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This past week was wonderful! I got to spend time with White, my lab partner, outside of class. We’re both going on the volunteer construction trip to Chiang Mai in October, which will be so much fun. I had dinner with White and her friend Choat on Wednesday night. I was a little nervous about it, as White is very shy about speaking English, but while I was waiting for her to show up, I saw Beau. Beau is a Christian at Grapevine and is fluent in English. She came to dinner with me, chatted with White, Choat, and I, and was able to better explain the Grapevine to White and Choat. It was such an answer to prayer. The next day, after having Construction Management with White, I invited her to get lunch with Preston, Stephanie, and I. She came, and P’Ja was there too! Ja is another Christian at Grapevine. She’s graduated from college already, and is pretty much a leader and vital member of Grapevine. Ja and White were chatting it up the entire lunch, so much, in fact, that I barely got a word in. Ja talked to White about how when she first became a Christian, she prayed to learn English. That’s when she met Greg and Allison and started coming to the Grapevine. She talked to White about practicing with us and told her not to be shy. It was great. White had to leave after lunch to pick up some friends at the airport, but she had a really good time. For the rest of the day, Ja and I just relaxed. We went back to my room, took a nap, read in the coffee shop, and then went to Met Angun for some worship and prayer.

Saturday night was pretty crazy. We went up to Bangkok for Cha’s party. Markus (from Finland), Tasha, Preston, and I went to Tesco Lotus for groceries. This took so long! Once we were back to Cha’s house, half of the group was in the kitchen cooking and everyone else was up on the balcony/roof listening to music and just hanging out. Basically, it was a bunch of Germans, Americans, and Thai. We had a good time, met a lot of people, and dinner was good. We got back to Pathum Thani around 1:30 a.m. I met up with Ja so she could spend the night in my room for the trip the next day.

That’s right, a trip, but not just any trip - A Grapevine Beach Trip!!! It was so much fun! We left Pathum Thani at 7 a.m. on Sunday morning in a bus for Rayong. We played beach trivia on the way, and Greg and I won. We were Team Sea Slugs (Greg’s idea “No one expects the sea slugs!”). The beach was absolutely gorgeous! Give me a few days and I’ll post some pictures. The water was this beautiful clear deep turquoise with nothing in it. The sand bar went out forever, so Moses and I began the day by jumping over the little waves and swimming in on the bigger ones. This was until I sliced my foot open on a barnacle. It’s a 2-inch slice on the bottom of my foot, about an inch beneath my toes. It’s deeper than we were hoping it was, but it’ll be ok. The sky was perfectly clear all day long, which was definitely an answer to prayer because it’s been monsooning. Everyone had a wonderful time laying in the sun (or shade if you’re Thai and don’t want to get any tanner). We rented inner tubes and spent a lot of the afternoon trying (and failing) to stand up on them in the surf. It will make for a great announcement video though. We were at the beach from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It was such a wonderful day! Let’s see, who went? Toyo (exchange student from Japan), Srija, Louise, Mae, Noon, Ja, Ja Ja, Stephanie, Kristin, Michal Ruth, Greg, Allison, Moses, Zula, Andy, Jen, and I. The guys were on a field trip to the Grand Palace, which was sad, but they apparently made a ton of new friends, which is really great. On the way home from the beach, Andy played guitar and we sang praise songs. Michal Ruth read some bible verses about God’s creation. It was a really great praise and worship time, and it was wonderful doing it on the bus, driving past rugged, tree covered hills while the sun was setting.

Pray for attendance at Grapejam this Tuesday night, making new friends, and the newest addition to our schedule, So Grape. So Grape gets it’s name from it’s location, the So Great Coffee House. It’s a time for Thai students to come talk with Greg and Jen about their lives and Christianity. From what I understand, it went very well this week, which was its first session. Yo and Louise came, as well as Ja, who offered some more perspective. They talked about priorities and what is going on in their lives right now. Yo has seemed very curious about Christianity lately, and recently told Ja that he feels very different when he’s around us. He’s at almost everything we do, and loves spending time with the guys on our team. Pray for Yo and Louise, please, and that So Grape will continue to reach out to students.

Everything is awesome! Thanks so much for your prayers!

Grapejam was really great this week. We had a lot of new people and a lot of great music. It was really encouraging to have so many people there, as there have been less people due to midterms. One friend, Black, was there for his second time and brough 3 friends who really enjoyed it as well.

On Wednesday I got to spend the afternoon with Dtaan. I met her at the Thammasat campus in Bangkok, and we did some sightseeing after lunch. she took me to the Golden Mount, which had a beautiful view of Bangkok, and then to another temple. The second one was made entirely of metal and had a 5 story spiral staircase that we had to climb. We climbed so many steps that day.

Tonight we will be tutoring SIIT students for their TOEFL exam. TOEFL stands for the Test Of English as a Foreign Language.

I’m looking into the Volunteer club, as they have 2 trips to the Chiang Mai area over the October break to build houses. I haven’t found a lot of information yet, but it sounds like a lot of fun.

Miss you all!

Actually, a whole lot has been going on, but I haven’t had time to update. It’s mainly the same stuff though, so you just get to hear about my exciting trip to Cambodia.

We set out for Cambodia Saturday, August 12th at 2:45 in the morning. We took a taxi to the Mo Chit bus station and bought our bus tickets to Aranyaprathet, Thailand’s border town. The bus ride lasted about 5 hours, I believe. Once we got to the border we were being charged 1000 baht for the 20 US dollar visa into Cambodia. That’s $27 dollars instead of the clearly posted $20. I argued with the officer, but he said that if I want to be 740 baht that I’d have to wait 3 hours to get my visa. They’re basically just skimming money of the top. We gave up and headed to the other side of the border, into Cambodia with our new $27 visas. Scams were on the other side as well, as we had trouble getting a taxi for a decent deal. After an incredibly long taxi ride on dirt roads full of holes, and by holes I mean it was an earthquake for 6 hours, and getting stuck on the side of the road in the heat for almost 2 hours, we made it to Earthwalkers in Siem Reap around 6:30 pm. We went out for dinner and headed to bed fairly early.
On Sunday morning we woke up at 4:00 to be at Angkor Wat for sunrise. It turned out to be overcast, which was nice during the day, but kept us from having an actual sunrise. It was still amazing though, because we got there when it was still dark out and watched as the temples slowly appeared in the light. We spent 4 hours exploring Angkor Wat and taking tons of beautiful pictures and goofy ones as well.

After Angkor Wat we headed to Angkor Thom and the Bayon. We explored the surrounding temples for the rest of the afternoon, including Ta Phrom, a temple covered in trees.

We stayed at the temples until 7 pm. When we returned to Earthwalkers for dinner, there was Aspara dancing. The children were adorable and I really loved watching them dance. There was this one little boy that was smiling so big the whole time and was really into the dancing.

It was an amazing weekend! There are many more pictures on my Flickr page.

Thai Massage in Thailand is pretty much the greatest thing ever. On Sunday, Stephanie, Kelsey, Maria, Michal Ruth, Ja, Jesse, Preston, Will, and I went for a 1 hour Thai massage. The salon was decorated beautifully and everyone was so nice. They washed our feet, had us change into cotton pajamas, and we laid down on soft mats on the floor. Actually, there was a lot of laughing involved because none of us had ever had a massage and had no idea what was going on. That, and the slippers were about 2 inches too short for Jesse’s feet. The next hour was amazing, as they pressed on all of our muscles and all of our joints. It felt so amazing! Afterwards, we were given the greatest hot tea I’ve ever had. Ja said it was called “matoom” but none of us know what it is in English. The best part of the 1 hour massage - it cost 250 baht. Yes! That’s right! One hour of Thai massage and pampering cost me $6.75. Needless to say, we’ll be going back to Aiyara about once a month.