Cambodia By Celiena Davis

We're Halfway There!

Hello family and friends! This is Emily Fisher writing to tell you that this past Thursday marked the halfway point of our time teaching and our time in Thailand. If you have been following this blog and reading about our experiences so far, then you have heard from Keegan and Heather about their time at Santisuk's main campus at Lat Phrao. However, Santisuk has multiple smaller branches. My friend Hannah and I are working at Santisuk in Pakkret. I am excited to share with you all about how God is working within the walls of this very small school. 

The number of students across all the branches of Santisuk have been dropping steadily for the past few years. Between myself, Hannah, and Rhesa (the director and only other teacher at Santisuk Pakkret), we only have 10 students, of which I am teaching half. However, the small amount of students has allowed us to get to know the few students we have. We are building relationships with them, and they are asking questions and getting involved in discussion about the Bible stories that are built into the curriculum. Many of our students have full schedules, so finding time to spend with them outside of class has been difficult, but we are so blessed with the time we can spend with them. 

Living in Pakkret is an adventure in itself. When asked before leaving on this internship which country I was most excited to visit, I usually said Thailand because of the opportunity it offers for a glimpse of what long-term missions would be like. Hannah and I are living in a small, homey Thai apartment. We are on our own for the most part, venturing outside to go shopping and in an attempt to find street food with a menu or pictures to hopefully give us a better idea of what we are about to eat. We have become familiar with the area in which we live and which stands sell the best fruit, breakfast BBQ, or drinks. Weekends consist of spending some extended time with our students when they are available and visiting with our team friends at Lat Phrao. Hannah and I are grateful for this experience and glad to be experiencing a slower pace of life at a smaller school and living in a smaller sub-section of Bangkok. 

Prayer Requests:

• In an attempt to increase student numbers, Rhesa and I have been making bookmarks all week with information about the Santisuk to hand out to people on the street. As we distribute them, please pray for more people to attend Santisuk Pakkret. 
• Please pray for student numbers to increase across all the Santisuk branches, for more short-term missionaries to come volunteer as teachers, and for more long-term missionaries to come and start new Santisuk branches across Bangkok. 
• Pray for our ten students in Pakkret, that they would continue to ask questions about the Bible stories, and that God would open their hearts to hear and understand the gospel.
• Pray that Hannah and I would be able to spend more quality time with our students outside of class, and that our conversation in this time would be fruitful