bible inductively. It's been really neat to dive into the Word so intentionally. I'm excited to keep it up. (:
On Friday, we all piled into two big pickup trucks and headed for the hills. Buddy knows a man who pastors a small farming village in the mountains. It was about 1.5 hours on normal roads followed by about 2 hours on bumpy, unpaved, dirt/mud roads to get there. The village has a school, but housing for the teachers is limited, so we went to help them build a house. When we got there, we found that there were way too many of us for the job. Fortunately, there were plenty of kids to keep us occupied. Alex and I spent about four hours playing volleyball, ping pong, and soccer with the school children in the rain. It was so great. The kids were all super athletic and super adorable. One of the teachers even taught me to count to ten in Thai! Small steps. Before we left the village, a few of the teachers took us into the jungle to see a cave and natural spring. It was really pretty. And muddy. And we had to look out for leeches. And one of the teachers chased after and killed a 6-foot snake. All in good fun.
We are now back in Chiang Mai ready to start week two of classes tomorrow. Oh, and in case anyone was concerned about our living conditions, we have been super blessed to stay in a house used for Stop Slavery investigators that is currently empty. It has four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a washer & dryer, and a POOL. We won't be in this house forever, but we're soaking it up while we can. (:
We've been super blessed in our time here thus far. We're really connecting with the other students and the teachers. We haven't had any stomach issues or injuries. Our current house is beyond awesome. Also, when we got here I really missed playing guitar. Instead of just going out and buying a cheap guitar, we decided to pray to God that a guitar would somehow be provided. One day, Buddy said that while we were out some officers would be at the house with some at-risk students but they'd be gone by the time we got back. Apparently they spend their time learning to play guitar and the cajon, because when we got home that night there were THREE guitars and a cajon just chillin in the living room. (:
Please continue to pray for us. God has been so good thus far and I know He will continue to be, but please pray that we would not grow lazy or complacent. Please pray that we would continue to intentionally pursue the Lord. Please pray that God would continue to strengthen our marriage. Please pray that the Lord would protect our health. Thailand's a bit of a germy place so as long as you wash your hands you're fine, but if you get any kind of injury, the likelihood of it getting infected is much higher than it would be in the US or Japan. Above all else, please pray that we would seek to honor God and look for opportunities to serve Him and others.
We'd love to hear from you all.
Much love,
jess