Chiang Mai Thailand Meetings

Two years ago as we were anticipating where we would be serving our mission SouthEast Asia was not even on our radar. Now we have not only been blessed to serve in Cambodia, but we have also been blessed to visit Thailand. We were invited to visit Thailand to participate in the Asia Aria Self-Reliance Services Managers Meetings.

Those meetings started this morning at 9:00 at the local chapel. Today was an unusual day because two of the presentations were via Skype. The outgoing Operations Manager, Marco Lok, is in Bangkok attending a Finance Manager Conference, which is part of his new job. He did a half hour presentation on PEF Graduates With Better Jobs. Unfortunately the internet here in Thailand has times of instability and he got dropped off the call four or five times. We also had Jared Sasser, the Worldwide Manager for Self-Reliance Services present a portion from the Philippines where he is attending another conference. Again due to internet issues we lost him several times as well.

The training was very good today and we learned a lot that we will share with the other couples and try and use in Cambodia. Chad was the primary presenter today, but that is how it should be as the Area Manager.

Along with the training we had the opportunity to try new types of food today. Lunch was at a Vietnamese restaurant where they had pre ordered a variety of different dishes that were waiting for us as we got there. The only thing that looked familiar to us were the Spring Rolls, everything else was a new experience. We all went away very full.

This evening we went to a Chinese restaurant. We have three at the conference attendees that really know their Chinese food that did the ordering. We can now say that we have had Peking Duck, and they all said it was excellent and very authentic, including the crispy skin. Another dish that Chad really liked was the pigeon, served with the head, which is considered a delicacy. We have tried dishes with similar names as what we had this evening, like Spare Ribs, but those were not the same as true Chinese food we had tonight. We can now claim that we have eaten authentic Chinese food.