Before I Expire: The world didn't end, so now you have no excuse to not read this.

Well, I apologize for not blogging lately. But to be honest, I didn't want to bother with it if the world really was going to end on the 21st of May. But since it's already May 22nd here in Thailand, I think we're safe. But this is a good thing, since now you are all still alive to hear about my amazing adventures in Thailand :)
First of all, I have to say that God is doing amazing work in Thailand. Last week when the staff went to Bangkok for a conference (remember I mentioned I was here all by myself?) they met with all the protestants in Thailand. As of right now there are 400,000 Christians in Thailand. This means that only about .25% of people in Thailand are Protestant. The Christians want to change that. So, they have a vision. If everyone does their part, they want to have 1 million Christians in Thailand by 2015. Obviously, this is no easy task. But it's doable. It's totally doable. Most of the other 99.75% of the people in Thailand are Buddhist. So add that to your prayer list: Buddhist need to start humming in the name of Jesus.
So now that I've filled you in on the Big Mission in Thailand, I'm going to fill you in on what actually goes on around here. I live on a compound with three other missionaries and a seminary student. Cheri and David have two children, whom Cheri home schools while David does village visits, and Jeri is the boss of everything. Bew (I think that's how you spell her name) is a seminary student interning here for a year. The rest of the staff (there are about 10 of them, I think) lives elsewhere. Basically they do village visits. They have this ministry where they have teams of staff drive up to the villages to teach and have worship services. It's pretty cool. I know this because I went on one last Tuesday. We drove way up into the mountains to the Sakat village. First we taught an English class, followed by visits to certain families, then a worship service in a woman's house. The only catch is that it rained. Rain isn't so bad. You learn that when it rains a lot (which it does here). But this was intense rain. Not just raining cats and dogs, but raining every species in the Kingdom Animalia. It was ridiculous. And when David gives me pictures from the visit, I'll post them on here for you to see. (I apologize for being lazy with the whole picture-taking thing, but I find it pointless to take pictures of things that everyone else is taking pictures of. I find that if I'm patient, I can just borrow theirs).
But the main ministry used to be a clinic here on the compound. Here's the building:

Former clinic, now office building.

They had to shut down the clinic a few years ago because they didn't have a Thai doctor there. So now it's just used for offices for the staff.

And finally, here's what I'm actually doing:
I came here to teach English and help out with whatever Jeri and Cheri tell me to do. So I do that. Since I got here I've started an English class on Saturday mornings for some teens who live a few villages over, I've taken over the Sunday School English class for kids on Sunday mornings, I've planned (with Cheri's help) my curriculum for teaching in the schools, and I've helped prepare materials for the Nehemiah Project (more details on that later). I'm teaching at two schools: Soi Prow and Bon Den. I'm not actually sure that that's how the names are spelled, but that's how they sound. I go to Soi Prow on Mondays and Wednesdays, and Bon Den on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I love all my students so far. The kids from Soi Prow often come to the compound in the late afternoon to play games, since we have a lot of toys and a tennis court here. It's a great way to connect with them and make sure they practice their English :)
Now for the Nehemiah Project. This is an organization of the International Mission Board that lets high school and college aged kids go to third world countries for a summer and help out. We're getting eight Nehemiah kids in June who are going to teach English, and Cheri and Jeri are both bending over backwards to try to get all the logistics worked out. For me, this means laminating thousands of Days of the Week flashcards and cutting them out. It's pretty mindless and I don't mind the work, but I definitely won't complain when it's finished.

So that's what I've been up to so far. Oh, and watching American Idol. Jeri has a TV, and every Thursday night we watch it! I'm hooked on Scotty. I've never liked country music until he came along. I'm sure if I could stand his accent for more than 10 minutes I might even daydream about him. But regardless, Go Scotty!!! I'll be rooting for him in the future.
Also in the future: I leave today to go to Chang Mai for a few days to watch some missionary kids while their parents attend conferences. Then I go to Singapore to get my visa fixed. Then I go full swing into teaching. Then the Nehemiah kids come. Then a group of 17 people comes from the states. I am quickly learning that things are never quiet around here. I'm sure I'll have more interesting stuff to blog about in the future. And I'll put up more pictures, I promise!