Sawat-dee Ka!

Sawat-dee Ka! (Hello!)

We've safely arrived in Chiang Mai and I can't even to begin to explain everything that I'm seeing! The past few days have been a blur of airplanes and airports and the fresh air today was such a relief.

The 8 of us girls are staying on a campus called BVTC (Bi-Vocational Training Center). The campus is also a training school for Lahu (a hill tribe of Thailand) people who are wanting to become pastors and church planters. We will get to cook with them and some of them will be giving us Thai lessons and we will be helping them practice their English.

There are 7 bikes here at the center for us to take out into town and ride around. We went out today as soon as we got here to explore. Where we are staying is very safe and we can even leave our bikes out and no one will bother them. Knowing this makes me feel better about us girls going into town and into Chiang Mai. There are so many adventures waiting to happen!

It is absolutely beautiful here. I'm hoping to post some pictures soon of where we are staying. Tomorrow we are going to take a trip to a mountain that is the highest point in Thailand. We'll get to do some hiking and apparently there are some beautiful waterfalls where we can go swimming. It gets a bit cooler up in the mountains and the Thai people where parkas because they're used to such warm weather! After we get back from our excursion we will start classes.

I'll post the address as soon as I can in case anyone wants to send letters or packages. It's recommended not to send really big packages because they might get destroyed or just never get here. But letters are more than welcome and I will write you back!