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!
