Hey party people!
some geographical nonsense (jk this is pretty interesting)
So I’m not in South Africa anymore, shocking right? I’m now in Thailand! We’re staying in Chiang Mai, Thailand which is very much a city. If you know anything about me, or even if you don’t I’m absolutely a city girl so I am thriving. We are staying at a hostel about .75 miles from the wall of Chiang Mai which means: beds, pillows, and AC!!! There is a cheap market across the street where you can find some CHEAP pad thai or kabobs or lots of other fun things! By cheap I mean if I have to pay $2 it’s a major stretch. There’s a little mall-ish type place right next to our hostel with a Big C (their equivalent of a Wal-Mart but MUCH smaller), KFC, Mcdonald’s, and lots of coffee/bubble tea places. There’s also a food court that has limited food, but the food is all less than $1.75 roughly. There are tons of coffee shops EVERYWHERE and a lot of cute outdoor markets. There are also 7/11s on every corner. There’s every kind of restaurant you could want in the vicinity and you can get most of them delivered for FREE using an app called food panda. (There’s a place that sells only 100% vegan food so I am thriving with that). The weather here has been better lately, but right after we got here the smog in the city got REALLYYYY bad, like very very unhealthy to breathe. Some days you couldn’t see more than 50 feet in front of you.
some ministry nonsense (jk again because this is Jesus and stuff)
Something that has been a big struggle for a lot of us in Thailand is the lack of ability to do street evangelism. I am not too terribly heartbroken about that considering I am still very awkward at street evangelism. However, being Christians in Thailand is a lot of helping established ministries with low-key projects. For the first month, we were doing manual labor for COC. I’m not honestly sure what it stands for but they are a ministry out of Australia and they do a lot in Asian countries which is incredible, to say the least. So we sanded, plastered, sanded more, swept a LOT, washed walls, painted the ceiling, primed the walls, and painted the walls. It was a lot of mind-numbing work, but that opened the door for something very cool. My team and Salt and Light (who were also with us), got really into podcasts. I listened to SO many podcasts over the time we were there it is not even funny. I listen to a lot of Transformation Church, Levi Lusko, John Piper, Elevation Church, Grace Midtown, and a podcast to help me learn Spanish. It was a sweet time for us to get poured into through sermons and then have the opportunity to share it with others and hear what they are learning too. Our ministry got canceled at least 5 times due to the terrible smog, so those days we did different types of filler ministry. We have a few days off for Songkran which is a nationwide water fight (!!!!) and then we start our new ministry at a home for women from crisis situations called the Wildflower Home. I’m not sure what that’s going to look like but I’m excited for whatever it means. We have less than 2 months left on the race and less than 3 weeks left in Thailand. The Lord still has a lot that He wants to do in and through us, so we’re ready for whatever comes.
