Happy Christmas!

I just realized I haven't written in a while.... I'v been a little busy with Christmas parties maybe? We did have a number of Christmas parties. It was busy, but also lots of fun! :) We baked plenty of Christmas cookies. Sang many Christmas songs and played some fun games with our students. Although it would have been wonderful to be home with family celebrating Christmas, it was pretty nice celebrating here with friends. (It also probably helps knowing that my parents will be here in 2 1/2 weeks! :) )

The first year (freshman) students started last week. I have another class now of first years. The class is a little smaller, 35 maybe, so that should be nice. I have two monks in that class too. I love my monk students! I will only have them for about a month, and see them two times a week, so it's kinda a short term, but oh well.

Everyone will be welcoming the New Year with a big count down! So, we'll see what we do for New Year's, but I think there are plenty of options. Sorry this is rather uneventful, I thought I would have more exciting things to say, since I haven't written in a while.... maybe next time!

I learned from the Europeans living in Vientiane, that they say Happy Christmas instead of Merry.

Happy New Year!

Today we went to Kilometer 52 to celebrate Hmong New Year with some of Julia's students. Kenton, Heather, Steph, Julia and I went with 5 students, two of whom were Hmong.  We took a bus for a little over an hour to a Hmong town. 

 Some pretty Hmong girls in traditional clothes.

 We went to one of her Hmong student's house. She had many Hmong clothes for us to wear. Some were pretty small, but they either found clothes big enough for us or we squeezed into them.

 Cute kids all over!

 I think the Hmong do lots of stuff with cross-stitching looking patterns on their clothes. Their clothes are black with bright colors.

 And cool hats

 and big jewelry

 and more cute kids with a big bow on her butt

 And I think these kids were the cutest of all!

 One of the important reasons to go to Hmong New Year is to meet your husband or wife. You find your future significant other by playing catch with a ball with them and your friends. They stood in a big line and threw the balls back and forth, back and forth. It didn't look like much fun... but maybe I just don't understand. If you drop the ball, you're supposed to sing a song or something, but they weren't doing that this year.

 Us white girls dressed up in Hmong clothing drew quite a bit of attention. I think we took over 20 photos with random people who thought they wanted a picture of us. There were also many Hmong-Americans who came back to Laos for a few weeks to visit family and celebrate the New Year. So we chatted with people from Minnesota, Alaska, California, and many more states.

Here we are all decked out in Hmong clothes. The festival wasn't much more than lots of ball throwing games and people selling tons of stuff! There is also a bull fight between two bulls, but that was last week. Maybe I can see it next year. It was fun to learn a bit about another different culture!

Pin the Tail on the Turkey

On Saturday, Julia and I had a small Thanksgiving get together with some of our students. We had originally planned on 10ish students total... but on Friday, our students told us more were coming, maybe 25 total? We didn't know how many would come... but we didn't want to run out of food.  I think we had 16 students who came. And it was fun!!

I am making the biggest apple crisp ever! We peeled 13 pounds of apples! We made green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, gravy and bought chicken.

Some students came a little early to help peel, cut, cook and mash the potatoes.

 Students in line to get their food. We had to teach them how to make a little hole in the mashed potatoes so the gravy didn't run all over the plate.

 Most of these students are mine. Most of them liked most of the food.

 My students taking fun pictures.

 Making our feathers for Pin the Tail on the Turkey game. This probably sounds like such a juvenile game... but they really liked it!

Spinning the Thippachahn to pin on the feather.

Lamphoun is helping Phouveun stick on his feather.

Notice the two boys on the right in the back. This is such a normal thing for boys/men to do. They are always hanging on each other, with their arms on their shoulders. Or if we're sitting, draping an arm on someones leg.... They're so touchy and I think it's so cute!

Julia and I played and sang Forever by Chris Tomlin. We printed off words for the kids to sing along. They loved the guitar. A few of the students could play pretty well. We heard songs in English, Lao, Hmong (a minority group in Lao) and Chinese (I have an exchange student from China). 

Unfortunately, we made too much food! :( We will be eating sweet potatoes and apple crisp for weeks! 

Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for! Thanksgiving is a great time to celebrate those blessings! I am thankful that I can live in Laos for the next years. I am thankful for my wonderful teammates and friends in Laos; for all the fun we have together. I am very thankful for my students and the Lao teachers who are in our department and who we can eat lunch with. I am thankful for the beautiful weather in Laos. I am thankful that I can eat American food in Laos (especially turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing!) I am very thankful for my family and friends back home. But also thankful that I'm not too homesick. I'm thankful for my nephew and my other niece or nephew on the way! :) I am thankful that I know about Jesus' love for me. And I hope soon my students will know about his love too.

On Wednesday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with our team. We spent a good part of the day cooking and preparing food.

Linda came over in the morning to prepare the turkey. We bought the turkey from Thailand last week. I was not going to touch the uncooked bird, but it tasted delicious!

 Kenton is carving the turkey and I'm making some buttery stuff for the biscuits.

We also invited Heather's roommate and a guy who works in the Faculty of Letters. We had all the normal Thanksgiving dishes: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, corn casserole, sweet potatoes and biscuits.

Kenton  made pumpkin and pecan pie! 

After dinner, we sang some songs and wrote things on paper stones (like what we do at Galena) that we were thankful for or that showed His faithfulness. Even though I wasn't celebrating with family, it is so nice to have a little family in Laos! 

Giving Alms

Sunday morning we went to That Luang again to see the Alms Givings. Monks come from all over Laos to take part in this celebration. Every morning, some devout Buddhist women will prepare sticky rice and food to give to monks. Monks will walk from their temple to collect the food from these women and bless them with a prayer. It is the same few women who give food to the monks each day. That Luang was kinda like a huge food collection to give alms for the afterlife 

 Monks were lined all around That Luang sitting at tables with an offering plate and big bowl thing to collect the alms. People walked around distributing sticky rice, candy and money into the plates.

 There were thousands of people to celebrate. Early on Sunday morning they all sat to receive their communal blessing from a monk over a loud speaker. After the blessing they handed out their stuff.

 This is just like Christmas for the monks. They kept getting candy and money! Underneath their tables, they had garbage bags that they kept emptying their overflowing small bowls into so they could receive more stuff.

 They all had freshly shaven heads. Some of the boys are so young!

There were some nuns in white. They also shave their heads!

 Lines and lines of monks collecting alms!

 Many different shades of orangeish.

 Lao Buddhism is a mix of Buddhism, Hinduism, and animist religions. This tree had many candles and sticky rice around it.

 I don't know if the monks will actually eat the sticky rice they received here. They got dozens of sticky rice balls rolled from hundreds of fingers. It might not taste the best... But they might all get a little chubby eating all the candy they got!

 Even with all of the spiritual stuff, it was still a festival of fun. There were tons of these balloon popping games, ring toss and other games.There was tasty food and cold drinks.

One last picture of their collections of alms that they think gives them hope for the afterlife.

That Luang Festival

This weekend is the 450 Year Celebration of Vientiane being the capital city of Laos. Saturday afternoon there was supposed to be a parade. Then we heard it was canceled. We went to That Luang, the symbol of Laos, to walk around and see what was going on. This is the most important time for Buddhists to make merit. I'm not sure exactly if they make merit for themselves or for their dead relatives.... We asked some students who we saw, but it's hard to explain in a second language. There were tons of people at That Luang! And thousands of monks from every province.

 We saw monks from probably 8 to 88 years old. Some families will send their boys to be monks because then they know they will have food, a bed and an education.

 Many people taking their offerings to That Luang.

 Some of the things are made from banana leaves and flowers. One of these things costs about three dollars.

 Monks are collecting alms from some people. The monks were saying the names of people who had given.

The banks must be out of 500 and 1000 kip bills. Everyone had many small bills stuck in their offerings. This is a large offering of flowers and hundreds of 500 kip bills folded together.

There were so many people with so many offerings. It's sad to see them all going through all of this work for nothing. They're hoping that by burning candles and giving sticky rice, candy and money they can earn good things for themselves or others in the afterlife. How wonderful that nothing I do earns anything, but that I can have everlasting life through the one time offering of my Savior's life.

Vang Vieng

I had class on Monday at 8:00. After class I was sitting in the office with the Lao teachers. Suddenly, Mr. Si told us that there will be no class starting when this class is finished. (Like 11:30) We had two class periods on Monday morning, and then the rest of the week off for the 450 Year Celebration. I don't know if they like to keep the foreigners in the dark or what. I think everyone kinda knew that we wouldn't have class... but things kept changing. Anyway, since we didn't have class we decided to head to Vang Vieng. Julia and I rode a bus 3 1/2 hours north. Kenton, Linda, and Steph drove their motorbikes. Our rules say we must be experienced drivers, or have lived in the country for 6 months before we can drive outside of the city; so Julia and I had to ride the bus. We left Thursday morning and returned Friday evening. 

These pictures are kinda out of order, but it's not doing what I want. When we got there, we found our nice hotel! And then we went tubing down the river. We left at 2:30ish, so it was a little chilly when the sun was hidden behind the mountains.

 After tubing, we took hot showers and watched the sunset. Then we ate some dinner and got massages.

 Julia, Steph and Linda enjoying our bungalow.

 Friday morning we went to a cave. We didn't know exactly where we were going, so Kenton asked these cute kids if we were headed to Phuket Cave. They said yes! When they saw his camera around his neck, they asked him to take their photographs! They were loving the attention.

 Two little boys who also wanted their photos taken.

 I cannot believe how awesome it is that I get to live in the most beautiful country with the most beautiful, friendly people! These are some mountains near VV. This is a recently harvested rice field.

 Some cool flowers we saw on our way walking to the cave.

 The cave that we toured was not the one Kenton had in mind. After driving a while and following some signs, we came upon some man's house. He said he could take us to a cave. We put on the head lights he had given us and followed him through beautiful trees and rice fields to the cave. Steph is precariously crossing one of many bamboo bridges.

 The walk to the cave was so so gorgeous! With mountains and trees, rice fields and flowers and rivers!

Kenton, Linda, Julia, and Steph in the cave.

 Many Hmong people live near Vang Vieng. As we were returning from the cave, we saw a little Hmong couple with their son collecting ginger in the forest. Kenton and Linda spoke a little Lao with them, but this boy only spoke Hmong. He was so cute and loved Kenton taking his picture. He had some cucumbers he was using as ears to be silly.

 The couple and their son headed to their home.

 I got to sit behind Steph on her motorbike and enjoy the scenery as we drove to the cave.

 We all got head lamps to wear in the cave. It would have been very scary if ours hadn't worked! Our guide was pretty trusty and helpful, but it was definitely not one of the most visited caves.

 This may be the same picture as earlier, but it takes forever to load. So you can just be reminded again of how thankful I am to be living in Laos! :)

Following our guide through the trees.

 Climbing a ladder in the cave.

Saved

Friday afternoon, we got on the bus to go back to Vientiane. We were so happy to have seats! Because of the festival, many people were also headed to Viantiane. We thought we were full, but we kept stopping to pick up more people. They took out little stools for people to sit on in the aisle. After the stools were full, they squished three people on a bench. (Which isn't so horrible since they're all skinny Lao people.) After the seats were full, they let more people on to stand between the aisles and by the doors. This picture was taken before we stopped letting more people on. Actually, I don't think we turned anyone away from getting on. We just had to get a little comfier with our neighbors.

Vang Vieng was a fun trip! And we made it back in time for more stuff for the festival. I'll write more about that soon!