A Toilet Dedication?

     At the end of every school year we have so many parties, celebrations, and ceremonies to attend. It can be quite overwhelming trying to get everywhere we are invited, but we try our best to make sure everyone knows that they're important to us.
     Rusty had noticed a primary school setting up for a special event; it's a school where we used to teach so he pulled in to see what the kids were up to. The 6th graders were getting ready to graduate in a few days and invited Rusty to come and watch. This class is very special to us as we started teaching them in the 2nd grade. This was the class that brought the tracts that they had received in the mail to school so they could ask Rusty about them. Then in the 4th grade they are the students that would sit outside with Pawn and ask Bible questions. We passed out New Testaments to this class, and at least two of the kids finished them. One even read it with her dad. We're very excited that we will meet some of them next year in 7th grade!

      We had to leave the graduation early so that we could go over to Sansai for their new toilet dedication. The kids worked hard on decorating the new restrooms on Thursday to make them pretty for the special ceremony. We were all pretty excited about the ceremony since none of us had ever been to one before.
     Every ceremony has to have the traditional Thai dancing. The students do the entertainment including the dance groups and jazz band. There are also vocalists who perform with the jazz band. We had two Thai superstars (no pictures of them since it was hard for us to see because of all of the cameramen) and Channel 5 with us since Channel 5 helped fund the project.

      The countdown included a large water tank with blue water that they flushed for the grand-opening. These new restrooms are the only Western toilets on campus except for the teacher restrooms. The Thai government started promoting Western toilets not long ago to help people with arthritis, old age, and other general benefits. They also include hand-washing stations which I hope will also be supplied with soap.

      The keys for the new restrooms were flown in on remote-controlled aircraft.

      There were two aircrafts since there are two doors--one for each restroom.

     Finally it was time for the pictures with the superstars and the Channel 5 group. Then we had a nice catered lunch and had the afternoon off. I think they did a good job with the dedication ceremony. I had never been to one before, and I may never get to see another. It's amazing how much fun you can have and how long a toilet dedication ceremony can last.