Last day of classes, Christmas prep, cell group

Two new photo albums: http://picasaweb.google.com/home?tab=mq

Wow, it's been quite a while since I last blogged! Things have been so busy, but lots of cool stuff has been happening as we've just wrapped up our classes for this 8-week-term.

I can't believe it; I taught my last class today! Now I have a long Christmas break, which I had worried would be a little too long, but I've figured out now what I need to do to keep myself busy and happy. I still have not finalized my travel plans for Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Bangkok; it's a little complicated to find the best time. I think I will stay around here until Christmas and do my visa run in Ranong. Then I'd like to go up north after Christmas, but John and Kim and their family are coming down here, so I want to be here for their visit. So maybe I'll just be here for part of their visit.

I've started going to the cell group that Paul goes to (Ton's church), and actually, I'd like to switch to his church because I absolutely love it, but the only thing that makes me hesitate is that Paul would have to translate for me every time, and he needs a break from that. But actually, there are two other girls who speak English quite well who might be willing to translate for me some, too. I'd like to get to know them (Champu and Bea) better as well. But the point is also that I'm really wanting to focus on learning Thai now and building relationships with Thai people, so this smaller, less formal, wonderfully warm fellowship is a better fit for me. For the next term, I've switched my Wed. evening class to Thurs. evening to free up Wed. to go to cell group.

This week we did Christmas lessons, which was really cool because we had a great opportunity to share the Gospel with our students. With two of my classes, I read the story of Jesus' birth from Luke, and in two of them, Paul and I sang "What Child is This" (and he played guitar). I used the bridge illustration to show why Jesus is such an important person (not just a person), whose birthday we still celebrate 2,000 years after his life.

Last week I went on a really fun shopping trip to Phuket with Benz, Mae, and Ton. It was the king's birthday, so I didn't teach classes, and we really took advantage of our mid-week day off. We went to a store called Supercheap, which is the Thai version of Aldi. It was great, except it was boiling hot in there with no A/C! Oh, and I had my most interesting toilet experience in Thailand so far. We went to a shoe store on a little side street, and I wanted to use their bathroom. After I made my way to the back of the store through a maze of boxes and junk piled up, a crate with puppies, and there was the toilet: no stall, no curtain, nothing: just a toilet in the open surrounded by junk. No walls; behind the toilet was a very short sheet of metal for some privacy (but I could see right over it anyway) and behind it the alley. I did my business as quickly as possible. (but you start to find things like this amusing; it didn't actually bother me.) Then we went to the big mall to get some things for the Christmas party, for the gift exchange, etc. I didn't find everything I was looking for, but Paul found the cookie cutters (plus food coloring and sprinkles!) on the weekend when he went with Nuey.

Yesterday I started making cookies for the Christmas party w/ Jit and Chanpen; I made a triple batch of chocolate chip and a double batch of sugar cookies. I haven't baked the sugar cookies yet though; tomorrow morning I'll roll out the dough, cut the shapes, bake and decorate them. There are 3 Americans visiting here to see what Step Ahead is about. They're traveling the world, actually, getting involved w/ different ministries. Paul's taking them to the mushroom and orchid farms tomorrow, and afterwards I think they'll help me with the cookies.

I made my first curry w/out the help of my cooking partner, Jit, tonight! It was green curry, and I thought it tasted really good. I'm slowly learning how to cook stuff and I feel settled and very happy here. My stomach has been MUCH better for the past 1 1/2 weeks or so; thanks, everyone, for praying for me back at home. I'm eating normally again and I feel so much better. I'm still having trouble sleeping, though. Speaking of sleep, it's getting really late here. Signing off.