Santisuk

With all the flashy photos of tigers, palaces, temples, and elephants it’s pretty easy to forget why I’m here. Some of you may not even know my reasoning for going to Thailand in the first place. I figured I’d actually update you on my ministry and reasoning behind what I’m doing in my daily life here.

As you’ve probably learned, I’m here working with Santisuk English School (SES). The main school is in Lat Prao, but I’m stationed at a branch in Lat Krabang. Before traveling to Thailand I did some all-purpose Googling about Lat Krabang. The list of attractions: nothing. Well, let me explain Lat Krabang from personal experience: it is a district on the east edge of Bangkok. The reason it exists is almost entirely because of KMITL, the engineering university. KMITL is the MIT of Thailand though, so Lat Krabang has one definite feature: lots of really bright young adults.

That is why Santisuk is genius to start a branch there. Now technically schools have to be registered with the government here, so the branch I’m at is called “Santisuk English Center” because we are not established enough yet to apply for the title of school.

The guidebook for teachers states, “SES will be an effective evangelistic tool and a high-quality conversational English school”. SES offers low-cost (half the price of other English schools here, and those rarely have someone who speaks English as their native tongue) and high quality classes. I’m not here to hand out pamphlets on the street. I’m here to teach English and build friendships with my students. (Santisuk believes that the most effective way to expose people to Christ is through living our lives.) So I’m a walking-talking testimony; a missionary.

My students enjoy hearing about my faith, just like I love when they take me to visit their (gorgeous) temples. I’m not trying to convert them; I’m trying to meet up with them for lunch or a movie. That’s why there are always pictures of us with students. We provide them with incomparable English practice, and we’re blessed with native tour guides who are willing and enthusiastic to do anything and everything with us as we explore Thailand.

The Santisuk English Center in Lat Krabang consists of 6 people at the current moment. Carol and Dundun are head of the branch. They are amazing people. They’re like my Thai parents, except they’re Filipino.

Not gonna lie, I stole this photo from Facebook...

The rest of us include P'Yo, Kate, CJ, and I. P'Yo works in Lat Krabang and stays in Santisuk as sort of a caretaker for the building. Kate is another missionary from Wisconsin. Oh, and there’s CJ. CJ is Carol and Dundun’s four year old son. Adorable, spoiled, and very sassy; he loves having young adults to use as his play toys and mobile jungle gym on a daily basis.

A photo of CJ by the ostriches that I took at the Crocodile Farm.

My favorite CJ moment from this week was the quote, “Jesus will give me an iPad”, which he said on a taxi ride home from the movie theater on Sunday. He’s very spiritual in taxis and enjoys singing Christian songs with incorrect lyrics as we traverse around Bangkok.

But that’s pretty much it. My day-to-day life in Thailand consists of hanging out with this crew and slowly getting better at butchering the Thai language. And I love it.

No Safety Codes, but Plenty of Gold

I know I’ve been awful at posting lately, but it’s okay. I’ve been too busy because I’ve been doing awesome things. I suppose I’ll start at the beginning and work my way to today…

Saturday-

Saturday Dundun (Carol’s husband) drove us to the Crocodile Farm. The Crocodile Farm is an interesting place. It’s part crocodile farm and part zoo with both crocodile and elephant shows.

Crocodiles at the farm.

So there are crocodiles. All over the place. Also, you can feed them. For 20 baht ($0.65) you can purchase your very own chicken on a stick. It sounds a little gruesome, and I suppose it is, but it’s awesome too.

Some of the Santisuk crew at the crocodile farm.

This trend continues throughout the entire zoo. You can literally feed any animal they have there. Tiger, bear, hippo, monkeys of all shapes and sizes, pretty much every animal you can and can’t think of. And welcome to Thailand, where safety codes aren’t a thing. You could literally pet a hippo if losing your hand is just another one of your desires. We wanted to live at least a little longer, so all we did was feed them… from an only slightly unsafe distance. And guess what else I did! Well, I got to ride an elephant. That was pretty cool.

Riding an elephant with my student Mamay.

But that’s not the most amazing part… I got to hold a tiger!

It was pretty young and was absolutely one of the cutest animals I’ve ever seen. It was so soft, and perfect, and a little intimidating (I couldn’t get The Life of Pi out of my head), and I want to take it back home to America with me. If you ever get a chance to hold, pet, or *cough* steal *cough* a tiger, I totally believe you should do it. (Okay not the stealing part, but I’m still not sure how I’m going to get it home with me yet.)

 

So you think: Woo, so you held a tiger. That’s all you needed to achieve in Thailand. You mission is over. You can come home now. Well, LIES, because you cannot go to Thailand without seeing the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaeo. I mean, I suppose you can, but I extremely suggest against it. That’s where Monday comes in.

Monday –

(Note that Sunday was in between but that it consisted of a lot of church services, and we went to see the new movie After Earth. An awesome day, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll discuss its contents at another time.)

Monday Kate’s students had a special treat for us. They met us at the train station at 5:45AM to take us on a trip of a life time. We got to go to Wat Phra Kaeo. Meandering back and forth that day we ended up taking seven different kinds of transportation: train, tuk-tuk, water taxi, ferry, bus, van (a Thai cross over between a bus and a taxi), and a songthaew. It was absolutely incredible. It’s really one of those places you just have to be there to appreciate. I didn’t worry about getting many photos, as you can do a Google search of ‘Grand Palace Thailand’ and see infinitely better ones. I just wanted to take it all in.

Kate's students and us at a temple near the Grand Palace. 

Kate and I.

 A close up to give you an idea of how detailed every inch of every building is.

A rare photo where Adam (one of Kate's students) joins us!

(He's the photographer for most of the other photos.)

There were entirely gold buildings, statues made of every type of metal, ceramic, and resin, as well as temples, statues, pillars, buildings, and roofs entirely covered in glass or ceramic that sparkle as bright as rubies and sapphires in the sun. The combination of architecture, color, texture, history and culture was absolutely overwhelming. The entire trip was incredible, and we had awesome people to share it with.

Life’s settling down a little bit now. Tuesday (today) my student Mamay took Kate and I shopping and we exhausted ourselves once again before teaching. I’m looking forward to tomorrow though. Wednesday is Kate and I’s day to try to have an “us” day since all of our students are busy on Wednesdays. We’ll catch up on class prep and actually sleep past 5:00AM. I can’t wait.