Video, Pics, and a Note from Bethany

Okay, so I know it’s been a little while, but it’s been a little crazy in the Cooper household in Laos. As you all know, my parents were here to visit during the Christmas season and we’re kind of getting back in the swing of things...or out of the swing of things, rather.

For starters, final exams were supposed to be at the end of this month. No problem, right? Well, on Christmas eve, we were told that exams were the week of January 4 and we had, indeed, taught our last classes without having known it. So, our thoughts were, “All right. How do we write an exam without having prepared our students for it?” Somehow, someway, we did just that. We have been scrambling around writing our exams and helping give exams last week and this week. On the upside, we get about a three week break that we weren’t expecting. The downside? Who knows when the second semester will begin. But when in Laos, do as the Lao. “Where they don’t ___ and they don’t even want to.” This has been our motto through it all.

Secondly, we wanted to have a Christmas party for our students, but with having to go back to the States at the beginning of December and with my parents here, things did not go as planned. So, we decided that we would have a New Year’s Party for our students. We invited all three of our classes, which, if they are all in class is about 150 students. We only advertised our party the day before, so we knew that not many would come, but we had a good turn out and we were very pleased. We had about 17 students in all, which was plenty for our little house. Our teammates also came over, so in all we had about 25 people. I think the students had a wonderful time. We had a game of Spoons going on in one corner (which they love, by the way), a game of Uno (which they call “You-no”, hilarious!), and a game of Scrabble that I altered a little bit for their level. All in all, everyone had a good time. We made some good “American” food, like brownies, peanut butter cookies, popcorn, caramel dip and apples, carrots and cucumbers, and their new favorite food, deviled eggs. All the food was gone! That was another indication that the students had a good time. Before the students left, they all gathered around in circle and sang their New Year song for us in Lao. It was a wonderful end to an eventful evening.

This is a video of our students singing their Lao New Year song!

These are all our wonderful students who came to our party!

Next, my language tutor has had a rather major surgery. Russell and I were at the hospital as much as we could be and then she came home to our teammates’ house to recover before going to her hometown. We have all been trying to do our part to show her the Father’s love. She is so close. She is now back in her hometown for the rest of her recovery and we are all going to visit her this weekend for a special ceremony that her family is having for her. This should definitely be interesting and I’m sure we’ll tell you all about it. We have not visited many villages or been in any Lao homes for that matter, so this will be an eye-opening experience.

We love and think of you all often.

Bethany

This is my family with my language tutor and her mother.