Yes, I am holding a Chimpanzee's hand :) No, zoos in Thailand are not anything like zoos in America.

Hey everyone! This is Angela.

Today I... crammed into a 16 passenger van with 21 people, sweated more than I ever have in my life thanks to humidity, rode bikes around The Ancient City with our Thai friends, watched the strangest Elephant show imaginable at the World's Largest Crocodile Farm, sat on an elephant's back, held a chimpanzees hand, stood 10 feet from a crocodile without a fence, ate dinner at our host church, worshiped in Thai and ate Thai donuts. I think that's a good day. Most of those things that we did seem quite surreal. While we were in the Ancient City we ate lunch at the replica of the floating market. Natalie was having a great time feeling like she was actually in Thailand, real Thailand, for the first time. However, I couldn't get over the feeling that I was just eating dinner in one of the countries at Epcot at Disney World or something. Hopefully when we go to the actual floating market it won't feel like that, I have a feeling it won't because there will be a lot more people and sounds and smells to make it feel very real.

Jamie, Jennie and Angela on the stairs of a replica of a temple in Cambodia at the Ancient City

The Crocodile Farm was probably the first time I truly felt shocked since I have been in Thailand. They have such different standards for caring for their animals that it kind of made me feel sick. I had an eery, uncomfortable feeling that the only time the animals got fed or got attention was when people paid (overpriced) amounts to feed or pay attention to the animals. Still, they had some really cool tigers, monkeys and crocodiles and a couple of the girls got to take a picture holding a baby tiger!


The other thing that I want to share with you all about is something in my class. For Level 2, the level that Jamie and I are teaching, we must have a half hour interview with each person in our class to test their comprehension and ability to speak English clearly. I had my first interview with one of my students on Thursday before my class started. She is the oldest student in my class, she is a mom, wife and is 48 years old. In the interview is our opportunity to talk to the students about Jesus, because we read stories about Jesus in class and then ask them if they want to know more in the interview. So in my interview with this particular student, I asked her if she would like to know more about Jesus and she said that she was given a Thai bible by a teacher last session and she has been reading about Jesus in the Gospels, so she doesn't have questions. But to her, they are just stories, they are not truths about the Son of God. I want to ask for special prayers for this student, God promises that his Word does not turn up void and I want to ask all of us to pray that truth over my student. I know that Jesus can open up her blind eyes to see the truth about him in the Gospels and I want all of us to pray for that to happen. And to be in prayer for all of Jamie and I's interviews to plant seeds with the students, that they will desire to know more about Jesus.


Prayer Requests:

• Continued prayer for Jennie's allergies, that she will be kept out of fear and out of danger from her allergens, especially nuts
• Praise that I (Angela) got over my cold quickly and now feel back to normal except for a small cough! 
• Our conversations and interactions with our students both in and out of class would be exemplary of Jesus' love and would incite questions about who Jesus is 
• Our students would join us in our weekend activities to have the opportunity for conversations about God--that we would be bold and courageous in our conversations! 
• The staff of the church we are partnering with would be blessed and have the stamina to be strong through pastoral changes, team changes and different sessions of class every month. 
• That God would protect our sleep and our dreams because a couple of our team members have been having nightmares. 

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