Heyo everyone! Wow wow wow. What a time it has been in Thailand. Month 8 was a whirlwind and had so many hidden treasures. One of which is called Share the Love. My first week in Thailand my team and I were in Phang Nga serving with an amazing organization called Share the Love. What a place of peace!! Coming out of Malaysia my team and I were very tired. Overcoming jetlag wasn’t quite so easy this time around… buuut God placed us exactly where we needed to be. Share the Love was this beautiful property in what seemed like the middle of nowhere that had the most amazing staff, A/C, a coffee shop, the GREATEST restaurant across the street, and all the dogs my hands could pet.
BLESSED
My team and I had the privilege of spending our first week here doing a few different ministries. We led a kids camp, helped with yard work around the property, and did a small beach clean up day! The kids camp was awesome! Well, camp might not be the right word…. But close enough. Anyway, we were asked to put together a day of fun songs, games, and teachings for the local village kids. We spent the whole afternoon literally getting to be big kids, playing red light green light, doing the monkey dance(Yes! We’re doing this at the next Kids Camp!), singing countless songs, and then at the end we adulted it up by teaching the kids a little bit of English. We also had two days where we helped clean up the property around Share the Love. Which involved mowing grass, weeding, raking leaves, and eating ice cream! Our last day of ministry was my favorite day because we had the opportunity to do a small beach clean up. My team and I were asked to simply walk down the beach in separate directions and pick up as much trash as we could in 30 minutes. Doesn’t sound like a long time does it? But man was I surprised. We filled at least 10 trash bags full of plastic, glass bottles, shoes, you name it I probably picked it up off that beach. It really opened my eyes to how destructive litter is to our environment. After we got done picking up trash our hosts told us we could play in the water! YAAAYYYY…. it was AMAZING! It was really my first time swimming in the Indian Ocean and it was surreal. I don’t know what it is about the ocean, but it always makes me feel so at home, so at peace with everything. What a time it was.
Side note: If you ever need an ocean buddy…. pick me! There are many reasons I could list as to why I am the best candidate. Email me for my resume. For real.
As I mentioned earlier my team and I were only spending one week in Phang Nga, so you know what that means?!
TRAVEL DAY
Yep. As much as I loved Phang Nga I was off to Chaing Mai! And honestly other than the fact that I had to get on a bus for 26 hours it was a very seamless travel day. It was one of the nicest buses I have ever been on…. and let me tell you I have been on MANY buses this year. We got complimentary waters, Swiss rolls, there was a small screen at every seat to watch movies, ANNNND I got to sit in the very front row, so I had all the leg room!
Again… BLESSED
After somewhere between 26 and 28 hours my team and I arrived in Chiang Mai!! Yay! We loaded all our bags into the songthaew (pronounced Song – tow) and headed to the hostel. If you’re trying to picture what a songthaew is imagine a Ford pickup truck with a very tall shell over the bed and the entire back open like a doorway. (Okay… not the best description, but you get the point)
I’d like to input here that at this point in the month I realized that for the first time in almost 8 full months I was about to see my parents!! Wow. What a realization. That in only 10 days I would be in the physical presence of my mom and dad….. weird. Alas, were not to that part of the story yet. Stay tuned!
So my team and I make it to Zion Hostel literally in the middle of Chaing Mai and it’s awesome! I got to share a room with 9 other women from my squad… maybe not as awesome, but hey I’m used to sharing space at this point.(my whole squad was together at the hostel). Ministry for the next week and a half until PVT (Parent vision trip) was pretty flexible. Our hosts asked us to specifically spend time praying over the city and the hostel as they are in a point of transition, but other than that we had freedom as to what our ministry looked like. I spent a lot of time during those few days pushing myself in intercessory prayer, reading scripture over the city and hostel, going on prayer walks, and preparing myself for the upcoming PVT.
I usually spent from 9am to 3pm doing ministry things I’ve listed above and spent the rest of my time exploring the city! Wow what a city Chiang Mai is. From the endless coffee shops on every corner, to the old city filled with temples, to the hoppin night market a walk away…. I definitely wasn’t bored!
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Wowowow!! There is no sight that compares to that of a Thailand night market! All the lights, people, stands of merchandise… the atmosphere is that of just pure excitment. From getting to barter for my souvenirs to enjoying my first Thai rolled ice cream the night market will stand as one of my most favorite memories.
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And just like that THEY’RE HERE!!!
Wow my parents in Thailand. If there was a sight I never actually imagined seeing it was my parents out on the field with me. But here they are!
Those 5 days just FLEW by let me tell you. My parents and I got to explore the city, connect with the other racers parents who came, do ministry together, and just hang out! The ministry my parents and I did together was one that I had gotten to do earlier in the month. Prayer walking through the red light district. What an experience to have alongside your parents. The AIM base we were doing ministry with is still in the process of developing their woman’s ministry and being able to create a safe house to rescue and house women from the red light district. So my parents and I had the privilege of laying the groundwork of prayer. Literally walking the streets where the women are and covering them, the men, the bars, the message parlors in prayers of freedom. WWHHOOOO! What a RUSH! We also as racers had the chance to teach our parents some if the lessons we’ve been learning on the field. I had the amazing opportunity of teaching on feedback. (For the sake of this blog that is never ending I’m not going to elaborate but if you would like to know more about how I taught on feedback and communication in general give me a holler). Among our free time my parents and I got to go to the night market, eat at all the restraunts I thought were too expensive to eat at before they came (thanks mom!), take random tuktuk rides around the city, play with elephants at a sanctuary, and just sit and have much needed conversation.
PVT really was an amazing experience. I’m not going to lie I was pretty nervous. I mean I hadn’t seen my parents in person in 33 weeks, 231 days… that’s a good portion of time! You know? I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve been traveling the world for 8 months, learning so many new things, evolving not only my faith, but myself. In the last 8 months I’ve changed, I’ve grown, how would my parents react? It’s nerve racking to think about the two people who have literally been in my life since I was born seeing me and not knowing me….
And you know what…. despite all the changes I’ve gone through, things I’ve seen and learned one thing I took away from PVT and reuniting with my parents is that I’m still me. Yup, no fear everyone at home, even though this journey has been life changing I’m still Marah
Stay Blessed,
Mar
