I have been looking forward to May 18th for a very long time. May 18th, there's something about that date! 05/18/2011 was the day that my Race ended and 05/18/2013 is the day when this new journey is actually beginning.
Anyways, let's start from the beginning. I arrive at the airport and am picked up at the airport where I meet Terri, the girl who is going to be my partner for the next two years. We drop off our bags and walk over to Jim's office. He is our director and is over the Thailand teachers program. At this meeting we are told all the details that I've been wanting to know for weeks. We will be living in the Nakhon Phanom Province, which borders Laos. We will most likely be staying on campus in a house. We don't know if the house will be furnished, or have AC, or even if it will have a western toilet, but we're excited to found out!!
When we first arrive to Thailand we will have one week of training in Chiang Mai and then two weeks of training and getting acclimated to village life. Then we will start teaching in mid October. Because Terri and I will be the only teachers for a while, we will have visitors (other Christian workers) who live in Chiang Mai come visit us once a month. Hopefully, in May, more Americans will come join our team!
After that meeting with Jim we had dinner and orientation. The next morning we got to Skype with our contacts in Thailand. The rest of the week was filled with teaching sessions. Sessions on disciple- making, peace-making, child safety, world-view, crisis and security. As well as going over fundraising and insurance policies.
So what did I learn in all those sessions? I'm glad you asked! We learned that all trials will tempt us to sin, but no trail will cause us to sin. Negative responses to trials reveal the sinful lusts in our hearts, and that true change begins with heart repentance. True change restores God's image in us. Basically, in every day life we will face trials and temptations. We are responsible for how we respond to them. We can either respond in a fleshly manner or a godly one. And when we respond in a negative manner it will reveal some thing in us that requires change.
My favorite session was on world view and learning on how to learn culture. There are 12 different aspects of language. They are verbal, written, numeric, pictorial, artifactual, audio, kinesic, optical, tactile, spacial, temporal, & olfactory, pretty much the five senses. We were told to keep a work book of all our observations and reflections of our culture. Then we got to practice it! We walked a few blocks to the grocery store and made observations. After about 30 minutes we came back to the conference room and talked about our observations. We wanted to find out what about this grocery store made this a Kansas City grocery store? One team mate suggested it was the whole shelf dedicated to mayonnaise and bbq sauce. :-)
Overall it was a great couple of days and I'm super excited to see what the Lord has in store for us in Thailand.
Anyways, let's start from the beginning. I arrive at the airport and am picked up at the airport where I meet Terri, the girl who is going to be my partner for the next two years. We drop off our bags and walk over to Jim's office. He is our director and is over the Thailand teachers program. At this meeting we are told all the details that I've been wanting to know for weeks. We will be living in the Nakhon Phanom Province, which borders Laos. We will most likely be staying on campus in a house. We don't know if the house will be furnished, or have AC, or even if it will have a western toilet, but we're excited to found out!!
When we first arrive to Thailand we will have one week of training in Chiang Mai and then two weeks of training and getting acclimated to village life. Then we will start teaching in mid October. Because Terri and I will be the only teachers for a while, we will have visitors (other Christian workers) who live in Chiang Mai come visit us once a month. Hopefully, in May, more Americans will come join our team!
After that meeting with Jim we had dinner and orientation. The next morning we got to Skype with our contacts in Thailand. The rest of the week was filled with teaching sessions. Sessions on disciple- making, peace-making, child safety, world-view, crisis and security. As well as going over fundraising and insurance policies.
So what did I learn in all those sessions? I'm glad you asked! We learned that all trials will tempt us to sin, but no trail will cause us to sin. Negative responses to trials reveal the sinful lusts in our hearts, and that true change begins with heart repentance. True change restores God's image in us. Basically, in every day life we will face trials and temptations. We are responsible for how we respond to them. We can either respond in a fleshly manner or a godly one. And when we respond in a negative manner it will reveal some thing in us that requires change.
My favorite session was on world view and learning on how to learn culture. There are 12 different aspects of language. They are verbal, written, numeric, pictorial, artifactual, audio, kinesic, optical, tactile, spacial, temporal, & olfactory, pretty much the five senses. We were told to keep a work book of all our observations and reflections of our culture. Then we got to practice it! We walked a few blocks to the grocery store and made observations. After about 30 minutes we came back to the conference room and talked about our observations. We wanted to find out what about this grocery store made this a Kansas City grocery store? One team mate suggested it was the whole shelf dedicated to mayonnaise and bbq sauce. :-)
Overall it was a great couple of days and I'm super excited to see what the Lord has in store for us in Thailand.
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| Terri and me! |
