English classes

Hello all, I hope you had a wonderful New Year's eve! Mine was great - we had some fireworks at home with the kids, then my Thai friend Bui took me and an Australian couple who are in town at the moment to Tha Pae Gate, which is where all the action happens in Chiang Mai. It was wonderful! Paper lanterns (many of them in the form of little hot air balloons which were being launched into the sky), fireworks, music, great company and generally a very festive and friendly atmosphere.

I've had a very touristy couple of days since then, being taken on an outing to some beautiful limestone waterfalls on New Year's Day, and yesterday going on a tour (with the McNaught's, an Australian family who are now also staying with the Tilley's) to an elephant camp where we rode the elephants and watched them do tricks, drifted down the river on a bamboo raft, had a brief ride in an ox-cart, and visited an orchid farm/ butterfly enclosure on the way home.

But today the real work starts - we've just had our first proper English teacher's meeting, and the first class is tonight. I'll be involved in helping with the Advanced class (it's just conversational English, no complex grammar or anything, thank goodness!) with a German lady called Heidi. There will be 2 sets of 8 classes (i.e. two consecutive classes run on 8 separate days) over the next 2 weeks, and 2 of those classes consist of telling Bible stories and discussing them. These English classes are the team's main tool for meeting students and establishing friendships with them, so I'll also be looking for opportunities to hang out with the students between classes (which they generally love to do). I think a spot of karaoke might be in order...

If you could pray that the students will be open to hearing the gospel, and that we'll have opportunities for good conversations with them, that would be great. Also that I don't make any bad cultural blunders!