Hey guys!!
We just finished our first week in Thailand. New country, new ministry. We had a very long 23 hour travel day to get from Cambodia to Thailand and after waking up (or in my case staying up) super early, we drove to the border of Thailand and Cambodia. It took us about 4 hours to get through the visa line and into Thailand. From there we had a 13 hour drive to Chiang Mai where we stayed a few hours in a hostel to get a little sleep, then my team, Yada, and the other boys team, Israel, go on a bus to Chiang Dao where we met our hosts, Wanida and Aaron. We got the next day to rest and recoup before starting ministry on Monday.
For ministry, we chose to intermingle the boys and girls team, so half of the boys team came with me and half of my team. We went to a primary and secondary school where we taught two classes. The other half of both teams went to a preschool/kindergarten to also teach English. I had two classes. The first class, me and my leader, Eliza, were co-teaching. We went over the alphabet, numbers, and basic clothing items. The teacher didn’t speak great English so we used a lot of Google translate to explain our vision and activities we had planned for class. Before becoming a teach, I didn’t quite realize the amount of repetition it takes to really learn something. It reminded me of first learning to play basketball with my dad. He always told me that you had to start with the basics and practice them over and over until they became natural. Every year as I was on a new team, he always started with the same basic drills of dribbling, passing, and defensive slides because no matter how much you knew, if you couldn’t do the basics you couldn’t progress to your fullest potential. With my students, we went over the alphabet, numbers and clothes every morning before we would start an activity that also reenforced those principles. It was fun and also gave me a new perspective on the amount of effort it takes to be a teacher. My second class, I was co-teaching with one of the guys, Alex, (he ended up having to cover for other people so I taught by myself about half the time) we taught 9th graders. This was interesting because they did know the basics, and we were given a paper on what to teach them that week. It was past continuous verbs. As I was trying to come up with ways to keep the kids interested and also learning, I realized that a few of the students were more advanced than the rest and a few students were further behind that others. Even though we were shown what to teach, we had no Thai teacher in the room at any point, and we didn’t exactly know how to progress the class. It was really cool getting to work with Alex as we realized that he was good at starting off the class and once I had a plan of where to go, I could take over and help finish the lesson. It taught me both how to work well with people in leadership positions as well as gave useful information on how to actually teach people, the effort and patience it takes to be gracious, but firm. Our host Aaron told us that the teachers at the school said we were very interactive teachers. They said that because of the effort we put in to play games or make a lesson interesting, the kids were excited to learn and looked forward to seeing us everyday. After the first day of school, the kids would crowd around us to say hello, get a high five or knuckles and loved to give hugs. It was such a a blessing to see how much they loved and appreciated us. Our last day working at the school was on Friday and the students were so sad to say goodbye. I’m sad we won’t be teaching the rest of the time were in Thailand, but the plan is to be doing manual labor at base as well as visiting a village at the end of next week.
God has been showing me and my team what the meaning of unconditional love is and has pointed out where we have succeeded in that area, but has also shown where we have been falling short. The verses I got at the beginning of training camp were Ephesians 4:2-4 which says, “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.” These verses have carried me through this journey and have been a constant reminder to have grace and patience with my teammates in the same way that I want them to have grace and patience with me. Something that I also realized is that even if I act with grace and patience on the outside, I need to think with grace and patience too. There are times to call people higher and to point things out, but I can’t let my heart turn bitter towards someone because that is no longer a sin from them, it’s sin in me that needs to change. I am excited to see how God is going to stretch and grow in this season.
As always, thank you for continued support and prayers. If your interested in helping out one of my teammates who aren’t fully funded, please reach out to me!!
Thank you!
Gianna Ramirez
