The last two weeks in Thailand really blend together in my mind as I try to write about them. My last post was about Quest and the waterfall. We taught Tuesday through Friday of that week and then on Saturday walked up the wat on the mountain (15 km, 9miles) above Chiang Mai. The mountains are a shoulder chain of the Himalayan mountains that comes down into Thailand. At the top of the mountain, after 9 miles of hiking, there are 309 steps up to the wat. There was an absolutely amazing view of the entire city of Chiang Mai from the mountain (once we got to the top, though, there was too much cloud cover to see. We rode a sahng taw back down the mountain and rested. (Pictures on the previous blog post)
Then church on Sunday (our last service in Thailand) was absolutely a blessing. Dr. Martindale from Evangel spoke and ministered. Then we taught Tuesday to Friday, had our very last classes in Ban Pong, which was sad for me because Ban Pong was a huge growing experience for me in this trip. I have always been intimidated by the idea of teaching in front of a class room and I have never thought I would like it at all, but I loved teaching the kids in Ban Pong's schools, and I was sad to be leaving. Friday (July 22nd) was our last day of teaching at the English Center with the University students, so we had out regular graduation party and it became a large farewell party.
With some of my students (Right to left: Sai, Shu, Sine, me, A, and Peat)
(Pictures of Nuch, Boo, Leemur, Pim, Rainbow and Nokkie (my other students) will be posted on fb soon)
I was so overwhelmed to read the many notes my students and the church members wrote for me and by the many gifts my students gave to me. I never expected to connect with these people so much as I did on this trip. After the party I went back to 7-11, bought an energy drink and stayed up all night to pack, took my suitcases downstairs and loaded up the sahng taw at 5 or 5:30 a.m. The Evangel team got on the same flight as me so we left together and flew down to Bangkok. Our flight left very late, which was okay by me because I had about 6 hours of layover in Bangkok before my flight to Manila. The Evangel team was staying in Bangkok for a couple of nights and they have all, by now, made it safely back to the states and to their various homes.
Empty suitcase at 2 a.m. for my 5 a.m. departure.
I will now end this post and create a separate post for the Philippines, just because I feel like we might be leaving any moment, as the missionary just arrived at the house we are staying at. But I will post again today, because too much has happened in the three days I have been in the Philippines for me not to post about it! See you soon, world of blogging.
Be blessed,
Kristen
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