Our week at a glance...

So, we've been here long enough to have found a bit of a daily rhythm.  Many of our friends have asked what our week looks like, so here goes:

-up to read and pray daily at 6(ish), breakfast, shower, and leave for language school by 8:15am
-Language school from 9-12, Monday-Friday
-Monday:  Staff meeting and campus staff meetings from 1-5pm, go for a run, and study the rest of the night
-Tuesday:  Study Thai from lunch til 4, meet with Mercy ministry staff at 4:30-5:30pm, then run, dinner, and study or read
-Wednesday:  After language school, meet the campus staff at Ramkhamhaeng University to visit students...usually til about 9 or 10pm
-Thursday:  prayer with staff from 1-2pm, meet with ESL staff and other church staff til 4 or 5, go for a run, study, then prep for next week's meetings
-Friday:  Study Thai til 2 or 3 after language school, return home and prepare for campus bible study or campus ministry party
-Saturday:  DAY OFF!!!! (sometimes...not much of this lately)
-Sunday:  Worship, session meetings, Sunday School, and lunch with church members til 3 or 4pm

That is the gist of it, anyway...there are occasional tweaks to this, but the schedule is pretty much the same each week.  Lots of studying, lots of meetings, and lots of time with people.

extroverted culture

So, after not so many months in Thailand, I have concluded (I don't think prematurely) that Thai culture is extroverted. I don't mean that Thai people as individuals are more extroverted than any other place, though that would be an interesting study. I mean that the culture is extroverted. For example, what do I, as a moderate introvert, want to do after a long day of cleaning at a flood site? I want to go home and take a shower and rest in the AC. What do the group of Thai's who have worked just as hard as me all day want to do? They want to have a party. What should you do for a Christmas outreach? Have a party. What should you do after a long day of moving furniture to three separate homes? Have a party. What should you do for Children's Day (besides the children's activities)? Have a party till 2:00 AM in our back yard complete with cowboys, fireworks, comedians, lots of food, and karaoke. Needless to say, Trey loves this culture! And I do too, as long as I can get some rest in between parties.....
Here is a picture from some of the Christmas festivities.

Learning Language. Its all Thai to me.

Learning Thai is not easy.  I mean, it’s not Mandarin Chinese, but it’s not Spanish, either.  By that sentence, I mean that it’s not as hard as Chinese but it’s not as easy as Spanish.  To learn to read, write, and speak Chinese well, you’d need years to memorize literally thousands of characters just to be able to read a newspaper (according to Peter Hessler in his great book, Rivertown).  To learn to speak, read, and write Spanish well, you’d need about 2 weeks in a Mexican restaurant with a Spanish phrasebook, along with a willingness to attempt conversation with your server. 

Thai is tonal.  Thai is based on a completely different script.  Thai is somewhere in between the difficulty of Mandarin Chinese and the easiness of Spanish.  Pray for us as we learn this very different language.  Next month, I begin a pretty intensive conversation module with my long-time friend Dtoi (pronounce the 'Dt' together...there's an introduction to learning Thai for all you farang, which means 'foreigner'), which should be very helpful and a lot of fun as well.  Personally, I need a very focused, highly-interactive and conversational approach to learning language, and Dtoi is just the man for the job.
Here he is, by the way, in all his teaching-Thai splendor...

My city...

I love this place.

Dinner at a Friend's House...

Naamfon and I are taking a day each week to go and visit our students who are now going to the other campus (Ramkhamhaeng 1).  Today we visited a friend and his family and had a birthday party for him.  Lucky us...his dad is a shrimper (?)...he catches shrimp.  Anyway, we had a great time...here are a couple of shots from the evening:

Nothing says "Christmas"...

Like some cats and a volcano.  Scenes from Bangkok Christmas decorations.