Songkran Festival!!!

My sweet friend Faa

My past week has consisted of many things...but it all circles around Songkran Festival (Thai new year). This is the biggest holiday in Thailand. They celebrate Songkran like we celebrate Christmas. Everyone goes home to their families and they get a week off of school and work. One of the main attractions of this holiday is the 3 day water festival. It's basically a continuous water fight with adults. People sit along the side of the road with water guns and big buckets of ice water and soak the poor, unknowing pedestrians. It was fantastic. I was so ready the first day. We went to this big market called JJ Market and walked along the road. At first I wanted to go to the market to buy things (souvenirs, gifts..etc), but I soon realized that would be impossible since it was water day, and I dove (literally) into the water games. I bought a water gun..I soon realized that the combination of the water gun and the fact that I'm foreign made me a major target. I was drenched. It was so much fun though.

I have powder paste all over my face!

Day two of water day happened to be Sunday, so our church went to the park for our service. I learned that on top of water, another tradition they have is to get a type of powder that is very similar to baby powder and mix it with water to make a paste. They then take the paste and plaster it on the faces of everyone. Again--since I have blonde hair and green eyes...I was a target again. So I left the park that day with nasty powder paste on my face. It was certainly entertaining.

so cute!

Day three of water day was none other than our moving day. We were sad/anxious/excited/nervous--pretty much every emotion you can imagine--about moving to Ladprao from Lad Krabang. First of all, packing up all of our things was very difficult. I have no idea how I fit everything the first time, but the second time was not easy. I finally finished and we moved to our new home. Everything is different. But I know we'll get used to it eventually.

During the week off, we had the privilege to go on vacation with the Cable family. Steve

If you can see--the dolphin is going through the hoops

Cable is the founder and Pastor of Santisuk English School and Peace Fellowship Church. His daughter is close to my age, and we had a really good time going to the beach, eating delicious food, relaxing, and just enjoying eachother. There was one day that we went to this Dolphin place and we saw a show! It was my first time ever seeing Dolphins in real life and they did these awesome tricks. SO GREAT!

Charissa on left and Heidi in the middle

As you can tell, we are having a really amazing time. I do have a request of you though. Next week we will start our second session of classes. I think Caitlin and I both are nervous about it because we both have two classes with at least 10 students (I only had one class with 4 students last month). My schedule is Monday through Friday: my first class is from 7-9 AM and my second class is 1-3 PM. I am already feeling tired and I haven't even started teaching yet. So if you could pray for me this upcoming week, I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much!!


-Bethany