QOTW

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meet Pbaan.

the angle of this video is super unflattering and mom, sorry about my posture. here is 12 minuets of what my summer has been like. I DONT WANT TO EVER LEAVE!!!

ni cuew poouen kong chan Pbaan! from abby cunningham on Vimeo.

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la la la la la.

this is one of my favorite things about our team. it is almost a guarantee that anywhere we go- there will be singing. karaoke, when we're ridin' dirty, walking the streets of thailand... it really doesn't matter where! maybe its because we have a rockstar for a leader... i dont know.

"This dry and desert land
I tell myself, “Keep walking on”
Hear something up ahead
Water falling like a song
An everlasting stream
Your river carries me home
Let it flow, let if flow

A flood for my soul
A well that never will run dry
I've rambled on my own
Never believing I would find
An everlasting stream
Your river carries me home
Let it flow, let it flow

Open the heavens
Come Living Water
All my fountains are in You
You're strong like a river
Your love is running through
All my fountains are in You

Come on, and rain down on us
Rain down on us, Lord"

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last week update

tomorrow marks the 7 day count down till we head home. i cannot believe it. where has this summer gone? i am not ready to leave here at all! but, its not over yet! here is a little update on life the past week or so...

milk and i heading out to go to the freshy games on the first night... the theme was pj party!

since we couldnt be home for the 4th of july, all of CO-T headed to the pool and enjoyed some relaxing time and American desserts!

later that night our whole team got to stay a night at the Pullman Hotel! it is the only 5 star hotel here. let me tell you... it. was. incredible! i have never been so happy to jump in a bed in my LIFE.

this was katy and i's view from our window! i've fallen in love with this city.

later that week milk and i got to go over to P'Rung's house to cook for some girls we have gotten close with! its always a smorgishboard when we do... spaghetti, thai casserole, brownies... who know!

this is a pretty crazy story. i've known i dont have the best of teeth, but i didn't think they were this bad.... last week we were sitting in d-group and one of the girls brought some cracker jacks her mom had sent her from the states. so, of course, i was eating them. i thought that my tongue kept getting stuck on a kernel in my teeth so i reached my finger to the back of my mouth to scrape it out and to my surprise, in stead of pulling out a kernel, i look at my hand and see half my tooth just sitting there!

we headed to the hospital later that day to get the hole in my mouth fixed. it was quite the adventure. instead of making you work the whole time like they do in America, the Thai's have this nifty invention... i like to call it The Tongue Clamp. its like a pair of tongs and they clip it on your tongue and then use a pulley system and it holds your tongue out and up so it doesn't get in the dentists way! it was the strangest thing ever but slightly hilarious. no worries, all my teeth are now solidly in place!

this is at more freshie games! the theme was 'evils' (obviously)... it was great fun! videos will be up soon of the cheers! they are unlike anything you have ever seen.

earlier this week i got to do a photo-shoot with a bunch of girls! it was SO. MUCH. FUN! i got to do their hair and make up and dress them all crazy! i loved every second of it. and afterwards we all went and got coffee and talked about things that girls struggle with cross-culturally. we talked about where we find our confidence, what qualifies us as beautiful, weight struggles, boys... all of it. and by the end of the conversation all the girls had heard the Gospel for the first time. i love seeing how the Lord works! (from LtoR: Oui, me, May, Dong, Nammon, and Yohjo)

this is one little clip from our day out...

THEN some of the girls on my team were sweet enough to let me do a photo-shoot with them during an afternoon that we had off! i really could do this all day long! i love getting to admire how creative God is!

thats about it for now! my roomie and i just finished yet another criminal minds (episode "100"... easily my favorite so far) before we go to sleep! pray for our team and the CO-T team as we try to finish strong our last few days here! God isn't done yet.

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QOTW.

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week 5 update!

prayer request:

- the God gives us the patience, strength, and energy to finish strong

- that our team doesn't get tired of what God teaches us so we cop out, but that we would puch to know more and more of Him

- that the Lord would continue to open doors for the Gospel to go forward.

this week we have gotten to see 2 girls pray and commit their life to Christ! Praise the Lord for all He is doing here in Thailand!

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the fence of freedom.

my dad once explained it to me kinda like this:

when you become a christian, there is a fence of protection that immediately comes up around you. many people see this fence as a restriction- but they are wrong. the fence is their ultimate freedom. i am the animal inside. within the fence i have total, complete, 100% freedom. i can go as close to the fence as i want and as close to the center as i want. and as long as i stay within that fence, i am free. but, the second i step foot outside of that fence, i am - instantaneously - free for any dangers of this world to attack and devour me. i then become dinner for every animal outside of the fence that is hungry. and they are viscously hunting for food. and if i see the predators coming, i am not only welcomed but warned to come back into that fence where they have no power or ability to harm me.

the fence is the law of God. i am the sinner inside. the temptations of this world are my predators.

for me, i like to wear the grass out that is right by the fence. but because of that, i am so quick to try the grass on the other side... without realizing it, i have been viewing the fence as a restriction on my life. God has humbled me of that recently and shown me the sin in my thinking.

isaiah 60:18

"violence shall no more be heard in your land,

devastation or destruction within your borders;

you shall call your walls Salvation,

and your gates Praise."

satan will no longer have that hold on me. he will no longer have the power to devastate and destruct my heart from knowing more of my Father. i beg that the Lord would continue showing me that His walls, His fence is a fence of freedom. a fence of salvation! praise His name for the grace He covers us in.

"in a clear understanding of the resurrection, we receive the freedom to change! not like a tornado changes things, but like a grain of sand is changed within a clam. change into something beautifully significant and treasured."

-Andy Lewis

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tongue twisters & roaches.

this is just an attempt to show you how much fun we are having here! (sorry the sound isn't great on the first 4... they were made with my phone!) here are just a few things from over the weeks that just make me laugh. oh my hilarious.

(behind me is where we eat lunch every day! also, i butchered this tongue twister because i did not even attempt to add the tones in there...)

i think this might be the ONLY thing i wont miss about thailand...

(watch all the way till the end.. so funny!)

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humorous.

well, these past two days have been nothing short of hilarious. to start...

when i began talking to my parents again about getting my nose pierced, if they said yes, i thought i would just wait until i got to thailand to get it pierced. that way my sweet mom wouldn't have to see it! then i decided for sterol reasons i would just get it 3 days before i left... THANK THE SWEET LORD IN HEAVEN I DID! 2 nights ago i was at the night market and passed a jewelry booth where they did piercing. you want to know how they pierce peoples noses here? they get any earring that you choose (not sharpened, not thinner... just a plain ole erring) and grab your nose and push the earring until it goes through. no needle, no nice tube thing so you dont feel like your nose is getting broken off... just a man pushing... pause, take a breather with it not even half way through.... push.... stop again.... push annnnnd now your nose is pierced! bleeding? yes. crying? yes. throbbing? yes. worth it? HECK NO! i would have died if i had gotten it here.

yesterday, i thought i was going to go insaine. we had an extended amount of free time and i couldn't think of anything to do for 5 straight hours while the students were still in class. so, i decided to grab my camera and walk around to take some pictures. needless to say, i stepped in 9 million mud puddles, almost got hit my a took-took, sung tau, and garbage truck, and got yelled at for picking a flower off of something that i guess was really important.

the meat here is sold in such sterile ways! what isn't in this picture is the bucket of catfish that are still swimming. and when this dish starts running low, they just stick their knife in the bucket, get a fish, chop it up, and throw it in this bowl.... i thought i was going to puke. they actually laughed pretty hard at the face i was making as i watched...

this is one of my favorite desserts here! the lady making it was so excited to talk to an American that she gave me some for free! it made my day so much better!

i really am going to miss this about Thailand. i love just walking through the streets and soaking in EVERYTHING that is so different from what i have grown up knowing.

tonight though- tonight was my personal favorite of this week.... Pbaan always makes our plans and then she picks me up around 6 every night and i just do what she says we are doing with the students... tonight she said basketball! little did i know what i was getting myself into.

lets rewind a couple years. i played basketball growing up. well, i TRIED playing basketball growing up. i am athletic, but basketball is just not my forte. and tonight, it was no different.

me getting picked for a team... surprisingly i wasn't last!

Dad, im so sorry to disappoint, but im not better now than i was about 9 years ago... i shot about 9 times.... air balled every. single. one.

this was the funniest part though. the students i was playing with had been there since 4. i got there at 7. and they play till around 12. so, these students had already been playing for about 3 hours. to get water, you have to ask permission....

every player must line up on the line and yell, in unison, a "simple" phrase asking permission to drink water.

"KAW-AH-NU-YAD-DEUM-NAAM-KA!"

i understand that that looks easy to yell. 1. you are reading it. 2. the pressure of these peoples hydration isn't resting on your shoulders with about 300 people staring at you and 3. you cant hear the tones (remember, there are 5) that are involved in yelling thing

i could NOT get it! thank goodness this sweet girl was willing to help me...

they all had to wait for me to yell it correctly on my own before we could start over and yell it as a team...

and then... after i thought it was done, we had to reply with "KHOB-KHUN-KA!" which means thank you. however, when they started to yell again, i assumed we were yelling that we wanted water again. nope. once again, everyone had to wait on me to say it correctly and then yell it again with the team...

FINALLY, after about 10 minuets... everyone got water! and then, i chose to withdrawl and take a seat. my talents were no longer needed.

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