Chiang Mai friends

We were very privileged to be taken to a Hmong village one Saturday, by a Wycliffe member who had grown up there. It was about 1.5 hours from Chiang Mai, up some very winding and steep roads. Chiang Mai is at an altitude of 310 m. The village is at 1100 m - just a bit higher than Calgary. There is a larger town about 5 km down the valley. The land is very steep where the village is located, and most buildings have one side held up by pillars. Houses have electricity and water. The water is piped from a stream up the mountain to a set of tanks, from where it is distributed to the houses. There's a good cell signal in the village. The village has a restaurant and a couple of small stores, and what looked like a government building with flags outside. There is also a church. The land around the village is all farmed. There are a lot of terraced fields for vegetables, and groves of fruit trees. Here are a couple of shots of the village. In t

Each day we try to work on reading, writing, listening, and some grammar in the mornings, in our small classes. Then in the afternoon we work on pronunciation and some conversation games. Here are some video clips of the afternoon activities. Working on Pronunciation

When the light changes it's best to be out of the way!

We normally sing a few praise songs and then one person will give their testimony and tell a bit about their life. We are singing in English for extra practice. Here is a clip of some of the singing this morning.

I know you've been wanting to ask how we do our laundry. Here are our washing machines: And here is the dryer: I think it might be wise to shake out the shirts before putting them on.

Our friend John picks us up in the morning and takes us to the Wycliffe office. He then takes us home at the end of the day. On Tuesday and Wednesday this week he has picked us up in the evening and taken us to and from a food court where we can get supper. Eight of us can fit into his truck. Here's the food court we went to last night. It's just like in a mall at home, only different!

We were supposed to spend about 20 hours getting here - leaving Calgary Friday morning and arriving in Chiang Mai late Saturday evening. The flight to Beijing from Vancouver was delayed by at least 8 hours, so of course our connection from Beijing to Chiang Mai couldn't work, and Air China doesn't fly that route every day. So we had a lot of conversation with Air China in Vancouver. Here is a picture of some of our negotiating team in action. We arrived in Beijing and had a very stressful hour or so. We had to leave the secure area, go through customs, pick up our luggage, find the Air China representatives with our boarding passes, get back through customs and security, and get on our plane - to Singapore. Yes, we were going to fly for 6 hours right past Chiang Mai to Singapore, then fly back up to Chiang Mai. We all got on the plane and settled down to our second night flight in 14 hours. Was this horrible? No! Our 6 hours in Singapore were delightful. Air Chin