So...Yeah

Many of my friends and family hear me say the words "so...yeah." When I can't think of what else to say at the time. That's the phrase I usually employ to break the awkward silence.
And since I haven't written a new blog update in so long I feel like there has been an awkward silence between us. (Between whoever is reading this blog and I)

So...yeah.... I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up to date as much as we'd both like but here's what the past month has looked like and can give a few clues into why it's been so long; (I promise I'm going to get better at this updating thing)

If I summed up this last month into one word I'd prolly say "SCHOOL." Lots and lots of school! Here's why:

-the last month I've been taking a class called Intensive Thai at Payap University just outside downtown Chiang Mai; so for the last month every Mon-Fri morning I'd wake up around 7, eat some breakfast, have some time with the Lord, hop on the scooter and drive the 20-30 mins to class. Sounds like a typical day of heading to work or college for the most part; except here's the catch...I'm learning how to READ. I still feel like I'm a 5 year-old trying to "sound-out" words and phrases with the teacher standing over me correcting my (many) mistakes. And for 3 hours every day we'd drill over the Thai alphabet; 44 consonants and the 18 vowels. (And you thought 26 letters total was a pain!)
I first described it as "trying to read an art class" because literally the letters ก ข ค ย ะ ๊ ็literally look like squiggles or something you'd doodle when bored in class.
But thanks to God and the perseverance and ability to learn languages he's given me, I can honestly say that after a month of intense studying and lots of homework I can read/write Thai. (We won't go into details of how many words per minute that means.)



The title of the book is "How to read and how to write"

-The other reason is because after Thai class I'd drive back home, eat lunch with the 6 Thai staff (plus Lydia the precious 2 year-old), then teach English classes for 2 hours.



(We're working on commands in the beginner class)

By the time English classes are finished it's usually around 3:30 or 4 o'clock. With the remaining hour or so before the girls get back and dinner happens I'd squeeze in some emails and maybe run a few errands if it were possible.

-After dinner I help out with ChatChai's devotionals by playing guitar every once in awhile and leading worship with a few English songs they know and then we all hit the homework. Its pretty awesome that I have so many Thai experts to help me with my homework and then they come to me with their questions on their English and math homework.

So there's this month, well the weekdays anyway. In between the busy school days and nights God has been blessing me incredibly with community! I've been hanging out with friends I've met on the Southern side of the city and going to their home church on Sundays after playing soccer in the mornings. I've also been able to go to a night of worship that happens once a month and also randomly found out about an annual Ultimate Frisbee tournament in which over 60 people came and had a blast at! God's been blessing me extraordinarily with all these things and allowed me to make friends (both westerners and Thais) and continue to invest in the different relationships and have begun to have real accountability with a few guys.

All in all I can't get over how awesome God has been this month! It's been a lot of work and I'm always exhausted by the time Saturday finally rolls around but always ready to hit it again by the time Monday morning's alarm goes off.

One of the major responsibilities included in my job description is acting liaison for the One Girl sponsorship program we've launched. We're trying to get the sponsors more connected with their "adopted" girls with updated photos, videos, bios, etc. rather than the one photo they received when they first signed up to be a sponsor. This is a major undertaking but seeing real fruit come of it ready.

Well that's it for this month, next month should be a little less fast-paced as far as school goes because I'm done with the Thai class and will start taking private tutoring every other day or so instead of EVERY day. Thus enabling more time to work on the projects going on at BHJ and stuff happening this summer.

As always thanks so much for the prayers and support, one big prayer request that you could life up on my behalf is roommates. I'm looking for a place near BHJ but a little closer to the city as to be able to still go to tutoring and community things. I've found such places at extremely affordable prices, the only problem is roommates. I'm having difficulty finding other guys in the city looking for a place in the same area as me. But I'm not too concerned, just need to be patient.

Location:Nong Pa Krang Soi 3,Nong Pa Khrang,Thailand

Year 2010 Wrap-Up

Alright, here's an attempt at wrapping up all that has happened here in the last month of December which I've hardly written anything about...

I had just gotten back from Vientiane, Laos with another 90 day visa thanks to a lot of prayers, research and filling out the correct forms. I had about a day to unpack from the previous travels and settle in before BHJ's founders Uncle Bill and Auntie Mary Lee flew in for about 10 days. They spent the first few days adjusting to the time change and visiting with the girls, while I did a little scooter shopping. With extreme thanks to very generous supporters I was able to purchase a used Honda iCon scooter with which I am extremely pleased. The price was right and even came with a 1 year full guarantee and free maintenance work. So from then on I was mobile and able to go to meetings, start making and visiting friends and basically stop relying on the staff or Matt to get me into at least Songtaew (local taxi) or TukTuk range of where I had to go. (Imagine the excruciating several months before you turned 16 and got your license when everything REQUIRED you to drive and then the glorious days after your birthday when you were ABLE to go to the grocery store or visit a friend by yourself without bugging your parents or older sibling to take you there.) Hence the feeling of immense accomplishment that soon followed the signing of the dotted line.


Ok, so back to Bill and Mary Lee; they had come to really grind out some big plans and goals for the ministry as a whole in the future and spent a lot of time typing up job descriptions and future aspirations and restructuring the board of directors a bit. This involved me a little because Bill offered me a full-time position rather than just an intern with the ministry and am now "officially" connected with New Horizons Foundation (not like I wasn't beforehand; it just wasn't on paper). The several days with them I continued teaching English to the staff, acted as translator and chauffer for them a few times and eventually said good-bye when they headed back to the States.

One week followed which would have been somewhat of a respite, however with the new visa I had obtained and also thanks to the funding I received, Chat Chai and I met up with a paralegal and began the immense task of filling out all the required paperwork for getting a Thai Work Permit, which is basically my ticket to staying in the country indefinitely. Without which I would have to be border hopping every 3 months (and losing quite a bit of money with each trip), and never being able to have a set foundation in this country. So fast-forward past all the mundane trips to the office supply store for more printer ink, back and forth emails between previous employers, tedious translating of resumés and trips to passport photo shops (thankfully extremely affordable at 100 Baht ($3) for 4 photo compared to $10-20 for 2 in the States), we finally got the paperwork together and submitted the application to the Government.

By the time this was finished another 8 days had passed, just in time for two long-time and basically co-founders arrived from Washington state. Uncle Scott and Auntie Rosalie came to spend time with the girls and enjoy Christmas with everybody out here. With Matt having his parents staying at his house, I spent most days teaching English in the morning and then enjoying the company of the two visitors. We spent time with the staff and running errands into the city and back; in the end we put together a great celebration for Christmas complete with a new thick blanket for each girl and even a new TV to watch their favorite shows on the weekends! (Imagine the squeals and screams when the secret got out!) Scott and Rosalie went back home on the 26th.

The last week of the month was spent with a little rest for everybody; all the staff took a day to stop all the errands completely and breathe for a minute before the next holiday happened. New Years Eve was spent on the lawn outside cooking over small fire pots and shooting off home-made fireworks. (Literally made out of grass and gun powder!)



Now the holidays are over and this mon
th things are gearing up for a lot of different things but at a slightly slower pace. The Parkers and I are heading for Thai class, I'm continuing to teach English to the staff and helping out with the every-day errands, and all in all its a pretty good start to the year 2554, or 2011 rather.

Lessons from life on the left side of the Road

Here are some more things that occur in a daily setting in Thailand:

• Scooters:

 -Entire families of 6 (record so far), with father driving whilst holding a toddler in one arm, a younger boy standing on the small platform in from of him, a small girl seated behind the dad with arms holding groceries, and lastly the mother (seated behind her daugher) cradling an infant.
  -Women wearing heels and still being able to shift.
  -People driving while talking on the phone or texting.
  -Girls riding side saddle due to the skirt of their school uniform.
  -People eating Pad Thai while riding on the back (with chopsticks!).
  -Scooters blasting by a Motorcycle cop at a red light going 100 km/h and him hardly noticing.
  -Police setting up random road blocks and confiscating licenses of anyone not wearing a helmet while being stuck in traffic at a light. Fine of 200 Baht ($6) to have it returned...but in order to go to the office they have to drive across town without a license.
  -People driving on the wrong side of the road, literally. Making a one-way street a two-way because it's "too far" til the next U-Turn.
  -Topping off your tank for 80 Baht ($2.50) that will last you all week.

  -Having the registration/insurance of your vehicle expire in the year 2554. (Roman Calendar: 2011 A.D.)

• Going to the Hospital for a health certificate with blood test for 150 Baht (about $4.50)

• Monks in bright orange, dark red or brown garb walking around barefoot in the midst of a modern supermarket not unlike Wal-Mart
• Children playing with massive bugs that chirp rather than buzz; tied to strings making them a sort of baloon with a mind of its own.

Among many other things that seem to never get old...

Plastic Hammer

In a recent email with my Dad he quoted a pastor named Darrell Ferguson from a church in Denver who said "our efforts to 'do God's will' are no more than a 3 year-old boy following his father around the house with a plastic hardware belt and hammer asking how he can help with chores. This gives Him pleasure. The only difference is that He actually gives us things to do that make an eternal significant change."

This hit home quite a bit because being so caught up in answering the question of "how can I be most useful and have the most impact in Thailand?" doesn't exactly leave me with the impression of a toddler with his Fisher Price hammer trying to fix the family car's alternator.
But this is exactly where God has me. I have no idea how to stop the sex trade in Thailand, or how to bring about the salvation of so many beautiful, yet lost souls, or even how to negotiate the price of a tuktuk ride if it's not one of the more regularly traveled routes.

However, the delight for both God and I, comes in the attempt. I most certainly am still trying to use a plastic hammer rather than a real one but the end result of progress; success or failure, is only because He's letting me try my strength in the first place.

I'm beyond ecstatic to be allowed to be here and learn Thai, teach English and do everything through the universal language of love, but if it weren't for the Holy Spirit speaking through my immature toys that squeak, it'd hardly be anything but exactly that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I am not some awesome "missionary" (sounds like a PhD. after my name that I haven't earned) who is charging forth bravely into the unknown for His kingdom.
I'm just some kid who thinks he hears his Dad saying he would love some help with the car. Which happens to be located in Thailand and has a whole mess of problems.

So please pray for the ministry that God has for me specifically would become clear...cuz there is a junkyard full of cars I could help with...and I still only have my plastic tool belt.

End of chapter 1

Well! After 3 whole months of crazy adventures, God-seeking, and random times of life all over Thailand it's time for a change. But first here's a recap of the last month here:
-After the jungle, the team and I came back to Breanna's House, where we spent the next two weeks playing all sorts of games, building soccer goals, mowing, painting, power washing and giving every amount of love possible to the girls. I continued to teach the staff English and was very excited to find that they had contained the content from all the previous lessons and were ready for more!
It's hard to sum it all up into a few words but after 13 days it was time to say goodbye again. I had it a little easier since I wasn't saying goodbye for good; I made sure all the girls knew that plans were in motion for me to stay and continue living here. But it was pretty harsh for the rest of em; lots of tears, "Chan rak kun's" and email exchanges. But after a few hours, we were on the road again.

-We didn't go far, but it was necessary to say goodbye at this point rather than later due to future itineraries. We took the next 5 days to have a Spiritual Retreat at a hotel/botanical garden on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. Here we had time to pour over scripture, fast, pray, spend a day in silence and rest in the blessed love of our God. I have yet to feel so rested than after receiving the peace that comes from His presence. (Nor do I expect to in this world).

-Then we were off to Bangkok; we only spent 3 days in Thailand's capital, but that was all that was needed. Barely an hour after getting off the overnight bus from Chiang Mai, we found ourselves in the center of Bangkok's notorious "Patong District", the city's well-known red light district where more than 2,000 prostitutes work each night. We walked past disgusting bars and their signs and went up an elevator to meet with Rahab Ministries; a ministry literally in the heart of the sex industry that provides rehab and vocational training for women wanting to escape their current occupation. For more info check out rahabministriesthailand.org.
We headed back to our hostel and honestly had already lost our taste for Bangkok...spent the remaining 2 days praying and willing God to move in the city.

-We grabbed our flight from Bangkok to Phuket and spent a night in a bamboo bungalow near the ocean, took the ferry to Koh Phi Phi Island the next day where we spent the next 6 days in awe of God's amazing creation and beauty. We spent most of our time in the water; snorkeling and swimming, and I was exceptionally blessed to be able to go Deep Water Soloing (a mix between rock climbing and cliff jumping; something I'd been longing to do for many nears!) and kayaking to different places around the island.
The evenings were spent processing the entire trip and preparing the girls for their trip home. We made friends with the locals of the beach we were staying at and I enjoyed talking with them and playing guitar while admiring the beauty and opportunity to be in the South Pacific. But before long we grabbed the ferry back to Phuket, stayed one more night and headed back to Chiang Mai where the girls packed up, said their goodbyes (to friends in Chiang Mai and the Parkers and I) and boarded their planes back to the states.

So...I am currently waiting for the time to creep closer to my own departure; I'm hopping a bus in a few hours bound for Vientiane, Laos to do a 3 day visa run in the hopes and prayers of returning with another 3 month visa! Prayers, as always, are greatly appreciated and welcomed!

End of Chapter 1. See next post for the exciting beginning of the next Chapter of what God's doing here and letting me be a part of!

LAOS VISA UPDATE: The Jessen family and I took the overnight bus from Chiang Mai to the border and we were blessed beyond belief by receiving our visas without any semblance of difficulty at the consulate! We even arrived 2-3 hours later than most people had suggested due to a little bus/tuktuk mix up, but were relieved to find hardly anybody there. (Imagine showing up at the DMV at 10 am and expecting to wait in line until at least 4 pm and find no one in line!!)
Laos is a communist country and therefore closed to missionary work, yet I could physically feel the grace of God in the midst of almost tangible opression. The Jessens and I took time to pray for the country while having 24 hours to kill while our visas were processed.

The Jungle

Day one: We hiked for about 4 hours through the thickest, densest jungle imaginable. We stopped around 2 pm to have lunch and built a little bamboo and banana leaf hut to hide from the rain that was threatening to overwhelm us. It was here, that it struck again; that sickening gut feeling that screamed, "I am not where I am supposed to be right now!" Feeling as white as possible (a prime target for malaria-carrying mosquitoes), hardly being able to stand still due to the sensation of being so out of place, trying our best not to just throw our hands in the air and yell! But thankfully our guide and porter just started hacking away at the endless bamboo trees, building a fire and giving us small tasks to complete like chopping carrots or digging a small hole with a bamboo shoot with one end sharpened with a machete. They cut several shoots and stuffed eggs, noodles and rice in the hollows, and helped us cut our own chop sticks out of other shoots. (Lesson learned: bamboo works for everything! Even eating). After roughly an hour and a half of continuous hacking, cooking, and mosquitoe-slapping we left the fire burning against a tree (while I could very audibly hear Smoky the Bear screaming at me to never do such a thing.) and continued hiking for 2 more hours to a Yao village where we stayed in a little barn-like building on the wooden floor, had fresh green tea (while piles of it were outside being dried before shipping off), and enjoyed the company of our guide and the family with which we were staying.

Day two: Rain. It had rained all night, woke up to more rain, and after hardly any sleep, made breakfast which consisted of eggs and about 6 pieces ofwhite bread toast per person (apparently its believed that Farang eat bread all the time and it takes half a loaf to satisfy each person over 5'6"), packed up, said "thank you" and headed out into the continuing rain. Hiked for several hours, fighting our way through razor sharp thorns, a million mosquitoes and leeches (no small task), stopping only briefly to eat our Pad Thai for lunch which we had previously packed into banana leaves. Continued on for another couple hours until reaching an Akha village where we stayed in a house owned by an elderly man and woman. Where we felt more like part of the family than guests due to the instant hospitality; cooking with them, trying to converse with the use of lots of hand gestures and repetitions. (The last 2 months of learning Thai didn't prove very effective with those who only speak Akha).

Day three: Woke up to sunny skies and had breakfast (eggs and half a loaf of bread again each), hiked out to a stream, helped dam a small section and proceeded to fish for small crabs, prawns, minnows, eels, etc with our hands for several hours. Took them all back to the house, cooked and ate them for lunch. Then packed up, said our thanks, and began the trek which was originally expected to last 2 hours, but quickly turned into 4 once we discovered the trail we were heading up: due to the rain and the recent use of the trail to herd water buffalo, we found the thickest mud I've ever seen. The steep inclines and decents proved to be as treacherous as glare ice while wearing moccasins. Having mud up past our ankles caused feet to slide if the terrain angled even a little bit, but soon turned to quick sand that would swallow the entire foot once it leveled off. Had quite a bit of fun with it and eventually made it to the Lahu village we were heading for. (Having the bottom half of our bodies a lot darker than before) Took a some time to rinse off, make dinner, hang out and eat, and then quickly fell asleep.

Day four: Woke up, ate breakfast, packed up, and hiked about 45 minutes down a washed-out road, caught a truck which took us to the river from where we took a boat to an elephant camp, rode elephants for about an hour, ate some lunch, grabbed another truck back to Chiang Rai, were dropped off at the bus station, said goodbye to our guide, bought bus tickets back to Chiang Mai, waited around at the station for a couple hours, then took the 3 hour bus ride back to Chiang Mai.

The trek through the jungle had originally been a two-part enterprise: firstly to see the northern part of Thailand and make contacts with the villager locals, and secondly to do a bit of sight-seeing and explore the beauty of Thailand's lush jungle. The first objective fell on the wayside once Courtney hurt her tailbone and Matt aided her in taking her to the hospital and back to Chiang Mai.

Through all of it, it was impossible for all of us to constantly be in awe of the beauty of creation (even the slicing of thorns and tripping of vines were equated to the snares of the Devil and remembering to look up and still give thanks for the beauty above our current situation.).


The LORD your God is in your midst,
    a mighty one who will save;
 he will rejoice over you with gladness;
   he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
  Zephaniah 3:17 (English Standard Version)

(Again, photos will follow once they are acquired from various cameras). But until then, feel free to check them out at Sarah Worscheck's facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages&ref=mb#!/album.php?aid=253466&id=584708398

A little update.

We were in the dark room that we were sleeping in that night when Matt said "Yeah well we'll just see what hap...look at the size of that spider." It was the tone in which he so matter-of-factly pointed it out, that I hardly believed that the 8-legged arachnid  roughly around the size of my ENTIRE HAND that was sitting on the wall 3 feet away, glaring at me with 8 beady eyes was in fact, real. Then it hit me. I really am in the jungle now. Then it hit me again and again as we found 5 more spiders the same size all over the walls and under our bed, and this was only the beginning....


There are actually 3 spiders in this photo (unbeknownst to me at the time)
1: Obvious
2: Underneath the 2x4 on the wall
3: Hiding just below view; you can see one leg if you look just above the pillow.
(5 Total spiders in the room once we began looking for them.)



Ok rewind. So a little re-cap to bring everybody up to speed from the last post (which regrettably, was a month ago). Here are some hilights from life in Thailand.

• After the last post, it would be understandable to think that life here has been the epitome of disgusting, horrible, and down right hard. But such is not the case, please don't think that life here is any of the above. There are plenty of times when things are difficult and challenging; especially when the ugly face of prostitution is in full view. But please know that God is amazing, huge, amazingly huge and powerful. He is in control and takes delight in letting his children pray and aid in the work He's doing.
• The weeks following were spent in the quiet of Breanna's House, loving on the girls, playing games, teaching English, and gearing up for a team to come from the States.
• Once the team arrived, time was spent planting flowers, hedges, trees, building swingsets, putting on a VBS for the girls, taking them into town (they hardly have the opportunity to go anywhere other than school), and ultimately loving the 42 girls through any means necessary.
• After the team had departed, and most of the girls went back to their villages because of school break, we headed north to Chiang Rai. (Also, just to clarify; most of the girls at BHJ are not technically "orphans" in the sense most define it. The majority of them have at least one living parent, though their mothers are almost always remarried to another man than their father; due to him either being deceased, in prison, or unknown. And hence their mother being married to another man, the step-father rarely allows them to stay with the family. So they are passed off to grandparents, aunts and uncles or friends if possible.)
• Then the week in Chiang Rai we spent time gearing up for the jungle and enjoying some time in a new city. Activities included: swimming, napping (I was sick with a cold), hanging out at coffee shops and reading, journaling, and also found a place where for $3 could ride ostriches! (Just FYI, as seen in Swiss Family Robinson, ostriches are not easy to ride, and are not meant for personal transport lol).

This brings us up to speed with the jungle adventure; we had just taken a long-tail boat for about an hour from Chiang Rai further into the jungle and were dropped off at a little hot springs village where we set up a few hammocks and took naps before the truck came to pick us up and take us to the village where we were going to start our trek. It was there that something potentially disastrous happened: Natalie had strung up her hammock with some old rope that she fould somewhere in her dad's garage (seemed strong enough to me), but when Courtney tried to hop into the hammock with her, the rope snapped and they both hit the ground hard. Natalie was bruised and a little sore but ok, but Courtney, unfortunately, landed directly on a root and also hit her head on the tree; resulting in a highly bruised tailbone and extreme nausea. We had to lift her into the truck once it came, and carry her most of the time to get from the bed to the table and back, the next morning when she wasn't feeling any better, Matt and her took the long car-ride back to Chiang Rai to the hospital where they diagnosed the bruise (not broken, thank God) tailbone. From there they took the van back to Chiang Mai while the rest of us went on with the trek.

Matt and Courtney made it back to Chiang Mai safely, and Courtney is now completely healed and running around as if nothing happened (somewhat bummed she had to spend the entire week on the couch), but loved hanging out with the Parkers and having time to reflect, read and rest.

See next post for a debriefing of our awesome trek!