The Thailand Team!

We showed up to LAX from our respective homes as strangers and in ten days became a family. Meet the Covenant World Mission Thailand Team 09-10!

From Left to Right:

Kim Crawford: Our fearless leader. Well actually Kim was only "kinda the leader on this trip." (Inside joke...sorry!). Kim works in Chicago at the Covenant World Mission Office and was the person lucky enough to get to go to Thailand and Laos with us. She recently married Henry Martinez who she describes as looking like a cartoon character. Whenever we had to introduce ourselves to Thai or Lao people they ALWAYS without fail cracked up when she told them her name was "Kim." To this day we still have yet to figure it out. She was the perfect person to be on the trip with and I will always remember her sarcastic humor and cheers for "Karaoke Kim" to come out.

Alison Honn: A sophomore in high school from Eugene, Oregon. Alison was the last to meet up with us at LAX as her travel schedule had been changed right before the trip. As we all waited in the the check in line for over an hour, Alison was still on a plane trying to get from Eugene to LA. It's funny how sometimes the shortest distance can cause the most problems. Alison thought that I was going to be a boy strangely enough. She thought that my name was "Stephen" not "Stephanie." Like I said, we were truly strangers when we showed up in LAX. Needless to say it didn't take her long to figure out that I am in fact a girl and the only boy on the trip was Jon.

Kaitlin Choquette: A senior in high school from Sloan, Iowa. Kaitlin became known as, or often referred to as our country girl. She lives in a town with a population of about 1,000 people and goes to a high school of only a couple hundred with about 5 towns feeding into it. She described things that I never really knew existed like roads that were set up in a 1 mile by 1 mile grid pattern and cops who knew literally everyone in town. Apparently in Sloan when you are driving and another car is approaching you know exactly who it is and you ALWAYS stop to wave to them. Kaitlin almost didn't make it to LAX either because of a huge snow storm that made her driveway impossible to get out of. I guess they don't have many plows in Sloan either. While on the trip Kaitlin showed her huge heart when she handed out 30 homemade "friendship bracelets" to the village kids that we passed while driving to Luang Namtha.

Jamie Sladkey (in back): a senior in high school from Naperville, Illinois. Tall and blonde, there was nowhere for Jamie to hide amongst the short, dark haired Thai and Lao people. Jamie is actually the niece of my former youth pastor Brita Moon (at the time) who married Jamie's uncle, Gary Gotberg. It's crazy the connections that exist within the small Covenant denomination. Jamie was actually the first person I met up with at LAX and my first roommate while we stayed in Bangkok. In the airport at LAX Jamie pulled out a HUGE Nikon camera and started to snap pictures while actually looking through an eye hole! Who does that these days? With compact digital cameras with screens, a lot of us barely even know how to use an eye hole to take a picture. But Jamie was a pro and her camera soon became known as the stalker camera. She's also a talented guitar player and singer which was very handy when we were told that we would have to sing some worship songs at a Thai church at the end of the trip. Jamie is someone that I think just has a really good grasp on who they are and what faith means to them and that was something that I really appreciated during the trip.

Sara Wilson (in front): a sophomore in high school from Seattle, Washington. Despite the contrast in height from Jamie, Sara has a huge personality. During the trip she was always really bubbly, friendly and outgoing. I remember on the last day in Thailand we went out to lunch with some girls from the Thai church we sang at and Sara and Kaitlin sat with one of the girls, Rebecca, broke down the language barrier and got to know her within minutes. Sara really does have a gift for making new friends quickly and painlessly. It's a talent I sometimes wish I had more of. Something else that I wish I could do like Sara is pack! She packed for the whole ten day trip in a tiny, bright pink, carry on suitcase! As Sara and her little pink bag rolled away at LAX to go back to Seattle, a little bit of the fun left the group.

Jon Foley: a high school sophomore from Kansas City, Missouri. Poor Jon, the only boy on the team. Jon is reminded me a little bit of Kaitlin seeing as how they're both from the Midwest. But as soon as he started talking about heavy metal and doing "stupid guy things" like shooting each other point blank with paint balls guns I soon realized that Kaitlin and Jon were nothing alike. Jon is hugely tall and quite a gentlemen. He always made sure that everyone else on the team was comfortable and always offered to help whenever he could. For instance, when we ate our first lunch in Thailand I stupidly ordered Coconut Juice. It came out as a coconut with a straw in it and my first sip was my last sip. I guess I am just not a fan. Seeing that there was no way I was going to drink from the coconut again, Jon insisted that we switch my juice for his Sprite. I don't even think he really liked coconut juice either, but he drank it anyway so that I could have something that I liked. Things like this continued to happen during the trip, like when he carried my huge bag (to be explained in a later blog) around LAX for about an hour etc. And of course who could forget the pigeon lady incident...also to be explained in a later blog...

So there's the team! Well, the team from America at least. We still have a few more people to add to our cast of characters. Come back to Steph Sense tomorrow to learn about our trusty tour guide extraordinaries!

TOMORROW'S BLOG: MEET THE DUTTONS!

Ask and it Will be Given

This past Christmas I was given the oppurtunity to travel to Thailand and Laos on a missions trip with Covenant World Mission. I would not have been able to go had not been for the support of my family, friends, and members of my church.

If you are a sponsor who received a thank you letter in the mail directing you to this page, please check back daily for stories, pictures, and videos from the trip. I will be making my best attempt to update the content every day so keep coming back!


In the meantime here are the links to my pictures from the trip:

The best 200 pictures from the trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=364960&id=655750482&l=6171bdc3f9


All 600+ photos from the trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/stephbraman/StephBramanSTripToThailandAndLaos

TOMORROW'S BLOG: MEET THE THAILAND TEAM!

10 Minutes to Impress

To be on summer staff with Group Workcamps would be a dream come true. July of 2007 I attended a workcamp in Lexington, NC with the Cape Cod Covenant Church youth group. We spent the week each in crews of 7 other people from across the country that we had never met before and renovated houses all across Lexington. At night we attended sessions that helped us process through our daily experiences on site while growing closer to God. It was one of the most amazing weeks of my life and I could write so much about it, but there is something even more exciting in the works...

For the past few weeks I have been going through a rigourous interview process that could potentially earn me a job with Group Workcamps. The process is intensely time consuming as there was a lengthy online application to be submitted first. Then a ten question essay interview in which I had to write out answers to some really complicated and complex questions about leadership, teamwork, and why I want this job so bad. After that I had a phone interview that lasted about 40 minutes where I talked the lady's ear off about my different skills, community service experiences etc. Two days after the phone interview I received an email saying that I had moved on to the video round! So I spent literally all day on Wednesday filming a ten minute video that will decide my fate. They gave me about 7 questions/ topics to talk on and they also mentioned to "not be afraid to show us your personality." Not very easy to do in 10minutes.

After listening to myself talk and watching myself back on video for about 6 hours I finally had a finished product by 6pm. Once upon a time I had the link to the video up here, but the people from Gorup Workcamps reminded me that I shouldnt have it up since it's part of an interview....oops?

The Beginning of the Beginning

June 2009 brought to me a gift I had been waiting to receive for years and years...a high school diploma! I graduated on June 13th 2009 after having an excellent Senior Week full of memories. I don't think I had any finals at all except for a simple presentation on my year long internship with a middle school band program. It was nice to be able to just focus on the nightly events like Baccalaureate, the yearbook signing party, the sunset cruise, awards night, and the senior banquet. Awards night was ridiculously long and hot with hundreds of people crammed into a gym in the middle of June, but the good news is I got paid almost $4000 to be there! I recieved 7 scholarships: Excellence in Music, Principal's Leadership, Dennis Recreation, Yarmouth Rotary Scholarship, Karen Merchant Scholarship, East Dennis Women's Society Scholarship, and the Band Parents Award. I still have to send letters with my 1st semsester grades to some of the organizations to get my money but the bit that I did get in June has been awesome for buying books, paying for copies, and acedemic and scholarly things at BU.

Something else I never mentioned was Senior Prom! I went with my best friend Nick and had the best time imaginable. Who ever said you have to go with a romantic date to have a good time? Going with Nick was a thousand million times better than going with anyone else I knew and there are many times where I think back to that night and wish that we could do it all over again. It's really the only time in my life where I was able to get REALLY dressed up and spend all day trying to look pretty and then spend the night having more fun than I usually have over the course of a month. My mom deserves a lot of the credit; she bought me an extremely expensive dress just because she could see how badly I wanted it when I tried it on in the store. It was the dress. So thanks Mom, I owe you.

As June 13th got closer and closer I felt like time was tormenting me and the world turned a little bit slower for that week before graduation. But I finally made it! The gym that morning was like a seperate world that we created to help us come to terms that this was it...we would finally walk across the stage and get the diploma. I can guaruntee that as we looked around the room we all saw the same thing: dozens of people we knew we would never see or talk to ever again in our lives. It's a scary thought at the time, but being 8 months out of high school I now know that it may not be the worst thing to never see some people ever again. All the rehearsals proved to be useless as the ceremony got underway and everyone was confused about when to stand up, when to sit, who to look at for direction etc. But its ok because I am pretty sure that that kind of debauchery pretty much defined my Class of 2009. As I recieved my prized diploma, my own personal Emancipation Proclamation, a tsunami (wave just didnt seem to do this justice) of jubiliation came over me; I knew that this was the beginning of the beginning of the rest of my life. The life that I would decide for myself. The first thing I decided under my new power of self was to have a party of course. I spent the rest of the day and the entire night until 3am with my best friends who really deserve a piece of my diploma for helping me survive long enough to even make it to June 13th 2009. Rumor has it that Brian even cried as I walked across the stage. But shhhh dont tell anyone! He's the president of the Delta Tau Delta Frat you know! ;-)

Graduation Day 2009 was the perfect end to a very imperfect 4 years of high school.

Reunited And It Feels So Good!

Wow! I have been seperated from this beloved blog for far too long! It feels good to be back. It feels even better to be in CS 107 and have my laptop with internet to distract me from actually paying attention to what a "Turing Machine" is. This stuff is way over my head, so of course instead of paying extra close attention I think it best to just write blogs.

Anyways, a lot has happened since April 2009 that did not get recorded in this here Steph Sense blog. And since I know that I have an overwhelming amount of followers who have probably been checking this everyday anxiously awaiting my return I have decided to forge ahead.

In brief recap, since April 2009 I have done the following:

• graduated from high school (couldnt have happened soon enough)
• worked a whole summer at a day camp and as a clown for an entertainment company
• went to CHIC (Covenant High In Christ) in Knoxville, TN
• attended FYSOP 21 (First Year Student Outreach Project) at Boston University
• studied at BU for the past 5 months, allowed the BU Bands to take over my life, and earned a 3.08 GPA for my first semester at college
• went on a 10 day mission trip to Thailand and Laos with 8 people from all over the country that I had never met before with Covenant World Mission

Of course there are so many more juicy, enthralling details that I am sure all 3 of you who might read this would just love to hear which is why I will review these events in a series of "make-up" blogs that will catch you up on what really happened the past 9 months.