It’s officially been two weeks in Thailand!
Last week our team split up and we taught English at two different kindergarten schools. I was expecting it to be similar to Malaysia, but boy was I mistaken haha. Basically, everyone knew English in Malaysia, but here is a different story. Almost no one speaks English! We got to the school and there were so many cute little kids! I got so excited. The teachers didn’t know any English so most of our conversations were on Google Translate. It was so interesting because I’ve never had to do that before. They were so sweet they made us breakfast, got us coffee, and made us lunches. They were the sweetest. The school day started off with the kids just playing together for a while on the playground. They then lined up and then my group and I led them through games and fun songs to get their energy out. We then all got into our separate classrooms. The teacher told me what she basically wanted me to teach them. She requested me to teach them colors, weather, simple vocabulary, and the ABCs. It was way harder than I thought because the kids barely knew any English. Most of them knew most of the ABCs so that was helpful. One thing I also noticed was that the kids were so respectful and listened so well. They would always say “Good morning teacher Ella!” and it just was the cutest thing ever. The first week of school went amazing and it makes me so much more excited for this week. We are going to a secondary school this week, which is older kids.
Another part of our ministry is working in our host’s home garden. We weeded for a while, chopped bamboo, and cleared our all the overgrown plants on her land!
Upon coming to Thailand, our team had some struggles to get used to living together which lead to some disuinty. We sat as a team to figure this out. We agreed to do a 10 minute prayer everynight before we sleep. We also have half hour worship and prayer sessions throughout the week. This really has brought our team together and I can already see so much fruit from it!
Thailand has felt like such a home. We are surrounded by God’s beautiful creation and it’s such a blessing. I love our host family so much. We have Friday movie nights and we all make cookies together! It has been so fun to play and to get to know the kids as well. There are two dogs and we just got two puppies from a village. THEY ARE SO CUTE.
I also feel like I have so much more energy here. Wanidas food is so good and it’s all from her garden. I go on runs every morning with some of my teammates and it wakes me up to get ready for the day. In the past, I have struggled with wanting to read my bible. I have been reading through John and it’s so good! I have my quiet time after my run and the Lord has really filled my cup and has given me energy each and every day. To sum it up, I LOVE THAILAND!
