January is Flying By!

The past week has been really busy and I will blame that for the long time in between blogs. January has been busy and fun so far but I can't believe it's already more than half over! A new LST group from Nebraska and Kansas came on Saturday and we were very busy before they got here. We called all of our old students and passed out flyers on campus and cleaned out the classrooms. And then when they finally got here we helped them get settled and had our first informational and sign up time. At first we had only Chinese students from Mark's class but now a lot of our former students have come and we have several new students. This LST group is very relaxed and fun and they want to see and do everything! They are also very good and patient with the readers. It will be a good 6 weeks,  I can tell.

Robert is back and we are all very glad. He was gone for over a month in the States being with his father while he was sick. The yearly planning meeting for the church was on Sunday. I love the church meetings where everyone has a say and they discuss everything from changing the light fixtures to Bon's new girlfriend to making Cell group more welcoming for new people. It really feels like family time. Our Thai is improving a lot but it is still hard to sit for 2 hours and actually understand what is going on the whole time. We had some help from Berm with translating the really important parts but my brain can only handle so much and then it shuts down.

Thai class is going well. We have many of our friends from Thai 1 and 2 in our new Thai 3 class and it is great to continue those relationships. Amanda and I now know all of the vowels and all the regular consonants and will learn tone marks tomorrow. To understand why it is taking so long to learn to read and write let me say that there are 44 consonants, 25 vowels, five tones, and no spaces between words. We practice a lot and we are getting better at the easy stuff but it will be a while before we can just pick up a book and read it. Kara isn't taking language lessons but it is fun to see her pick up words from us and we like to teach her new ones. She also has a lot more time to help LST since she is not in class in the mornings like the rest of us. As always, she is an excellent hostess and is always ready to help out.