Tuesday, 11 March 2014
27th February
 

Each day seems to see me gaining more confidence and experience in teaching heh. Today we did not have Aunt Nara or the home room teacher but we had Jojo helping us again. It’s good since the students are already familiar with Jojo.

I realise that things don’t go according to our plans. Like how we would end up doing stuff not on the lesson plan or we omit certain things that are on the lesson plan. But thank God that even though things don’t always go as planned, everything can still fall into place by the grace of God.

Take for instance today, we went through what we needed to teach pretty fast, since it was just mainly vocabulary of body parts and symptoms. There was a lot of time left so we decided to go through all the games that were in the lesson plan, something that I found out later that the rest did not manage to do. I was quite worried because without a good translator like Aunt Nara with us, we have to spend more time explaining the games through actions rather than with words. I was also worried because what if the message was not clear? What if we are unable to facilitate the game because of lack of understanding? But thank God everything went into place and I’m sure everyone had a good time playing through the games despite having to wait 10-20 minutes watching me and Pearl explaining the game to JoJo in a charades fashion.

Once again, Jojo was a big help managing the class in games and facilitating the forfeits. I could never get tired of watching the Thai forfeits although I don’t understand what they were saying/singing when they do the forfeits.

Ended the day rather tired as we played the games together with them. To end off the class, we asked them to draw a scene from the hospital. The Thai students are actually really good with drawing. Since we were running out of time, we asked them to do it tomorrow. Little did we know that some misunderstood and took it back as homework.

Aunt Nara suggested we perform a song on the last day and the song chosen was a Thai love song that was used in a Toyota advertisement 'Da Endorphine: Ying Roo Juk Ying Ruk Tur’
Spent time learning the song back at the church and the Thai helpers helped us to pronunciate each word properly to the point that we sound like natives singing the song heh. Afterwards we had to go visit one of the church members at their house. His name is Somchai (if I’m not wrong). Went there to bring encouragement through songs and testimony.

Some very nice biscuits were served. We sang the Thai songs that we had learnt prior to the trip, ‘Still’ and ‘Here I Am to Worship’ and also an English song ‘Blessed Be Your Name’. Aunty Janette then shared her testimony and we ended up praying for the family. It was an interesting experience as we prayed in English and then it got translated into Thai.

Went back to church after that for rest.

#18: Jojo helping us again!
#19: Things falling into place by the grace of God
#20: Witnessing the joy on the students as they played the games. Really thankful that they listen to us and wait for us to convey the instructions of the games.
#21: How everyone came in to help us learn the Thai song, from the helpers for English camp and also the daycare church helpers as well
#22: Opportunity to visit Somchai and his family and sharing and praying with them
#23: Able to play the songs without prior practice.