So many sights,
sounds, smells, tastes, emotions… this country challenges and floods my senses
in a way that is so familiar yet so foreign. Welcome to Thailand, round two!
I’ve seen and done
and felt a ton of things in the past… three days? Two days? Maybe it’s been
four… time is beginning to run together awfully fast. My final day in Manila
was spent packing and cleaning then helping manage people for a Christmas
giveaway to the community. For our goodbye lunch, we had a huge Filipino feast.
Can anyone say roast pig? I wandered around saying my final goodbyes
(hopefully, they’re all “See ya later!”s cuz I plan on going back). The one
that had the most impact on me came from Minda, one of the masseuses at the
J-Spa. Over the six weeks I spent in Manila, I had gotten to know her, finding
out about her family, her work, her heart. It’s crazy how two women on opposite
sides of the world can have hearts so similar! Mostly, we talked about our
passion for massage and helping people. Something she said to me was really
cool and I’ll never forget it – “It’s different when you give massages. I can
feel the love through your hands.” Wow. Thank You, God, for these hands that
You’ve blessed me with!
After sprinting
upstairs and grabbing a few pieces of cinnamon raisin bars for a snack, I
boarded a freezing cold bus for the traffic-filled three hour bus ride to the
airport. Ever want to learn patience and get rid of road rage? Drive around Manila
for a month. The flight was short and sweet (how did some Racers get so lucky
as to be bumped up to business class?!) and we arrived safely in Bangkok at
1:30am. The ride to YWAM Thailand on the back of an open taxi truck was
awesome! Since I was one of the ones standing and hanging off the back, I
enjoyed it even more. Ever have that urge to jump off the back of the truck and
see if you can land? Or pick up your feet and swing by the top bar like when
you’re on the subway? Only you’re flying down the highway at 60mph at three in
the morning? Yup, that was me. Good thing the team leaders didn’t see when I
actually did lift my feet up and swing out! But it would have been hilarious to
see Lilly have a cow 😛
Thirty girls set up
camp on the fifth floor of the YWAM Thailand base at 3:30 in the morning. The
following two days were filled with spiritual talks, debriefs, and free time
spent wandering the markets in search of food. I learned that I can, in fact,
easily eat bugs (see video below) and try numerous other odd delicious Thai
foods. I’m gonna go ahead and say that Thai street food is cheap and my
favorite food in the world. SO DELICIOUS! During our squad’s debrief and
worship, I had some cool encounters with God. One was a vision where I was
standing in the middle of a dry wasteland, surrounded by clay statues. I
inhaled and the Spirit of God was swept up into my nostrils and filled my body.
When I breathed out, His breath of life went out as a huge sonic wave that
swept over the land. As it hit the statues, they cracked and the clay shell
broke off and the people came to life. Our worship of God fills the land and
sweeps over people, bringing them life. Another cool thing came when I was
talking to one of the guys on my squad about worship – God doesn’t really pay
attention to the skill level; it’s the heart level that He truly values. The
final day of debrief, I was able to meet with an incredible woman of God named
Patti. As soon as I saw her the first day, I was overwhelmed with absolute
certainty from God that this woman would love me unconditionally and welcome me
with open arms no matter what I had done or who I was. She was there to truly
love me. Our one-on-one chat was a life-giving time of getting to know and
encourage each other. That evening, her husband Mike, who was helping speak at
debrief, had some words for me. He had looked at me several times over the past
two days and each time, it had been a deep, piercing stare that looked past the
physical and saw into the spiritual and emotional. So, with my usual candor, I
walked up to him and asked him what he saw when he looked at me. His response
was motivating. He looked straight at me and said, “You’re a game-changer. When
you move in the Spirit, when you dance or sing or anything, you leave a vacuum
behind you that pulls people in. The same thing goes in the opposite direction
– if you’re negative about something, you create a vacuum that makes people
follow. It’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. But you make changes.
You have the power to change the way things are. And not everyone has that. So
be careful what you do.” Dang. Ok.
Want to know one of the most important
qualities of a World Racer? Flexibility. And that was put to the test when
yesterday, after our cultural debrief, our logistics people came in and told us
we had two hours instead of twenty to pack all of our belongings and move. My
team was blessed in that we got to hang out at YWAM for a few more hours before
heading to the bus station to catch our overnight bus to Chiang Mai. Can I just
say that Thailand has by far the best buses I have ever been on? Cushy seats
that recline almost fully with footrests, touchscreen LCD TVs preloaded with
movies and music for every seat, plenty of space, meals and snacks included, and
the best part? The seats were all massage chairs! Twelve hours of this. I.
Felt. Like. Royalty! I reclined and relaxed while using my new app to learn
some Thai. This morning, two of our ministry contacts (former World Racers who
are married) picked us up, took us shopping for snacks and toiletries, and
brought us back to a house for hot showers and banana chocolate chip pancakes.
God is so good… ^_^
