Just as soon as I am done singing the praises of Cha-am Beach Bible Camp, it's now time to talk about English Camp 2006. May 26, 27, and 28 are the dates scheduled for us to go back down to the city of Cha-am, Thailand with our students for the weekend. So far about 20 students have already signed up, and more are expected this week. This is a time when we can take them outside of the busy city to spend time, one-on-one, getting to know each other, and teaching things about English, and, especially, about God, that they might not learn otherwise.
We'll have some help, too; actually, not "some" help, but a ton of it. A literal metric ton. A "bus-load of help," I guess it can be put. 30, or so, Aggies from Texas A&M's AFCO (Aggies for Christ in the Orient) will make their yearly arrival on the 17th of this month, tomorrow. They have made this trek to Bangkok every year for the last 20-some years. They will spend the next 2 and a half months criss-crossing Southeast Asia doing this, that, and the other with local congregations and other volunteer organizations... I think. I will know more about their activities once they are here. I know one of their activities, and it will be our English camp and our students.
I've got another video. Why do I do this? Some explanation, if you'd like. Before the Cha-am Bible Camp in April, a video presentation was shown to the congregation at Soi 4 (our home congregation) about the progress, planning, and preparation of the camp. This camp, again, is the highlight of the year here. I thought, in the same style, to make one video presentation to let everyone know what is going on with our English Camp. And also to continue the tradition of making silly videos about camp for the endearing of our church family.
Explanation continuing... In the video you see us; Julie, Dalissa, and Neale. We are from America and therefore are foreigners to Thailand. "Farang," the Thai word for "western foreigner," is in no way a derogatory name for us, and as soon as we hear that word, we know that we are being talked about. It comes from their word for "French," "Farangset." A guava is a very popular fruit eaten by the Thai people, and can be bought from almost any fruit vendor on the street. The Thai word for guava is also "farang," pronounced exactly the same as foreigner. So, we are just making a play on the word, saying that we are the same as guava. That is why the t-shirt design, showed in the video, has a weird looking fruit teaching English. It is also the statement, "Stop calling us a fruit." 'Nuff said, I think.
Download the movie. 12 MB <right click and "save as">
