Summer Holiday Clubs

During the summer in Thailand...

hmm...

Actually that statement "summer in Thailand" doesn't make much sense... There isn't really a "summer" here--in fact there aren't even four seasons--there are three: Cold (November-February), Hot (March-June), and Rainy (July-September). And yes, the hot season could be summer--but it's not the same period that I'd call summer at home. What I would call summer back home is actually the rainy season... though, as noted in the last post, it hasn't really been that rainy this year.

However, I am digressing (Can you digress before you've even started?--I'm sure you can.)...this post is supposed to be about the Kids Clubs we helped with in July and August...not the weather!

July and August were busy--but fun! We had three separate kid's camps to plan and run. One was for 4 1/2 days with 10 kids, the next was for 2 1/2 days with 30 kids, and the other was the 10 Sundays throughout the summer with between 12 and 40 kids!

During the first conference we focused on some of the parables. We had great fun exploring the parable of the two houses by building sandcastles on the beach, discussing the parable of the leaven by baking bread, and learning more about the parable of the mustard seed by examining actual mustard seeds. We sang songs, played games, studied the Bible, and generally had a great time. The first picture in the post shows our yeast experiments that we did when we talked about the parable of the leaven. We were trying to help the kids visualize what yeast actually did in bread dough so we added warm water, yeast, and sugar to water bottles and put balloons over the top to catch the gases.

One of our favourite moments was when one of the three-year-old attendees was explaining the parable of the two foundations to the adults during our presentation. He saw pictures of what we had done come up on the powerpoint and his eyes lit up and he stepped up to the mike and explained the whole story. It went something like this: "There was a man. And he built his rock up on a rock. And then it rained and the house was okay." It may have been this picture that triggered his memory! We were checking to see what happens to a sand house when water is poured on it. After watching the house collapse, we all decided that sand would make a bad foundation.

The second conference was more challenging not only because there were more kids, but also because not all the kids spoke English. During that conference we decided to focus on just one Psalm--Psalm 148. We read the psalm, and then over the three days we explored how awesome God's creation is! We tried to keep things really visual so that even kids without much English would still understand. We talked about volcanoes--and then made some. We discussed stars and planets--and then did some experiments with gases. We learned about sea creatures--and then painted out own pictures of them. The program worked really well with the group--and we had lots of fun learning about Psalm 148 with the kids. The picture shows one of the activities we did. We were talking about how diverse God's creation was and how he created some animals with amazing camouflage. Then we put gloves on and tried painting them to match a picture to see how camouflaged we could make them.

Our third club wasn't so much a club--it was a special Sunday School program for the summer. As in many churches, many families are on vacation during the summer, so there were a lot fewer kids around. So, we joined the five classes at the church together and did a special program based on the stories about the Israelites' journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Each week focused on a different story--and each week focused on a different attribute of God. So, the first week we looked at the story of the Call of Moses and remembered that God is holy, another week we talked about the parting of the sea and remembered that God is our protector. Like the other programs, we had a brilliant time planning and running this Holiday Club.

It really is so much fun working with kids! Often they teach us more than we teach them. On the last week of the Journey-themed club, we were talking about how the Israelites finally reached the Promised Land and then we talked about our Promised Land--heaven. Their activity was to paint their view of heaven. While they were doing that, Amanda asked one of the younger groups of kids, "Who do you think we will see in heaven?" One little girl's eyes lit up and she waved her hand in the air and said, "Me!!"

Rainy Saigon

Several weeks ago we took a quick six-day trip to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We went for several reasons. First, we wanted to meet a friend of ours who lives there (Tuyet), and second we had to leave Thailand to get new Thai visas, and, of course, neither of us had been to Vietnam!

It was great to finally meet Tuyet. We've been corresponding somewhat irregularly (my fault) for about a year. Unfortunately we were only in Vietnam from Monday to Saturday and she works those days, but we did meet several times for lunch and coffee and she was invaluable in procuring us transportation back to the airport (she actually chased down the bus we were riding on, on a motorcycle, to make sure the bus was heading to the airport-- it wasn't so she found us a motorcycle taxi instead). Good times!

The most striking thing we remember about Vietnam, however, is the rain! Now, supposedly we've been in the rainy season here in Bangkok for the last few months. However, that's generally meant it rains every day for a few hours--but often it's in the evening so it's not really disruptive of our day-to-day life.



It's also the rainy season in Saigon, but, based on our Bangkok experience, we weren't really all that concerned--or prepared!

We arrived in Saigon in the morning and the rain started on the bus ride from the airport. Actually, strike "rain" from that sentence--it was more like a torrential downpour! However it stopped long enough for us to find our hotel--and then started up again while we were having brunch.

It didn't stop.

Our first purchase (besides brunch) was a couple of ponchos--which we almost immediately donned for our walk across town to the Thai Embassy. Luckily, the rain only lasted a few hours that first day and we didn't need to use use our ponchos again.




The next few days, though, the rain started and just never stopped! We needed to return to the Embassy and we kept waiting for the rain to at least slacken off--it didn't! When we finally flagged down a taxi the water in the street outside our hotel was lapping over the sidewalks. In the center of the street motorcycles were stalling out because their engines flooded--it was insane.

This was a rainy season!


We went touring in the rain, walked to the Thai embassy in the rain, walked to the Canadian Embassy in the rain, walked to our hotel in the rain, walked back to the Thai embassy in the rain (yes, we spent a fair bit of time at the Thai embassy!), took motorcycle taxis to a school where we volunteered to teach English in the rain, went shopping in the rain...I think you get the point!


The rain was lovely, but I am quite glad to report that it did stop for the last two days we were there (mostly). That was lucky, 'cause we went out of the city touring that day. We went to the Chu Chi tunnels--tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The tunnels were really interesting--they've been enlarged twice, but as still so small that I don't know how people could have used them!

As per usual, we have lots of great food memories from Vietnam. We went out for lunch twice with Tuyet and had some AMAZING food. Fish wrapped in thin rice paper, shrimp cakes, Vietnamese pancakes, papaya salad...yum. We also went out with Gavin, a friend from Australia, and had barbecued beef and, while thinking of Obelix, wild boar! The boar was fun to try, but the beef was better. :) The food in Vietnam is an odd mix actually. It's quite Asian in many ways, but there's an odd French influence too. Baguettes and soft cheese, for example, are very prevalent!

Our two most interesting food memories were chicken eggs with partially formed chicks in them and dog (sorry Lindsay!). We bought the eggs off a small street stand down the road from our hotel. A friend from the States, Teddy, was planning to try them so we joined in (see previous picture)! Tuyet helped us buy them, showed us how to eat them, and then laughed at our faces while we ate. :)

The eggs weren't all that great, but, sorry to all dog lovers out there, the dog was actually quite tasty--as long as it wasn't dipped into the shrimp sauce that is. There's a whole street of little local restaurants where dog is the only thing on the menu. Luckily we were having lunch with Gavin who speaks Vietnamese, so we easily ordered some barbecued dishes with pepper sauce. It tasted a bit like lean beef... It was alright! Oddly enough, while the rest of the city has stray dogs and cats, we never saw any around that street of restaurants at all...

Don't pet the wild elephants

Seriously, isn't there anything anymore that's just common sense?

Who would try to pet a wild animal that weighed almost 100 times more than they did? Obviously enough people do, because we were told by four different people in less than 24 hours not to pet the wild elephants because they're dangerous! I worry about the future of humanity if that many people need to be told... Okay, in the defense of humanity, as Amanda says, tame elephants are rather prolific in Thailand and EVERYONE pets them...or rides them or teaches them to play soccer and paint...so maybe it's not surprising that people figure wild elephants are docile too...

Actually I wasn't really that surprised--mostly I just wanted to name the post "Don't pet the wild elephants" 'cause it sounded cool, so I thought I should comment on the saying! :)

Actually the thing that WAS surprising about our May visit to Khao Yai National Park in Thailand was the leeches.

Pop quiz: Do leeches live on land or in the water?

Now, being Canadian, the only leeches I'd come into contact with lived in the water. If you go swimming in the Northern lakes, there's a somewhat decent chance you'll come out of the water with a leech stuck to you. But if you stay away from water, no problem! So...when we arrived and asked the rangers about good hikes, we assumed their recommendation to buy leech socks was a bit of a tourist scam. Note: Leech socks are just like linen bags worn over your socks and pants. They can be seen in the picture as our friends Xavier and Marie-Aude were not so skeptical and they bought some. We, on the other hand, thought, "Right, 'leech socks'--those are important! Or, we'll not wade through the water and we'll be fine!"

We weren't.

It seems that tropical leeches live on land--and there's LOTS of them! Unfortunately, we didn't notice them until after they found me. After hiking for just over an hour, I looked down and wondered why there was blood on the bottom of my pant leg... It's lucky we had matches, as that's one of the best ways to detach leeches--it worked great this time too--but the wounds didn't stop bleeding for a good 40 minutes and I got to hike around for the next day and a half looking like I'd been in a war zone cause I didn't have another pair of pants with me!

All fun and games though, I suppose! :)

In addition to wild elephants (which we never actually saw) and the leeches (which we definitely saw), we also saw some gorgeous waterfalls, lots of amazing jungle scenery, several gibbons and monkeys frolicking in the trees, a porcupine and some deer (while on night safari), and two crocodiles (seen in the picture). It was a fun day and a half of hiking. Well, minus the leeches it was! Check out our Facebook albums for more pictures.

We stayed right in the park, so we didn't have to waste time commuting to the closest town. We stayed in some very upscale bungalows. And when I say "upscale" I mean you have to scale up a steep hill to reach our rather dilapidated dorms... They were large single rooms with two large wooden bed frames and...actually there's no "and." That's it. We did manage to wrangle some bedding out of the camp staff, but between the hard beds, the frolicking monkeys and the Thais having a party next door, I think we were all happy that we could buy espresso at the food hall in the morning!

Let me finish this blog entry with a great opportunity for anyone who might like to travel here to Thailand. The guides at Khao Yai would like someone to stay for several months to teach them English and help with research...leech research. All you'd have to do is let the main researcher attach leeches to you to test various things!!! :) So, let me know if you're interested and I'll pass along the info!

Okay, I lied. In actuality, the researcher has already finished his leech research and just needs someone to collect data on snails...

Whiplash!

Well, it felt like whiplash anyways—we travelled several thousand kilometres in just over three weeks! Crazy!

Before we left Bangkok, we had been looking forward to Russia for more than one reason—the obvious being that we'd get to see old and new friends and join a mission trip! The less important ones—but the ones more on our minds when we arrived, perhaps—were food and weather. :)

Okay, that might sound weird, but let me explain! We both love Thai and other Asian food—but there's a lot to be said for variety. Thai food is often regarded as healthy, but you'd be surprised how few vegetables there are and how much of it is deep fried. It tastes great, but it does get old after six months. Also, we'd been in Asia since September and the basis for all Asian food is rice. Before we left for Russia, we'd been eating rice—sometimes for three meals a day—for almost nine months! We love rice, but, as friends from the UK coined it, we were beginning to suffer from ARS—Anti-rice syndrome. So...it was so marvelous to eat Russian food: cheese, chocolate, borscht, cheese, soup, chocolate, rye bread, cheese, cabbage, potatoes, chocolate, cheese... :) Yum! (And the best thing is that now, after a three week break, we are happy to be back to Thai food.)

And, the weather? Well I'm sure many of you will not sympathize, but it was getting a bit hot here in Bangkok. :) So hot that it was hard to sleep at nights—so we were really looking forward to cooler temperatures in Russia. And it was wonderful! We went from high 30's and a 100% humidity to gorgeous early 20 temperatures and low humidity—marvelous! It even got down to the early teens in Kingisepp and St. Petersburg! (And to be honest we were wondering right about then why we had been looking forward to Russian weather!)

So much for food and weather and on to other things.

We were travelling with Greg Greve in Russia—something we always enjoy. It was strange to see him without his camera for much of the trip though...it got dropped and broken the first day we met. Those of you who know Greg can just imagine what it's like to see Greg without a camera—it's almost like he's lost an arm or a leg. He rallied, though, and used our cameras. He blamed his broken camera on the fact that he "joined the dark side" by finally buying a digital camera! :)




Greg is an amazing "people person," and that comes in very handy for a missionary. Every time we were on a train or a bus or walking in the street or even stopping to buy gas, Greg would be talking to people, finding out their stories, sharing his own history, handing out Bibles, and spreading the gospel of Christ! God really has given him a gift of love for others, and people call him the "train missionary" for a reason.


We saw lots of other old friends as well as Greg. Amanda travelled to Russia seven years ago and I was there three years ago—so there were definitely lots of people who we were happy to see again. Meeting old friends, and making new ones, is one of the main reason that wherever I travel I want to stay! It was no different in Russia. I would love to move there for a month, a year, or a few years! It's too bad cloning isn't perfected yet 'cause I'd like to stay here in Thailand too—as well as continuing to travel. :)

It's summer now in Russia, so the days are long—very long! Often we were up past midnight and several times we were holding services at that time too. Usually this happened in the villages where people had to finish chores so the only time they could meet is in the late evening. One such service was a bit funny. We were rushed out of town to the village because we were told we couldn't be late for the 7:00 pm service. We arrived just after 6:00 pm...and the service started at 10:30! :) While we waited for people we sang songs, played checkers with the kids, walked out to the river—and made frogs (and raced them) with the adults!

I enjoyed our village visits a lot on my last trip, and that didn't change on this trip. There's something special about being out in the country at a small country church meeting with people who want to gather--even if it is past midnight and they have to be up at 4:00. On my last trip my all time favourite memory was a soccer game we played in one of the villages. On this trip one of my favourite memories was helping with the milking! :) Now that's something I haven't done for over twenty years...it brought back memories.

Well, as I'm sitting here trying to think about what I should write next, I smile. I smile to think how confused Sasha was when we insisted on naming his car (her name is Greta) and then that reminds me of how amused Maxim was to find out that one of our USB drives was called Max...and that the rest of the USB drives are called "Max's friends." (Maxim kindly obliged us by giving names to his friends! *g*) I also think of umbrella-sword fighting with Aleona, telling jokes with Igor, teaching English to Ludmilla's class, practising Russian with Anya, and learning Russian folk songs from Nina! Good memories...

We're back in Thailand now, and we'll probably be here all summer. We're already in the middle of finalizing details for several summer children's programs that we are running, so that should keep us busy until we hit the road again in a few months. Cheers! :)