An interesting weekend

There are many interesting things to see when you visit another country.    In Thailand, the driving is on the left but the driver's seat is on the right.   There are few traffic lights or stop signs but the courtesy is amazing.  Cars and motorcycles are merging in and out all the time.  You do not hear horns blowing or see anyone being rude.   People are patient and accommodating.   Here, the speed is not high around town but in Bangkok, they drive faster and yet, there never seem to be any rude drivers or horn blowing.   It is not scary.  In China, horns are blowing all the time and mean nothing because it is all around you and you have no idea why they are holding down on their horns.   Our room is on a side street and we thought it would be quiet but it connects to two main streets and there is a lot of traffic.   It is noisy at night with loud motorcycles.

There is a large number of dogs running loose.   I don't know if they are wild or owned by people and just roaming around.    We have packs of dogs fighting and barking loudly at night especially.   Controlling the dog population and having them contained in fences or on leases is really needed.

We went to a large mall on Saturday.   King went with us.   I asked him how he came up with the English name of "King."    He said he had an English teacher that told students to pick a letter of the alphabet and he would be assigned an English name.    He said he picked "K" and the teacher immediately said "King."    I told him I had hoped he picked it because of Elvis Presley, king of rock and roll.   He smiled and said that was another good reason.

We ate lunch at the mall's food court, but, unfortunately, nothing was in English so we had to point at pictures.   We didn't get what we wanted or expected but we made up for it by going to Swenson's (Ice Cream) where you sit down and receive a menu of their delicious treats.

A large crowd gathered in the center of the first floor of the mall where they had a mini-zoo set up with many exotic birds, fish and animals.     Baby bottles with food was sold to people wanting to feed the little pigs and even a pond of goldfish accepted food from the bottles.   There were huge owls and many exotic birds sitting around outside of cages.  There is no zoo here so the kids were really enjoying themselves.     See the huge snake around the man's neck.   Others had snakes too and you could pay to have your picture made with them.  There were so many people around, I could not get good pictures.

We bought post cards at a post office in the mall.   I will mail a few to people back home to see how long it takes for a post card to reach the U.S.

Today, we worshiped with our safe house girls.  There were about 20 in attendance.   They took notes during the sermon and after the service ended, Chern asked questions and the girls replied.   They were all focused and listening.

We stayed for lunch and tried to get to know the girls better.   It is so hard when no communication is possible.  They know how to introduce themselves in English now but understand very little English.  King is teaching English one hour every night and two hours on Saturday but it will take a while for the girls to become fluent in English.   King can communicate a little with Chern, the minister (houseparent) who was born here but his nationality is Chinese.   He knows a little mandarin. It is so hard when all we can do is smile and give some hugs.   I always thank them for the food and everything they do but I doubt they understand.

It is amazing to see King have so much self-confidence with so little knowledge of Thai.    He knows where everything is and led us to the supermarket where he shops for food.   The name is Makro and it is similar to Costco or Sam's.   They have membership cards for discounts but you don't have to buy one to shop there.    It is a very large, warehouse type building and the volume of products is huge.  There is one entire long aisle of coffee and coffeemate products.   We looked at laundry detergents and there are literally hundreds of brands, kinds and sizes of packages.   While it is interesting to shop, it is also difficult.

We took a taxi back to the room since we had so much stuff and they don't supply sacks/bags.    King had to walk from our place back to his room near the safe house.   I told him it was a good walk.   He said, "It's a piece of cake."    It is amazing that his English is so good and he knows expressions such as that.   We taught him English the 19 months he lived with us in the U.S.     I asked him if he thought Ron was a hard English teacher.   He smiled and said yes, but he was glad because he learned it so well.    He said he would never have dreamed that he would work in Thailand and become an English teacher.   Once he can communicate with the girls, he can also teach Bible lessons.   He completed two years at Four Seas Bible School in Singapore under English teachers and has a degree in Bible.    He said the prayers at the meals and the opening prayer in worship this morning.  His prayers are thoughtful and meaningful.    We are very proud of him.