Sundays here at the girls’ home are some of my favorite days. We still wake up early—the girls at 5 or 6 depending on their morning chores, and the rest of us a little later than that. Breakfast is the same as dinner the night before, except there’s eggs in the rice and cabbage.
The girls all wear their Sunday best—cute skirts, adorable dresses—and they have free time all morning until church. The littler girls practice their newest dance routine, the older strum around on guitar or talk; others ride bikes or play badminton. At 10:00, girls and boys from all three houses meet in ours (the biggest) and assemble in the main dining room/living room area where plastic chairs have been set up as pews.
Church begins at 10:30 and all the worship is led by the girls. First a few songs—all in Thai, but sometimes we recognize the melodies—then an open sharing time. This is when the little girls perform their dance and when anyone else who has something prepared can come up and share. Sometimes they read a Bible verse, sometimes they play guitar. Last week the boys all shuffled up in front, grinning shyly and shifting about before belting out a chorus in their loudest little boy voices. This week my nongsau (little sister) Suam and I played Shine, Jesus Shine as a guitar-violin duet. Next week I intend to join the dancing.
Lunch is relaxed and the afternoon even more so. Yesterday most of the girls disappeared into one of the upstairs rooms (the houseparents’ apartment with a TV) to watch the last episode of a Korean Drama. I did laundry and read and wrote and moved my things out of the intern room and into the labyrinth of beds that is the girls’ room upstairs. I hugged Nana about twelve times; she is the best hugger in the world.
P’Bank took some of the girls to the market and after dinner some of us huddled around my tiny netbook to watch Secret Garden, another Korean drama. The girls taught me the word for “handsome” (laww) as we giggled over Hyun Bin.
Lazy Sundays are lazy Sundays everywhere, and I love them.
I love Lazy Sundays too! I really look forward to a real Sunday with music and praise. I asked the Hotelier at my place here if there was a church nearby (silly of me in hindsight, seeings how it is a Buddhist country). She was really confused. I told her it was somewhere you went on Sunday for a service. And she proceeded to tell me in a very confused tone about the craft market.
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