20070601
ONCE-IN-19-YEARS.
.
Memories. This will be a SUPERBLY long post copying from M.I.C blog what we did in the past 33 days in Chiang Mai, our 2nd home.
.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Yo! We've safely reached CM and are now in P.Robert's house!
Just had some pork sticky rice for breakfast,
now just sitting around and resting till 12pm where we go to the zone and meet the rest!
We are all healthy and jumpy now =D
.
We would like to express our greatest appreciations to the multitude of people who came to send us off!
All the adults who have work later on, our dearest youths who have school, a
ll came to send us off at the ghastly hour of 4.30am. THANKS A LOT!
.
Thanks guys! And please still keep us in your prayers as we continue our journeys as interns.
Kap-khun-kha :))
posted by evan at 11:04 AM
...................................................................................
hello to all our avid readers!
the S.E.S are here to blog once again :)
we can't update from the zone's computer, so we're updating at cheungdoi church of christ.
.
we've been eating, eating, eating and talking, talking, talking.
spending great time with the thais here as well!
.
we had our first spiritual discipline this morning with marvin, jason and p' pui.
.
till then!
miss us!!!
signing off, evan :))
posted by evan at 8:42 PM
...................................................................................
Saturday, April 28, 2007
.
Interns Experiences
Seems like we've got a lot of people reading our blog.
Things have been going great, Sheena and Shermaine are feeling much better. Thanks for all your concern. We headed over to P'Robert's house for dinner and a get-together session last night. Well, last night's session was to honour Ella (an artist who stays at the zone, she just finished painting a mural of Jesus right where the baptistry of Payap is situated). It was vegetarian food, just salads, kimbap and fried taro, healthy healthy. Then 3 Thais, Ying, Poi and Oi shared about their baptism stories. The night ended with the interns, apprentices, P'robert and branson heading for a full-body massage. 2 solid hours of massage was simply great :))
.
Since it's a saturday, we did not have spiritual discipline time, so the 3 girls decided to join Jason on a hiking trip this morning. (Marvin was feeling lazy so he didn't join us) We got up at 8 plus, and left for Doi Suthep. The hiking experience was a once-in-19-years experience for the 3 of us, while it's normal for Jason. It's not the normal hiking that we do in Singapore, climbing Bukit Timah Hill okay. It was trekking through the forest, rocks, branches, getting to our hands and kness, climbing over streams of water, etc.. Thank God for blessing us with such wonderful weather this morning, the clouds covered like half the mountain. The waterfall was pretty, and the water was super cooling. We hiked for about 3 hours and the 3 girls fell 3 times each. How embrassing huh? Jason had to keep a lookout for all of us, since we kept losing our balance. But overall, it is an experience we totally enjoyed.
.
We are now getting ready to go to Mae Hong Son tomorrow afternoon, after service. That 7 hours of journey past those winding roads. We'll be heading for Jenny's resort, stay for a night there. Then on monday morning, the english camp will start and end on tuesday afternoon. We'll proceed to another waterfall (which i've got no idea what's it called). Then we'll be back at the zone by wednesday afternoon. Pray for us that we'll have a safe trip and the english camp to be a success.
Alright, i'll sign off soon.
We're going to the Night Bazaar to buy stuff.
Till the next time!
God Bless... ...
Signed with Love
Evan :))
posted by evan at 6:48 PM
...................................................................................
Friday, May 04, 2007
Events for past week...
Sunday 29 March 2007
We had our first service in payap and coincidentally they were having a combined worship assembly. A total of 5 churches combined at payap. It started off with worship, then communion, offering and ended with 2 sermons. There was a lunch-in where everyone had packed lunch. We set off for Mae Hong Son at about 1pm. From payap, we had a total of 10 people, and cheungdoi had 5 people. After travelling for about 2 hours, the van that carried the cheungoi people and S.E.S could not continue the journey. So, we left the van at some police station and Jenny's uncle drove his truck to pick us up. The journey to Jenny's resort was 7 hours long. The roads were so winding, and they were like those you see in Initial D. COOL eh. There were dirt roads as well, and by the time we reached Jenny's, those seated at the back of P'Robert's truck were covered in dust. Jenny welcomed us with a sumptious dinner! We walked over to her house after dinner to have a look at her dogs. They were humongous and super friendly. Jenny's balcony had an awesome view of the mountains. It was so pretty, we almost wanted to just sleep at her balcony to catch the sunrise, but no we did not. Headed back to the resort, played a few rounds of skip-bo, then we hit the sack.
.
Monday 30 March 2007
We were supposed to wake up at 6am but the 3 of us only woke up at 7am when Oan came knocking on our door. It was a hilarious scene coz we washed up in 10minutes. Everything happened so fast, it felt as if a hurricane hit our room. Thankfully we weren't too late, we managed to grab some breakfast that Jenny prepared. English camp started at 9am. We began with introduction and songs with the kids. The kids were rather shy, so we had to get high to warm them up. After songs, we split the kids up into 4 groups (The older ones into 3, the younger kids in one group) There were a total of 3 stations in the morning where the kids get to learn English and just have fun. The younger kids had some art work and stuff to make. I did one of the stations and it was great seeing how the kids learn English words and play around. We broke off for lunch before carrying out the afternoon part of the camp. This time I led Group 2 with Jeff. We brought the kids around to the different stations and that day ended with songs. The kids at the hill tribe are so respectful. Each time they see you, they'll bow, even when you're sitting down, they'll bend down and walk pass. We stayed with the hill tribe and again it was a once-in-19-years experience for the three of us. Unlike in Baw Geaw, this hill tribe did not have electricity. So we had to bathe before sunset. The family we were staying with cooked local food for us. The rice they cooked were fat and big, just eating a few mouthfuls got us so full. Ended the night with a meeting and a group of us lying around looking at the sky.
.
Tuesday 1 May 2007
Second day of English camp. It was easier to get the kids warmed up. Did some fun songs then we split them up into the same groups. This time I led the younger ones and we taught them how to make crowns. They were so adorable! Some had lots of crosses on their crowns. All the kids got back after finishing the different stations, then P'Robert had the boys say to the girls, ''How are you?'' and the girls had to reply, "I am fine, thank you.'' The English camp ended at lunch time. All of us had lunch at the school, then the prayer walk started. We walked from the hill tribe all the way to a waterfall. Throughout the prayer walk, we had a total of 5 stations. We prayed for the kids in the village, the people in the village, the people of Thailand, our own spiritual growth and our own churches. At each station, we had to pick a stone and hit a target.Just like how David hit Goliath with one shot. Some of the kids from the village joined us as well. We reached a waterfall and had a great time there. Everyone just got into the water and started playing. Here's another once-in-19-years-experience for S.E.S. We climbed up the rocks to get to the other side of the waterfall where the guys were, but we kept slipping coz the rocks were just too slippery. Just when we got up, the others were about to get down. We were on our way down when we decided we should just jump off the waterfall. Shermaine went first, then me, and finally Sheena. It wasn't a very high jump, so it's safe. When we jumped, we aimed for the bubbling pool and it was fun fun fun. After playing with the kids in the pool, we made our way back for dinner. It was our last meal there and the food was good. We left for Jenny's resort for a night's rest after dinner.
.
Wednesday 2 May 2007
Spaghetti and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Then we made our way back to Chiangmai. The ride was way cooling and we slept through. Arrived in Chiangmai at lunchtime, Marvin fell sick so he slept in the truck while we had lunch. Came back to the zone and spent the day resting.
Thursday 3 May 2007
Today's the day where S.E.S. had to prepare dinner for cell group. It was quite a feat for us to prepare dinner for 17 people! We did wanton noodles and it was a disaster preparing it. They don't sell those noodles here, so we made do with what looked like mee sua to us. After an hour's of cooking, everyone came up. Seriously it was an hour of stress, the noodles were hard to cook,the soup didn't taste right, the sauce for the noodles was not that easy to handle. BUT, we survived through and everyone enjoyed the dinner. Though the kids seemed to have a hard time eating the noodles. Oh man, halfway through cooking, we almost wanted to ask the Thais to get their own dinner. Just imagine the 3 of us scrambling around in the kitchen trying to cook a proper meal and you'll get what I mean. Cell group was next. We had a round of ice-breaking, playing dog-and-bone.Sang some songs, then Woot did the lesson on love. Cell ended at around 8pm, so we decided to catch Spiderman 3 with some of the Cheungdoi people. The show was at 8.30pm, we got into the Jao-ford and whizzed off to Kad Suan Kaew. We arrived just in time, and when we entered the cinema, they played the King's song. So everyone in the cinema had to stand up as a form of respect. The people in Thailand have a lot of respect for their King and their country. They'll play the national song at 8am and 6pm at Carrefour everyday, and when you hear it, you've gotta stand still. Ok back to the movie. It ended at 11pm and we made our way back to the zone. Went over to Little's shop to hang around, it has become quite a favourite hang-out spot for us.
Alright, I spent two days typing all these out and I'm dead tired trying to recall everything we did. The daily Spiritual Discipline has been enriching and we've all learnt a lot from the discussions we held. Pray for God's guidance and wisdom as S.E.S. start to take over the lessons. Ok, that's it for now.God bless everyone!
Love,
Evangeline
posted by evan at 5:11 PM
...................................................................................
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
More Pictures from English Camp... ...
posted by MIC at 7:18 PM
...................................................................................
Saturday, May 12, 2007
HEY! finally the internet connection is back again AND I CAN BLOG... wheee
these few days many things yet not much happened here in thailand, chiang mai... we (me sherm evan) are having loads of fun and we are really enjoying each other's company.. ^^
oh oh oh, jason cut his hair AGAIN... so short ler la! haha! (pp who went to cambodia would know how long his hair was..)
and on thursday night, e five of us marvin, jason, me, shermaine, evan had a 'heart-to-heart' talk till 3am.. -.-'''' dunno y we got so much stuff to say also.. hahaha...
we watched SOOO many movies in the past week.. titles inclusive of [tears of the sun] [blood diamond] [without a paddle] [cursed] [munich] and yest, we watched TWO movies one at p'rob hse, one in the zone.. [geisha] and [sleepover] comment from jason: i think i watched more movies this few weeks than i did since high school till now *note: he's 25* HURHUR
pictures later, its to troublesome to upload pics.. hurhur..
u guys can link to MIC or PAYAP CHRISTIAN ZONE webbie to see photos
sheena
posted by evan at 6:42 PM
...................................................................................
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
We were in the middle of a show, 'The Boogeyman', when we called our mums at 12am. Anyways, watching that show was scary. The shock factors were real good, but Shermaine was even worst than the show. Each time some shocking stuff comes, she's screams and starts grabbing us with her nails. Overall, the storyline didn't really make sense.
Church was good, jason and summer cox from texas arrived yesterday and their son is super super super cute la! His eyes are so bluish and he's got such rosy cheeks. an adorable little 3-year-old. We attended P'Ah-Tit's church for their opening ceremony after church yesterday. The guys went off to play soccer while the 3 of us went to the big market with Oan. Again, it felt like we really came to Thailand coz we took the tuk-tuk. Bought some stuff there and came back to the zone. Waited for jason, marvin and woot before heading to Walking Street. Had dinner and some light shopping there.
We watched yet another show at night, 'The Longest Yard'. Honestly i've never watched so many movies la. We watched till like 3am and only got to bed at 5.30am (that's when the sun rose up).
Since it's interns off-day today, all of us got up kinda late followed by brunch at pizza hut. Then we window-shopped around the central. Left central with nothing in mind to do and nowhere to go. So we just sat there and 'stoned' in the jao-ford. Called the cheungdoi people up and we met them at a coffeeshop (cafe). Spent the entire afternoon there and we came back to the zone for dinner.
Oh yeah! to all you people reading this, i overcame my fear of dogs! In the past, i wouldn't even dare touch the smallest dog, but now yeah. Probably still scared of those bigger ones though. Having come here, we're 'made' to overcome our fears. There was once when we were at P' Robert's house, he caught a lizard and made us stroke its head! Some others include carrying that little chick, etc. and we also did a lot stuff that we do not do in Singapore. Like on friday, we went to Robert's house (again), the jao-ford broke down, some problems with the clutch and stuff. We had to get off and push the jao-ford.
On saturday, it was 'storm-ing'. the worship hall got so 'drenched', we had to clean up the water on the floor. There are somemore but i can't think of any now. sorry :))
Anyways, back to today, we stayed around P' Little's shop for a drink. Marvin and Woot went to settle the internet connection, so only the 3 of us, Poi, Aoi and Jason were left at the shop. Just then, this girl came to us coz her bike could not get ignited. Since Jason was the only guy, he helped her with it. And after much tries, her bike was 'revived'. Kudos to him.
That's all I've got for these 2 days.
we'll try to blog asap.
with love
evan :))
posted by evan at 1:13 AM
...................................................................................
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Tuesday, 15 May
Jason's parents arrived in the late morning. We went to Robert's new house (new as in built from scratch) to have a look at the renovations. The last time we were there, there wasn't walls or roofs, but this time those were already up. We went round the house, climbed up to the 'open' roof area. If only we could see the outcome of his house. It will be pretty!
We stopped over at Grace International School to say hi to Janet. Well S.E.S, Marvin and Pui stayed in the truck though. On our way to lunch, the wind was blowing so strongly, an umbrella fell off the truck and landed near where Sheena and Shermaine were sitting. Then Shermaine started screaming, 'SPIDER! SPIDER'. Thinking it was just a small one, Marvin couldn't be bothered, then we heard him 'scream' (just that his was of a lower register than Shermaine's). OH man, Marv, if you're reading this, do not scream at me, coz it's something worth sharing with everyone eh? Ok, apparently that spider landed on Marvin's leg and refused to get off. It's not the normal kind of spider, weird looking and it's rather big. Anyways, we went to the khao-soi place for lunch. When we reached, Robert threw some sand onto Marvin's leg and he 'yelped' this time, thinking it might be the spider. Super hilarious.
Lunch was good! We made our way to where Jason's parents would be staying. A pretty place that resembled that of a resort. Jason's mum, Cindy, gave each of us a pack of SKIP-BO as a gift! As most of you know, Skip-Bo can only be bought in the US, so we got Jason to ask his parents to get for us. How nice of them :)) Jason had this HUGE bag of skittle from his grandfather - huge as in 54 ounces! We came back to the zone and Robert brought Jason's parents around the zone.
Oh yeah, we didn't mention this in the past few entries. 3 of us had a hair cut 2 Sundays ago, then today, Poi and Oi came over to help us dye our hair. We did it in the kids room and they did a good job in dyeing for us. Shermaine's the 'brightest' though, she's blonde! haha. nah our hair colours are still natural.
After that, Jason, Sheena and I conducted English Class with 2 Thai girls, Som and Jip. We sort of helped them in preparations of their English exam on Wednesday. We had dinner and then just the normal hanging around.
Wednesday, 16 May
Today's weather was good, no rain at all in the afternoon, but was rather hot. We went to Doi Suthep after lunch with Jason's parents. Anna joined us too. When we reached, we had to climb this super long flight of steps. Sheena and I raced up the steps and we were half-dead when we reached the top. The temple reminded me of Bangkok's Grand Palace. The view of Chiangmai from the temple was so pretty, you could see the whole city at a glance. We headed to the waterfall and trekked a little. It was good to sweat it all out. We slept all the way back to the zone. Continued our nap at the couch-area till 7pm.
Then the girls had a prayer session - Gift, Poi, Oi, Sheena, Shermaine, Evan and Un. We wrote down one thing that we wanna thank God for and one thing to be prayed for (like what we do in soymilk cell). We sang some songs and did a chain prayer where each of us prayed for someone.
Halfway through the prayer it started to rain super heavily. This prayer session was good because we managed to lift our burdens to God after a day's activities and busyness.
That's about all!
We're gonna have girls' night tomorrow.
The 2 happiest people are probably Jason and Marvin, coz for once they don't have 3 noisy girls around to disrupt their sleep. Then we'll be off to Chiangrai and Burma on Friday morning. Pray for a safe trip and also we'll make full use of our last 9 days here! It's been an enriching trip for the 3 of us.
God bless.
love
evan
posted by evan at 1:12 AM
...................................................................................
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Here's wishing Sheena, Shermaine and Aaron a HAPPY 2ND BAPTISM BIRTHDAY!
Anyways, we're safely back from today's trip!
Last night's girls-night-out was fun, we had a time of answering questions, praying for one another and movie-ing. We only had 2 hours of sleep, and got up at 5am to leave for Mae Sai (Burma a.k.a. Myanmar). When we left Payap at 6am, the sun was already out. Those who went were - Sheena, Shermaine, Evan, Robert, Jason, Marvin and Jason's parents (Cindy and Hal Miller). Our 4-hour long journey began and it was freezing cold at the back of Robert's truck. We had 2 toilet breaks in between and finally got to Mae Sai at about 10 plus. Oh why did we have to go to Mae Sai? Because the 3 of us had our passport stamps valid till May 22, so we had to go into Mae Sai to get them extended. Anyways, while all of us were in Mae Sai, Marvin had to wait for us outside since he's on tourist visa. Jason's parents went in with us out of fun. We had to pay US$10 to get in.
Mae Sai resembled Cambodia, coz once you enter, the kids will surround you and get you to buy their stuff. We looked around and bought quite a bit of stuff. Left Mae Sai at 11.30am and we found Marvin waiting for us at the truck. Lunch was at this noodles stall, then we made our way to Chiangrai for elephant rides. The journey to Chiangrai was crazy! It rained super super super heavily for a while, then it became scorchingly hot. The people seated at the back had to pull the blinds down when it rained, and the wind blew so strongly, it was llike war-time for them. It took us about an hour to reach the elephant-riding place which was situated at a hill tribe. We looked around the hill tribe and saw humongous snakes resting in cages. The 3 of us touched the leathery skins of the snakes - another once-in-19-years-experience!
Then the elephant ride started. A bench was placed on top of each elephant and usually it can only sit 2 people. But since we had odd numbers, they allowed the 3 of us to sit on one elephant, Cindy and Hal on the other, Jason and Marvin on another. Robert didn't sit since he already sat 15 to 20 times. The elephant ride lasted about 2 hours, and it's not the kind of ride when the elephant just walks on the road. It's more of elephant hiking. We went through forests, hills, slopes, across streams of water, etc. We gave the elephants nicknames too! Ours was called 'Poor elephant' coz it had to take the weight of 3 of us, and the elephant trainer, plus it was the smallest size of the 3. Cindy and Hal's was called 'Coward' coz it freaked out at the sight of a herd of cows. It literally ran away from the cows! Then the last elephant was called 'Happy' coz it seemed the happiest among the 3.
The ride was super bumpy and super scary. The 3 of us had to squeeze into a bench and it was alright when the elephant went up-hill. BUT each time the elephants went down-hill, it felt as if we were going to fall off anytime. We just kept bumping and bumping, Sheena and Shermaine who took turns to sit in the middle were the scariest since there wasn't any support and they could only grab the back of the bench. We'll probably develop muscles on our arms from this one ride - grabbing for dear life. The other 2 elephant trainers 'abandoned' their elephants leaving Cindy, Hal, Jason and Marvin alone on their elephants. Jason decided he'd become a trainer, so he sat at the head while Marvin was left alone on the bench. Overall, we enjoyed the ride, a new experience for us.
The ride back to Chiangmai was horrendous. Again, it rained super heavily and the weather changed totally right after it rained. We stopped only once this time so that we could get back to Chiangmai earlier. By the time we got back, it was already 7.45pm. Had our dinner at Night Bazaar, followed by 2 hours of full-body massage. Yeah, it's our 4th massage already, but it's these massages that keep us active everyday. Today's massage was very interactive. A total of 8 of us in a room, and the masseues kept speaking with Jason and Marvin in Thai. All of us enjoyed the massage, since we had a long day of travelling.
Ok that's it for today. We are very thankful that even as one-month interns, we get to travel to different places and being able to experience so many different things! Anyways, we're going to this super pretty waterfall tomorrow morning with a lot of people - the 5 interns, Robert, Cox Family, Miller Family, 4 new students from English Class and some Thais from the zone!
I know I owe you guys heaps of photos!
Will get them up when I'm back in Singapore, promise!
:))
P.s. Throughout the journey, I chose the right times to sit at the back of the truck, so I did not experience war-times!
posted by evan at 1:52 AM
...................................................................................
That was the last blog post there. Man I miss those days like mad. Pictures I will put up soon. Kinda lazy now lol! Many once-in-19-years experiences too. Hope to share many with u guys asap!
.
Video made for us when we left
さあ、うたう。
12:12 AM
12:12 AM
