I was lied to. That is all there is to it. I got an email from Josh a few days ago telling us about how great the bus ride to Chiang Mai was. Seats that reclined almost flat, he said. An attendant serving us he said. Cool lights and good food, he said.
We arrived in Chiang Mai this morning. After spending the night on a bus that must have been imported from Africa.
Transportation in Africa was really interesting. Riding in the flatbed until I thought my tail bone was going to pop through my butt, or the bus we were on with the load of fresh fish in the belly cargo holds. This bus smelled like a dumpster on wheels, but the nose adjusts and we were doing ok, even with the drunk doormen. We even did ok when our bus driver decided to take a four hour nap in front of a ‘rave’. But then it started to rain. Downpour. The overhead six inch speakers became shower heads with better pressure than we had had for months. Too bad there were so many people on board, or I could have cleaned up a little.
The bus we rode on last night was luxury compared to the Africa buses, but as I leaned my head against the window, I could see the buses the other group rode on fly past us. These buses looked like Disney World on wheels.
In fact, other than the sex trade stuff, which I never went to…because, uh…that is one that I am still a little shy of. The old everyman battle is one that is hard enough for me. So in Bangk0k, I mostly worked on writing the book stuff, but from what I could see, Bangkok is like Disney World.
Men wear makeup and have haircuts worse than they had in Buenos Aires. Think Joe Dirt’s head had babies with the Beatles. Really, these people are so gentle and calm and civilized, it is almost unsettling. This is the most I have noticed how loud and awkward I can be. I feel like Shrek as I walk through the city.
We sat in the bus stop and tons of people were everywhere, but so calm and civilized. A little different than Maputo when the cops had machine guns to keep the crowds away from us, and the cops asked if we had any cocaine we could buy. I think someone gave them an apple.
So we are in Chiangmai now, we will be headed to a village in an hour.
Stephanie, Linnea, and I arrived this morning, met our contact, Ray, and we rode to a guest house where the rest of our team for the month is. Shawna and Amanda are staying in Bangkok to continue work with the prostitutes, so pray for them. Tana and Rusty have already been here for a week. We will work with team LO, who have Ryan, Josh, Tim, and Annie.
So now there is 5 guys and 4 girls. If I struggle with teammates this month, I can’t blame it on the only guy routine. I will have to just face the music of my victim mentality and work through my antisocial behaviors. I am actually really excited about this next few weeks because we have a lot of hard manual labor planned and will fit in guy time. I think we will do some preaching and stuff, especially with kids, but I have heard that we will be clearing land with hand tools, in the mud, woo hoo!
Josh and I have committed to pursuing the dream I have been saying that God is developing, so this month we will also spend a lot of time praying and fasting for direction. and courage. and faith. so I ask for prayers for this. This is the vision that we are looking for a few good men to pursue with us. The call is out there, as I said before, the quote I learned from Andrew, so far the only thing I can promise about this vision is it will be costly to our lives and the lives of people who join us, but if it is from God, the reward will be great.
