Erica, Jennie and Jamie ready to kick butt at badminton.

The team at our best ;) ( The photos for the board were taken just after we got to Bangkok!)

We were so excited to leave!

Cheddar cheese ice cream they gave us on the plane! It wasn't bad until I got a chunk of cheese :P

Why Thailand, Why Girls

While Thailand is a land of exotic beauty, it is also a place where women and children often taste exploitation and extreme poverty, particularly in the hill tribe region of Northern Thailand. With the sex industry booming in this part of the world, oftentimes it is the uneducated girls who become trapped in lives of prostitution, sometimes at very young ages. Our path for fighting these injustices is a pre-emptive one, offering a girl life-skills, spiritual guidance, and an education which would be impossible for her to obtain otherwise. In doing so, each of our girls has the opportunity to rise out of poverty, to avoid the sex industry, and to positively impact her community.

A Refuge

Breanna’s House of Joy is a Christian Home for the hilltribe girls of Northern Thailand {read the powerful backstory of it here}. Located outside of Chiang Mai, the orphanage provides a haven for 44 young girls, ages 6 through 20. Some have lost both mother and father, while others have been rejected by a remarried parent. While some have suffered abuse and others have been abandoned, they all have tasted the harsh realities of poverty and hopelessness prior to their coming to Breanna’s House.

Desiring to care for the entire child, body, mind, and soul, the staff of Breanna’s House seeks to encourage healthy lifestyle choices, a successful education, and a grounded knowledge of God. Above all, we want our girls to have a character and heart that reflects Jesus Christ. We are in the process of assessing our current programs and launching new ones, including the development of a life-skills program, English tutoring, and Bible studies.

Transitional Program

We desire to give our graduates the support and guidance needed for a successful life--even after they leave our direct care. We are just beginning to develop this program with two girls at present, but eventually we hope to include further educational opportunities, continued mentoring, money-managing training, and involvement in a volunteer program out at Breanna’s House.

History of Santisuk English School

Santisuk English School is a non-profit language school registered with the Office of Private Education under the Ministry of Education in Thailand. We teach conversational English to junior high, high school, college and university students, as well as working people. We emphasize speaking and conversational English.

We have 4 main classes called Levels 1 - 4 that total 120 hours. Each level is 30 hours. Our classes meet Monday – Thursday. We also have a class called Pre-1 to prepare students for level 1. Pre-1 is taught by a Thai teacher with excellent English to prepare students to study Level 1. In addition to our adult classes mentioned above, when school is out we offer English for Kids which are classes for grade-school age children (ages 6 - 12). These classes are offered every year during the months of March, April, and October. The rest of the year, when school is in session, we offer Kid’s Center, a fun program for kids that has an English component. We offer this class once a week for children ages 6 through 12 every Thursday from 4:30 - 5:30 pm. We charge only 100 baht per month for Kid's Center.

Santisuk English School was started in March 1993 around a ping-pong table in the garage of Steve and Nopaluck Cable’s home in Santinivet Village on Ladprao Road in the Bangkapi area of Bangkok. The first students were Ramkamhang University Students and young people who lived in Santinivet Village. After about a year and a half, a town-house in Santinivet was rented and served as the first Santisuk English Center. Classes continued to grow in size as word spread mouth-to-mouth. Tuition in the beginning was a modest 300 baht plus a 300 baht refundable deposit. Any students who missed 2 classes or less of the 15 classes in the month received their deposit back! Students needed to be committed to studying every day (in those days we taught Monday – Friday) and needed to come on time to class or lates would count against their deposit as well. Exceptions were made if students called to tell their teachers they were going to be late or absent. Santisuk English Center continued to grow with more and more students studying every year without ever advertising on TV, radio, or newspapers. Finally, Steve invited some American friends to help with the teaching in 1995 and the English Center grew even more.

 We are currently located in our 6th place. We moved to our current location in late August of 2005. The following are some of the unique events and highlights in our past since 1993:

1. Selected and sent English Center students as Liaison Officers for all the shooting teams for the Asian Games held in Bangkok in December 1998.

2. Proofread the English regulations books for the Asian Games held in December 1998.

3. Conducted an English Seminar for all Liaison Officers of the Fespic Games which were held in January 1999.

4. English Camp teachers for the Ramkhamhang University English Club for 13 years in a row (1993-2005).

5. Volunteered to help teach English at the Ramkamhaeng English Club for activities like "Talk Time" and "Young Speakers" (Every September for the years 1993 - 2005).

6. Conducted English Camps at secondary schools across Thailand in various provinces for example in Loei in June 1998, Naan in November 1998 and in April 1999, at the Suphanburi Sports School for the Thai National Team coaches and athletes in April 2000. Camps were also held in Phichit province in June 2000 and back to Loei in October 2001. Camps were held in Songkhla in March 2002 and at Phetchaburi in 2002 and in Udonthani in Nov 2002. A teacher's training seminar was held in Narathiwat in March 2003 and in Suvanaket, Laos in August 2003.

7. Served as a special consultant in the National Stadium's Office of Policy and Strategy.

8. Conducted interviews for the Thai Staff of the Boy Scout World Jamboree in Chiang Mai, Chonburi, and Bangkok in April 2002.

9. Selected and sent Santisuk English School students as Liaison Officers for the Asian Hand-Ball competition in 2002.

10. Golf and Gymnastics teams Asian competitions in September 2002. In addition, Mr. Steve Cable, SES founder, created a program called “Leadership for the New Millennium”. Over the years, 24 different SES students have been selected to go to the U.S. to observe and interview various American business, community, and political leaders in 2001, 2002, and 2005. Many of the scholarship recipients are now working as administrative staff and teachers in SES and around Thailand today.

We have developed great confidence in the ability of our staff and teachers over the years. Everyone works hard and sincerely desires to help people learn. A tremendous amount of volunteer work has also been done in the community, not for any financial reward but as a service to people who can really benefit from it. non-profit school, we have received a tremendous response from Thai people in all walks of life who really desire to learn English since we began in 1993 - Thai high school and college students as well as working people. Mr. Steve's wife, P'Oi, (Nopaluck Cable) registered Santisuk English School with the Thai board of private education under the Ministry of Education after a lengthy 1-year process. The Ministry of Education officially approved Santisuk English School as a private non-profit school on September 12, 2004.

Buddhism: An Introduction 
Buddhism is a major global religion with a complex history and system of beliefs. The following is intended only to introduce Buddhism's history and fundamental tenets, and by no means covers the religion exhaustively. To learn more about Buddhism, please look through our Web Resources section for other in-depth, online sources of information.

Siddhartha Gautama: The Buddha 
Historians estimate that the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, lived from 566(?) to 480(?) B.C. The son of an Indian warrior-king, Gautama led an extravagant life through early adulthood, reveling in the privileges of his social caste. But when he bored of the indulgences of royal life, Gautama wandered into the world in search of understanding. After encountering an old man, an ill man, a corpse and an ascetic, Gautama was convinced that suffering lay at the end of all existence. He renounced his princely title and became a monk, depriving himself of worldly possessions in the hope of comprehending the truth of the world around him. The culmination of his search came while meditating beneath a tree, where he finally understood how to be free from suffering, and ultimately, to achieve salvation. Following this epiphany, Gautama was known as the Buddha, meaning the "Enlightened One." The Buddha spent the remainder of his life journeying about India, teaching others what he had come to understand.

The Four Noble Truths 
The Four Noble Truths comprise the essence of Buddha's teachings, though they leave much left unexplained. They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. More simply put, suffering exists; it has a cause; it has an end; and it has a cause to bring about its end. The notion of suffering is not intended to convey a negative world view, but rather, a pragmatic perspective that deals with the world as it is, and attempts to rectify it. The concept of pleasure is not denied, but acknowledged as fleeting. Pursuit of pleasure can only continue what is ultimately an unquenchable thirst. The same logic belies an understanding of happiness. In the end, only aging, sickness, and death are certain and unavoidable.

The Four Noble Truths are a contingency plan for dealing with the suffering humanity faces -- suffering of a physical kind, or of a mental nature. The First Truth identifies the presence of suffering. The Second Truth, on the other hand, seeks to determine the cause of suffering. In Buddhism, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality, all of which are wants that can never be satisfied. As a result, desiring them can only bring suffering. Ignorance, in comparison, relates to not seeing the world as it actually is. Without the capacity for mental concentration and insight, Buddhism explains, one's mind is left undeveloped, unable to grasp the true nature of things. Vices, such as greed, envy, hatred and anger, derive from this ignorance.

The Third Noble Truth, the truth of the end of suffering, has dual meaning, suggesting either the end of suffering in this life, on earth, or in the spiritual life, through achieving Nirvana. When one has achieved Nirvana, which is a transcendent state free from suffering and our worldly cycle of birth and rebirth, spiritual enlightenment has been reached. The Fourth Noble truth charts the method for attaining the end of suffering, known to Buddhists as the Noble Eightfold Path. The steps of the Noble Eightfold Path are Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Moreover, there are three themes into which the Path is divided: good moral conduct (Understanding, Thought, Speech); meditation and mental development (Action, Livelihood, Effort), and wisdom or insight (Mindfulness and Concentration).

Karma
Contrary to what is accepted in contemporary society, the Buddhist interpretation of karma does not refer to preordained fate. Karma refers to good or bad actions a person takes during her lifetime. Good actions, which involve either the absence of bad actions, or actual positive acts, such as generosity, righteousness, and meditation, bring about happiness in the long run. Bad actions, such as lying, stealing or killing, bring about unhappiness in the long run. The weight that actions carry is determined by five conditions: frequent, repetitive action; determined, intentional action; action performed without regret; action against extraordinary persons; and action toward those who have helped one in the past. Finally, there is also neutral karma, which derives from acts such as breathing, eating or sleeping. Neutral karma has no benefits or costs.

The Cycle of Rebirth 
Karma plays out in the Buddhism cycle of rebirth. There are six separate planes into which any living being can be reborn -- three fortunate realms, and three unfortunate realms. Those with favorable, positive karma are reborn into one of the fortunate realms: the realm of demigods, the realm of gods, and the realm of men. While the demigods and gods enjoy gratification unknown to men, they also suffer unceasing jealousy and envy. The realm of man is considered the highest realm of rebirth. Humanity lacks some of the extravagances of the demigods and gods, but is also free from their relentless conflict. Similarly, while inhabitants of the three unfortunate realms -- of animals, ghosts and hell -- suffer untold suffering, the suffering of the realm of man is far less. The realm of man also offers one other aspect lacking in the other five planes, an opportunity to achieve enlightenment, or Nirvana. Given the sheer number of living things, to be born human is to Buddhists a precious chance at spiritual bliss, a rarity that one should not forsake.