We went to Union Language School on Monday to register. In the process we discovered that upon entering Thailand Jim’s passport had been stamped and dated with the appropriate “non-immigrant” 90-day visa but Irene’s had been erroneously stamped with a 60-day tourist visa! The school official assured us immigration would “fix it - for free!” So Tuesday necessitated another trip to the government complex on bus number 166. Thankfully we had been told to always have extra copies of any and all documents and sure enough passport copies were the first requirement. We were early in the line when they opened after lunch and although there were literally hundreds of people there, we were out within an hour…and our first destination upon leaving? The shop to make copies of the corrected page in Irene’s passport!
We attended our first day of language school today. Our class consists of 4 Americans and 1 gal from Netherlands. Very nice group. Our teacher is very sweet and very patient. She laughs a lot…we think it’s because we sound pretty funny, but we’ll learn. The school motto is: “Look carefully; Listen carefully; Think carefully; Speak loudly!” The first few days we learn consonants, vowels and tones… we learned some of each today. In my devotions this morning, I asked the Lord to give me promises from His word that I could cling to when things get hard, and He did. My favorite for today was Exodus 4:12 - God told Moses to speak to Pharaoh and said, “Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou wilt say.”
After class we took our first ride on the canal “river taxi” for 9 baht each (28 cents). Jonathan and Hannah highlighted Thailand transportation and a couple of “new missionaries" on last weeks “vlog” - You can watch it by clicking here and if you like it give it a thumbs up and click “subscribe.” They post something new every week and it’s getting better and better. :-)
