Church

After church we went back to the library. We stopped along the way for lunch at Taco Bell. The kids really liked it, but they said it wasn't spicy enough for their tastes. At the library, Pat and I caught up on our communications a bit while the kids worked on their blogs.

When I went out to check on the kids, I noticed Japan was chatting online and playing games. He was the only student who had not completed his blog, and so Pat and I took his phone away and had a talk with him. He's been struggling with homesickness, lately because he can't get his phone to work properly so he can call his parents back home. The frustration has caused him to focus more on what he's missing back home, rather than focusing on what he's doing here and now. I understand his parents' desire to keep in touch with their son, but sometimes what's best for the parents is not what is best for the child. Japan needs to keep busy and adapt to his surroundings here, rather than spend his time trying to communicate with people back in Thailand.

The lack of internet access at the house has actually been a bit of a blessing. It's forced the kids to find other things to do, and so instead of sitting in their rooms chatting on Facebook, they are outside playing in the snow. However, since Japan has a phone that should work in America, he has been trying to get that to work and isolating himself from the group, which is a sure sign of homesickness. I remember on past trips, the kids who suffered from homesickness the most were the ones who had communication problems with home while other kids did not. In way, this is what's happening to Japan. The other kids know they can talk with their families when they get to the library, so they put it out of their minds and don't think about it. Communications isn't a problem for them. Japan, on the other hand, has a sim card that should work in America, so he knows that he could talk to his family right now, if only he could get the phone to work properly. So unlike the other students, communication is a problem for Japan, even though he can talk to his family while at the library just like the other kids.

So when Pat and I took his phone away, he didn't like it, but we noticed an immediate improvement in his behavior. Now that he knew he couldn't communicate with Thailand (because we had his phone), he focused his attention on the here and now, rather than the people he misses. This was a common problem on previous trips, and its probably a result of our modern world. We are almost too wired together these days.  So while it's possible to achieve physical separation by traveling around the world, we are all still connected together by phone cards, Skype, Facebook, and Line. That's a great thing most of the time, but it can be a problem some times, especially when you're trying to explain to a 10 year old why something that ALWAYS worked before suddenly doesn't work. It can also be a big distraction and a way to retreat from actual interactions with the people around us. On previous trips, the host families gave me feedback that they wanted less

We had planned to do a pizza party on Sunday night, but the kids told me they were bored with pizza already, so on the way back to New Holstein, we stopped at Mr. Lucky's, a restaurant in Valders. I didn't think the food was very tasty, but the kids told me they really liked it. Sydnee Koenigs and her mom stopped by to visit May. When they arrived, May ran up to give Sydnee a big hug. Then they sat at the far end of the table with May's friend. After a while, I looked over to see Sydnee sitting there with a big wide-eyed expression on her face. I told her now she knows what May felt like on her first day at school. To be the odd-one-out in the group with everyone talking too fast and laughing at jokes she can't understand. It must be a unique experience for a kid from Hilbert to be the "minority" for the first time in her life. Haha!

After dinner, we drove over to my parents' house to pick up some paper for the host family party on Thursday. The kids sat in the living room with my parents' dog, Pepper, while Pat and I talked with my parents. We had to sort out the transportation details for Thursday, because I'll be returning the van and we will need a ride back to Valders. Pat also taught my dad how to watch movies on the internet because she wanted my dad to see a TV series she likes. We talked for about an hour, but it was the end of another long day, so again we had a van full of sleepy, grumpy teenagers when we went home, hahah!