English Camp video clip @ Mae Hong Son
Well well, heres an update from Chiang Mai, this video clip is about the recent English Camp Payap conducted at Mae Hong Son, near Jenny hometown. Hope your life will be enriched as you watch this clip as theirs have been during the English Camp. God Bless the Children and Jenny family as well... ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBE5U7Ig5R0
Extracts from Intern Marvin monthly update in Chaing Mai,
(Skip it if you CAN'T understand Aussie SLANG)
Hey all, sorry to write a trilogy, but. Looks like my whirlwind December is drawing to an end, and a new year is about to come in. What I and Rob expected to be a calm cool and collected month turned out to be just as tiring as the last for me. The only thing that changed were the quieter mornings allowing me to hear the birds chirping instead of Irvin singing in the shower or Danny and the girls screaming in my ears while Bazza turned up the tunes on the comp... boy I miss thoughs guys and gals.
In between eating and hangin out with the students, we've been teaching English and playin ping pong with new students. Last week everyone was prepping for their exams which happened to be in the same week, (students are the same wherever you go ey), so we had a bunch of Jenny's friends come in asking for help with their English for their law exams. Long noun, verb and ad-verb sessions coupled with table tennis and skip bo, not only allowed me to brush up on my grammar but ended in a successful couple of gettin to know each other days. I think Jenny's really gunna help with bringin new peeps to God, she's real blessed with makin new friends cos she loves to help everyone in the smallest and biggest ways. Something I still need to learn.Apart from that, Jenny took us up to her home town for a couple of days 17th - 20th.
Boy what a God blessed experience. We kicked off leaving the zone at 1.30pm for a 250km drive, not so far when you think about it, add one of the biggest mountain ranges in Thailand coupled with the tallest mountain in Thailand and you've got a 7 hour drive along some of the windiest and dusty roads in the world... FUN!!! The view was constantly SUD YAUT!!! (AWESOME!!!) and suey mak (soooo beautiful). But I don't think I've ever been so cold in Thailand before. I think I remember asking Rob "why didn't I bring my winter jacket with me from OZ?" to which he replied "cos this is the only day you'll ever need it!" to which I replied "oh yea..." with a stupid look on my face... The 1st night we stayed at Jenny's mums resort, in a town called MaeHongSon. The name of the resort is BanFarung which translated means (Foreigners Home). Because Jenny's dad is was originally from France, but he past away a few years back from cancer, so they named it after him. Jenny's mum is awesome, we took up 4 rooms and ate so much food there but she didn't want us to pay a single cent...or baht. She even cooked us bacon and eggs for brekky in the morn. Felt so spoilt.At 8am on Monday 18th we drove out to a hill tribe village in which Jenny's uncle is the headmaster of the local school. I had no idea what to expect, and what we found was...well something most of us would see on a TV. or movie screen if we were watchin good morning Vietnam or somethin. It was AMAZING! We drove for about an hour and a half, sitting in the back of a pickup truck, along some roads which really required a 4x4. I was wondering when we were gunna start rolling backwards at some points. Then out of nowhere we hit a paved road and we drove down into one of the most beautiful scenes I will ever see in my life. Imagine a whole village of about 80 - 100 huts all built 2 stories off the ground (incase of flooding I think) and all built along the bank of a bubbling creek, with a winding road right up the middle of the village leading to a school. On the other side of the creek there are buffalo grazing in the freshly harvested rice fields which are all set on the edge of a mountain side. I just can't do it justice; hopefully I'll have photos to show you soon.When we drove in there we were the talk of the town, everyone came out to see the "outsiders" who had come to teach their children. When we got to the school we found out just how excited they were to have us all there. They had set up a stage on the edge of their basket ball court over the creek with a sign saying, WELCOME PAYAP CHRISTIAN ZONE!!! And all the kids were already waiting to hear the Farungs speak their native language. I've never experienced the kind of respect we received when we got there, all the kids and school workers bent down every time they walked past us and whied us, which is sort of like a Japanese style bow. It was hard not to feel like we were being treated like royalty.Anyway I think you get the picture. For our 1st day 6 of us had come up with activities to teach the kids English, 3 in the morning and 3 in the arvo, with the kids split up into 3 different groups and transitioning through the teachers every 20 minutes. They all went off without a hitch, the kids loved it. In the Morning Eddie taught about verbs, I taught about fruits and P.Gip taught them about...something. And in the arvo Rob taught about vowels, Julie about body parts and P.Ae taught spelling. It's amazing to see how quickly children soak up new information. By the end of the day we had em singing deep and wide, If you love Jesus and Give me a J.E.S.U.S, it was nerve racking as I've never taught kids English before, but so worth it.That night, we were treated by our families to dinner Thai village style. Soo delish fresh everythin ey. And when we ere shown our room, I think they gave us the best room in the house, polished timber floors were the last thing I was expecting. and with our house being right on the creek bed it was gunna be easy to fall asleep to the sound of the flowing water. Either that or I would have had to get up every 10 mins to go to the hole in the ground. After dinner we headed back to the stage at the school for a concert / karaoke night which they put on for us, of course we had our skits prepped and ready to go. It turned out to be an awesome night of fellowship and more eating... Everything out there runs on generators so when night hits. You can't see nadda if the moon's not out, which it wasn't. So we ended up goin to bed real early 9.30 - 10pmThis resulted in us waking up early 6.30am. Tues 19th, kids' day, they took us out to the local waterfall. It was a 3k hike through forest across a river and through a rice field, and at times I felt like I was part of the Von Trap family with a guitar lugged across my shoulder and the kids runnin around me singin songs. But finally some water I could swim in and not catch diphtheria or somethin. Not even the fact that I didn't bring a towel or bordies with me was gunna stop me, so jeans and all I jumped into freezing cold water with the village lads which seemed to impress them. While Rob and the others stood on the shore shakin their heads sayin crazy Australian. Don't worry; I'm making a good impression. We stayed out there for lunch which was smoked fish that they freshly caught from the falls and rice boiled in bamboo stumps with some kind of fish curry thingy, so tasty, gotta live off the land out there and they do it in style.That arvo it was time to say goodbye to the kids we had come to love over 2 short days and they were so sad that they cried when we left. None of us wanted to leave, they all lead a simple yet beautiful life. I can only pray that God touched their lives. Hopefully we'll get to do a follow up trip in the next 3 months. We headed back to Jenny's resort for the night, and were greeted with another awesome meal of pork and chicken skewers which we devoured. We also got to see Jenny's house, WOW!!! I felt like a lord overlooking his lands when we stood up on her balcony. Such an awesome view over the local rice fields and mountains. We said a prayer over Jenny for God to bless her heaps as He had used her to bless us and the kids.After another night of awesome fellowship and food and skip bo, we woke up to another delish brekky of pancakes wrapped around bananas. And then we had to say goodbye, but before then we prayed over Jenny's mum, who I think is a devoute buddist and so was corncerned about Jenny seeking Christ, until she met us and said Jenny had made the right decision. SUD YAUT!!!
Thank God for yet another life being changed by His glory. And so here I am, another year gone, sitting in what i've come to accept as my second home with God's family waiting for me to eat lunch...at 10:40!!! What theeee... Missin everyone back home so much as christmas and new years come around. I hope God blesses you all this Chrissy Season. And gives you heaps of joy however you choose to celebrate His sons birth.Keep on keeping on, i'll be back home before you know it. Ready for another year of adventures in Christ. Have a Christ filled Chirstmas and a CRANKIN New Years party.
Peace out Marv.K
Now peeps, you know what aussie slang is all about... ...
To MARV, SHALOM, SWEET AS... ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBE5U7Ig5R0
Extracts from Intern Marvin monthly update in Chaing Mai,
(Skip it if you CAN'T understand Aussie SLANG)
Hey all, sorry to write a trilogy, but. Looks like my whirlwind December is drawing to an end, and a new year is about to come in. What I and Rob expected to be a calm cool and collected month turned out to be just as tiring as the last for me. The only thing that changed were the quieter mornings allowing me to hear the birds chirping instead of Irvin singing in the shower or Danny and the girls screaming in my ears while Bazza turned up the tunes on the comp... boy I miss thoughs guys and gals.
In between eating and hangin out with the students, we've been teaching English and playin ping pong with new students. Last week everyone was prepping for their exams which happened to be in the same week, (students are the same wherever you go ey), so we had a bunch of Jenny's friends come in asking for help with their English for their law exams. Long noun, verb and ad-verb sessions coupled with table tennis and skip bo, not only allowed me to brush up on my grammar but ended in a successful couple of gettin to know each other days. I think Jenny's really gunna help with bringin new peeps to God, she's real blessed with makin new friends cos she loves to help everyone in the smallest and biggest ways. Something I still need to learn.Apart from that, Jenny took us up to her home town for a couple of days 17th - 20th.
Boy what a God blessed experience. We kicked off leaving the zone at 1.30pm for a 250km drive, not so far when you think about it, add one of the biggest mountain ranges in Thailand coupled with the tallest mountain in Thailand and you've got a 7 hour drive along some of the windiest and dusty roads in the world... FUN!!! The view was constantly SUD YAUT!!! (AWESOME!!!) and suey mak (soooo beautiful). But I don't think I've ever been so cold in Thailand before. I think I remember asking Rob "why didn't I bring my winter jacket with me from OZ?" to which he replied "cos this is the only day you'll ever need it!" to which I replied "oh yea..." with a stupid look on my face... The 1st night we stayed at Jenny's mums resort, in a town called MaeHongSon. The name of the resort is BanFarung which translated means (Foreigners Home). Because Jenny's dad is was originally from France, but he past away a few years back from cancer, so they named it after him. Jenny's mum is awesome, we took up 4 rooms and ate so much food there but she didn't want us to pay a single cent...or baht. She even cooked us bacon and eggs for brekky in the morn. Felt so spoilt.At 8am on Monday 18th we drove out to a hill tribe village in which Jenny's uncle is the headmaster of the local school. I had no idea what to expect, and what we found was...well something most of us would see on a TV. or movie screen if we were watchin good morning Vietnam or somethin. It was AMAZING! We drove for about an hour and a half, sitting in the back of a pickup truck, along some roads which really required a 4x4. I was wondering when we were gunna start rolling backwards at some points. Then out of nowhere we hit a paved road and we drove down into one of the most beautiful scenes I will ever see in my life. Imagine a whole village of about 80 - 100 huts all built 2 stories off the ground (incase of flooding I think) and all built along the bank of a bubbling creek, with a winding road right up the middle of the village leading to a school. On the other side of the creek there are buffalo grazing in the freshly harvested rice fields which are all set on the edge of a mountain side. I just can't do it justice; hopefully I'll have photos to show you soon.When we drove in there we were the talk of the town, everyone came out to see the "outsiders" who had come to teach their children. When we got to the school we found out just how excited they were to have us all there. They had set up a stage on the edge of their basket ball court over the creek with a sign saying, WELCOME PAYAP CHRISTIAN ZONE!!! And all the kids were already waiting to hear the Farungs speak their native language. I've never experienced the kind of respect we received when we got there, all the kids and school workers bent down every time they walked past us and whied us, which is sort of like a Japanese style bow. It was hard not to feel like we were being treated like royalty.Anyway I think you get the picture. For our 1st day 6 of us had come up with activities to teach the kids English, 3 in the morning and 3 in the arvo, with the kids split up into 3 different groups and transitioning through the teachers every 20 minutes. They all went off without a hitch, the kids loved it. In the Morning Eddie taught about verbs, I taught about fruits and P.Gip taught them about...something. And in the arvo Rob taught about vowels, Julie about body parts and P.Ae taught spelling. It's amazing to see how quickly children soak up new information. By the end of the day we had em singing deep and wide, If you love Jesus and Give me a J.E.S.U.S, it was nerve racking as I've never taught kids English before, but so worth it.That night, we were treated by our families to dinner Thai village style. Soo delish fresh everythin ey. And when we ere shown our room, I think they gave us the best room in the house, polished timber floors were the last thing I was expecting. and with our house being right on the creek bed it was gunna be easy to fall asleep to the sound of the flowing water. Either that or I would have had to get up every 10 mins to go to the hole in the ground. After dinner we headed back to the stage at the school for a concert / karaoke night which they put on for us, of course we had our skits prepped and ready to go. It turned out to be an awesome night of fellowship and more eating... Everything out there runs on generators so when night hits. You can't see nadda if the moon's not out, which it wasn't. So we ended up goin to bed real early 9.30 - 10pmThis resulted in us waking up early 6.30am. Tues 19th, kids' day, they took us out to the local waterfall. It was a 3k hike through forest across a river and through a rice field, and at times I felt like I was part of the Von Trap family with a guitar lugged across my shoulder and the kids runnin around me singin songs. But finally some water I could swim in and not catch diphtheria or somethin. Not even the fact that I didn't bring a towel or bordies with me was gunna stop me, so jeans and all I jumped into freezing cold water with the village lads which seemed to impress them. While Rob and the others stood on the shore shakin their heads sayin crazy Australian. Don't worry; I'm making a good impression. We stayed out there for lunch which was smoked fish that they freshly caught from the falls and rice boiled in bamboo stumps with some kind of fish curry thingy, so tasty, gotta live off the land out there and they do it in style.That arvo it was time to say goodbye to the kids we had come to love over 2 short days and they were so sad that they cried when we left. None of us wanted to leave, they all lead a simple yet beautiful life. I can only pray that God touched their lives. Hopefully we'll get to do a follow up trip in the next 3 months. We headed back to Jenny's resort for the night, and were greeted with another awesome meal of pork and chicken skewers which we devoured. We also got to see Jenny's house, WOW!!! I felt like a lord overlooking his lands when we stood up on her balcony. Such an awesome view over the local rice fields and mountains. We said a prayer over Jenny for God to bless her heaps as He had used her to bless us and the kids.After another night of awesome fellowship and food and skip bo, we woke up to another delish brekky of pancakes wrapped around bananas. And then we had to say goodbye, but before then we prayed over Jenny's mum, who I think is a devoute buddist and so was corncerned about Jenny seeking Christ, until she met us and said Jenny had made the right decision. SUD YAUT!!!
Thank God for yet another life being changed by His glory. And so here I am, another year gone, sitting in what i've come to accept as my second home with God's family waiting for me to eat lunch...at 10:40!!! What theeee... Missin everyone back home so much as christmas and new years come around. I hope God blesses you all this Chrissy Season. And gives you heaps of joy however you choose to celebrate His sons birth.Keep on keeping on, i'll be back home before you know it. Ready for another year of adventures in Christ. Have a Christ filled Chirstmas and a CRANKIN New Years party.
Peace out Marv.K
Now peeps, you know what aussie slang is all about... ...
To MARV, SHALOM, SWEET AS... ...
posted by Home Sweet Home at 12:41 AM
