susu...

Susu means keep fighting the fight, or persevere. It was my word of the day today... P'Fone (my ministry partner) said it to a fellow believer, and I thought it was one of the coolest phrases I've learned so far. Here in Thailand it is so easy to get tired and want to just give up because of the culture and language differences, but we are called to "susu" or to keep fighting the fight. I mean, how awesome is that??

P'Fone, CO Thailand staff and my ministry partner on campus!
I already love her and have only known her 3 days...

Day 4.
I mentioned early that we had a rest time before church... that was well planned because Sunday afternoon and night were jam packed! We had a time of fellowship before worship where we had the chance to eat with the church body. For 20 baht, we got lunch... in American dollars that is 66 cents. Yes, you read that right.

Worship was truly amazing. The service was mainly in Thai; however, they were gracious enough to sing a few songs in English for us and translate the other songs into English so we could follow along. If you have seen any of the other blogs, everyone is referencing Revelation 7:9, which says

"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb..." 

What we experienced Sunday was a tiny, tiny part of what we are going to experience in heaven. It was amazing to sing the same praise to the same God in completely different languages.

After church, we all stayed and just hung out. The Thais helped us with Thai, and we helped them with English, with many, many laughs in between because, let's be honest, our Thai is not that great... at all.

I decided that it would be a good idea to video the ride home from church to show America what driving is like here... So, here it is... [Sorry, the link thing again... one day I'll get it. Promise!]

The Link -- Car Ride Home Um, scary is an understatement
(As narrated by Milcah Kirubel and Courtney McAlister. As driven by Philip Beckloff.)


Sunday night we attended "Freshy Cheers" which is all of the freshman, yes all 10,000, gather together to sing a song while a group of sophomores directs them. Upperclassman come and watch and either pass them or fail them and make them keep trying. They have as many tries as needed, however, each time they don't do it right their sophomore "coaches" are "punished" (for example, they had to run around the field...) [A video to come...]

Keep prayin' for energy for our team... Ha, if the team doesn't need it, I sure do. Pray also that we can work effectively as a team and with our ministry partners... Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Until next time...

The Team.

Here is a video that Matt made while we were at our layover in New York. You'll get to meet the team. Remember this is already about 16 or so hours into the trip... and we are about to get on the 21 hour flight. Bring. It. On.

[Sorry you have to click the link... I am not really techno savvy quite yet.]

The Link -- The "Getting Here" Part Video

Also, I have added the links of fellow team member's blogs on the right hand sign of this blog under my information.

We head to the campus tomorrow to start meeting the students as they begin their school year. Please pray for open hearts for both us and the Thai students as well as energy for our team... It's been a hard adjustment to the time change, but I think we'll get used to this whole 12 hour time difference thing...

Until next time...

Bababobojingjing...

[Explanation of the title: It means "very crazy" hahaha. 1. It is what our schedule has been like. 2. It's my favorite phrase to say over here so far... say it fast and you can't help but laugh. 3. It's what driving is like over here.]

Well, it is now Day 3 of being in Thailand, and we are being fully immersed into the Thai culture. We have been going strong now every day, all day, and today we finally have a little break until church, which is at noon (ha to let the college students sleep in... maybe it isn't that different after all!) Here's a little update of what we have been doing...

Day 1.
We headed to the church for breakfast and orientation (learning about the culture, our schedules, meeting the staff, etc.). Breakfast consisted of pork on a stick and sticky rice (a kabob), and a variety of fruits, which are amazing over here because they are so fresh!

Kabob and sticky rice. AKA breakfast.

Fruit. Yes, the spiky thing is fruit too.
It is called Ngoh. (None of us can pronounce it
right. The Thais think it's hilarious to hear us...)

We go barefoot in all the buildings...

We then headed to the U-center (a cafeteria on campus) to eat lunch and then headed on a songtow for a campus and city tour with some Thai students and CO Thai staff as our guides. We even made a pit stop at the new mall called Central, which looks very similar to an American mall, except we can't read anything and they have a grocery store in it... I think it's a smart idea. One stop shop, people!

The U-center.. it's open air with little "stands" to go and
get your meals.

A songtow... the taxis of Thailand.

One of the temples in KhonKaen. It was beautiful.
We get to go visit it in a few weeks on one of our
Saturdays. (Yes, NaNa, those are elephants!!)

This is what the streets are lined with. Open air stands.
Yes, they cook the food. Right there. You see the piles of meat...
Still getting used to that one...

We ended that night with a dinner at Jay Pawn, a market close by, with all of the CO Thailand staff and their families as well as some students.

Day 2.

We had breakfast at the church again, this time I had frosted flakes.... I needed a little something American even though the American food tastes just a little different, not bad though! Then we had orientation and learned some key phrases in Thai. Hilarious is an understatement. Long story short. There are 5 tones and if you say one wrong it could be a completely different word even though you think you are saying the right one. Some examples...

pa ya baan = Nursing; khun chuu aray = What is your name?; hew mai cah = Are you hungry?

The rest of the day we played sports - badminton, basketball, and soccer - at the church and then went to dinner with our ministry team that night. We ate at the T Bone Steak House... a glorified buffet with everything imaginable including fries and spaghetti.

Well, that's all. Please pray for us as we head out tomorrow for the first day on campus. Pray that God begins to open doors for us to talk to students! 

Until next time....

Parts 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Well, as you may know we arrived safely in Khon Kaen at 7:15 pm (7:15 am for all you Central Time Zone people). The trip went a little something like this...

Part 2.
We met at the Birmingham airport at 5:30 am to venture out on the first leg of many in this trip. First flight Birmingham to Charlotte... pretty uneventful if I must say so myself. However, the Charlotte airport is very nice, so if you ever need to spend a several hour layover there, you'll be just fine!

The group! (Minus our fearless leaders Matt and Erin who were
probably doing really important stuff...)

Part 3.

Charlotte to New York. Well, this flight was a little more interesting. I got the lucky seat in between 2 strangers. It ended up being pretty neat though. I was able to talk to a woman from Florida who asked me about 40 questions about my life, the trip and so on (not exaggerating on the questions thing... ask the team members sitting behind me. Ha.) It was neat to share what we were doing this summer with a complete stranger and for that stranger to be receptive to such a concept of us going to be missionaries.

Still going strong... getting off on the tar mat
in Charlotte.

Part 4.

Oh, part 4. We had a 6 hour layover in New York's JFK airport. However, we were switching airlines and going international so we had to recheck all of our bags. Keep reading and you will see what "all of our bags" really entails. Also, since we had to recheck everything we were not allowed in the gates until the designated time, which in turn = laying in the airport departure zone. 

We were carrying some boxes, as well, for some missionaries who
had just moved to Thailand.

When the time had finally came, we sat in quite the line to check our bags... and to make it worse I had chugged a water (like Momma told me) and thought I was going to bust. Yeah, not my favorite hour of the journey as a whole. We made it through, though and finally boarded the biggest airplane I have ever seen!

Double Decker... Yeah, we were pumped.

Once we boarded that plane, there was absolutely no turning back. We were headed for Singapore. The flight all together took 21 hours. However, we did make a pit stop 9 hours in to refuel in Germany in which we had to get off the plane, go through German security and then board the plane again at a gate on the opposite side of the airport... Fun outing, but hey, on the positive side, we got to stretch our legs! I got the lucky middle seat on the middle of the plane (a sweet 3 seat, 4 seat, 3 seat row style plane). To my right, team member Kathryn. To my left, a sweet lady from Indonesia. Ha, we were fast friends to say the least. We were served 2 meals on the way to Germany and 2 meals on the way to Singapore with snacks in between (yes, a ton of food. It was pretty good though all things considering) and don't you worry my new friend from Indonesia made sure I was awake EVERY time the food came around. Ha. Oh man. She was very, very sweet though. Sleeping was kind of hard, but by the second half of that long flight, I and the rest of the team had gotten the hang of it...

This is what your feet look like after a 21
hour plane ride. Swollen as all get out...

Part 5.

Well, we had a short layover in Singapore and then headed out on our "short flight" of 2 hours to Bangkok. We were all asleep within minutes, and yes, we had another meal served. I seriously think the trip was one big meal (and I am not even including all the stuff we ate at the airports!)

Part 6.

Bangkok. Well, we were blessed with yet again a 8 hour layover; however, this time, Matt's (our leader) friend came and met us at the airport to take us on a little tour of the city and visit a big mall close by. After learning how to ride the AirTrain (it's harder than you think, especially with a group of 19 and some carry on luggage), we made it to the mall. It was so interesting to see how "westernized" it was. KFC, McDonald's, Krispy Kreme, Starbucks, Dairy Queen, Auntie Annes and more all were there. However, not everything is quite the same, such as one of the team members, Taylor, ordered a chocolate milk shake. In Thailand, that equals vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips... haha he was disappointed to say the least. So, with a final 6 hour layover completed, we boarded an hour flight to our final destination... Khon Kaen.

Bangkok.

Welcome to Thailand!

Taylor's "Chocolate Shake"

Abby, left, me, and August, right, chillin'
in the food court of a gigantic Bangkok mall.
Never thought I'd say that...

Part 7. 

The final leg of the trip. 1 hour flight. Every single person on the plane was asleep before take-off. Seriously, the quickest flight of our lives. And then... the greeting of a lifetime. Students and all of the Campus Outreach Thailand staff and their families greeted us with cheering, signs, and hugs. It was truly amazing. After we all said our hellos and took a few pictures, we boarded the songtow (a truck with 2 bench seats in the bed and a cover over it... what we travel in most of the time) and headed to our apartment for a shower and sleep!!

After 51 hours traveling... finally here
ridin' on the songtow.

The trip was great, but it's even greater being here. Thanking the Lord for safe travels (and miracles - all of our luggage made it to KhonKaen)... Keep us in your prayers as we are beginning to learn the culture and meet new people...

Until next time...

Part 1.

2 months. 1 carry on. 1 rolling duffle. and 1 duffle for Beach Project. Boom.

Well, the day has come to venture out on part 1 of my several (I can't really number the parts because there are so many) part journey. I will be meeting up with team member Bill today to head to Birmingham to eventually jump on a plane tomorrow early in the am bound for Thailand, eventually (refer to the flight schedule post...). 

Packing ended up being quite the challenge. Girls were given a bag and a half. 50 lbs a bag. The picture above does not do it justice. Inside that big rolling duffle is 2 sets of sheets, 2 towels, a couple weeks worth of clothing, all my toiletries for 2 months, shoes, and some other necessary supplies, such as a fan (heat index = 105 degrees with a nice 90% humidity). Mission accomplished though. Boom.

Am I excited. Yes. 

Am I nervous. Yes. 

Did I sleep last night? Absolutely Not. (Probably not the best way to start out a 40 hour trip huh?)

As I start off on this journey, the verse that keeps popping in my head is 1 Peter 5:6-7. "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." 

Please be in prayer for safe travels. We will have over 40 hours of traveling to do. Please pray that this time can be used for some good ole team bonding and more importantly a time where we can sit and prayerfully focus on what we will be doing this summer. 

Until next time... 

No turnin' back now...

So, we now leave in exactly 5 days and 8 hours. Wow. I honestly feel like it was just yesterday that the idea of going to Thailand was presented to me, let alone the fact that I am now about to get on a plane.

As the time is approaching to leave, I feel myself getting more nervous. Nervous about the unknowns of living in a different country where the language is completely different. Nervous about little things such as what if I don't really like the food or what if the food doesn't like me? (Spicy... yeah, I went there.) Nervous about a 40 hour flight. And just nervous if I will even actually be "good" at this sort of thing.

The list could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is, I have been called to go.

I jumped the first hurdle. The parents. (Thank you mom and dad, really, I know it was a tough decision.)
I jumped the second hurdle. The money.
I jumped the third hurdle (almost). The packing.

Now, it's time to go.

It's funny, every "excuse" I could think of has been conquered in a sense, including the fact that I was not asked to be in a wedding this summer for the first time in 3 years, okay, I hear you Lord, I'm going.

So, as I take this remaining 5 days and 8 hours left in the good ole US of A. I am constantly reminding myself that nerves are part of it, because when it comes back down to it, I, Courtney McAlister, have been called to go to Thailand. I have been called to share my faith in a way in which I must abandon my comforts and my culture to go and share to a lost people group.

These facts still float in my head...
97% Buddhist.... 0.7% Christian.
"You'll be the first Christian these people ever meet..."

Please continue to pray. Pray for the nerves and anxieties of moving away for these next 2 months. Pray for a boldness that exudes from each of our team members. Pray that these Thai students are receptive to this incredible message!


Until next time...