The Summer of All Summers

I have just completed my fourth summer as a missionary here in Chiang Mai.  Every summer we have had one team from Evangel University come to help teach at TLC English Center.  I have learned quite a bit about hosting teams over the last three years, and I am thankful for all the lessons God has taught me–they all came in handy this summer when we had THREE teams instead of ONE.

Yeah, I was a little busy this summer.

Team #1 = four university students from three Assemblies of God schools.  Melanie, Casey, Susie, and Emily (L-R) were here from mid-May through the beginning of July, teaching at TLC and also at two village schools in the mornings.

Team #2 = three guys from Evangel University (a.k.a. the Tres Amigos). Erica, a 10-month volunteer here, joined Andy, Brandon, and Joseph (L-R) to help start our SECOND ENGLISH CENTER this summer!  The Tres Amigos were here from the beginning of June to the end of July.  Liberty English Center is now up and running at Chiang Mai Liberty Church, another Thai Assemblies of God church in Chiang Mai. See more about Liberty English Center in my July newsletter (and hopefully an upcoming post!).

Team #3 = five Biola students, and one intern.  Sydney, Esther, Chelsea, Emily, and Alexis (taking the picture) came as a student team from Biola University (in Los Angeles) to teach at TLC for three weeks in July.  Alex (not pictured) came from Biola for her missions internship, and helped the Tres Amigos at Liberty.

These teams did a fantastic job and were such a blessing to me, our staff, and our students. The three teams overlapped for one week, when we had thirteen college students here in Chiang Mai helping with both locations.  It was awesome!!!!!!!!!!  Even though it creates a bit of work for me and keeps us all pretty busy, I love having teams and interns here to help and invest in our students’ lives.  I could use that much help all year long!

One neat thing about this summer is that I had one team from each of my alma maters — I received my B.A. from Evangel (team #2, plus two members of team #1) and my M.A. from Biola (team #3).  🙂

More on our students and summer in a later post!