There are so many incredible things to be said about Thailand, but these were two of the defining moments for me this month (the other two will be in Part 2).
My time in Thailand began with a lot of physical pain and several days in the hospital (due to a shot I received in India getting infected). I was unexpectedly separated from my team for almost a full week, which was quite an adjustment. When you live in community with the same people basically 24/7 and then randomly are without them, it really is like parts of you are missing. I hated that I had to stay behind while they moved on to our ministry site & got settled in without me. However, despite all the awkward, uncomfortable, & sometimes painful moments at the hospital, God never stopped providing. I was so blessed to be in such a nice hospital (no coincidence that it was Bangkok Christian Hospital!) with A/C, hot showers (separate from the toilet!), clean “clothes”, a bed, a great staff, a lovely cafe/7-Eleven, and of course the ever awesome SQL Chrissy to keep me company (and to laugh with through all the craziness). He even provided the opportunity to talk to my team one afternoon…we all ended up on wifi at the same time, which if you know the World Race, is extremely rare! Finally, God provided a way out of the hospital. We were somewhat held hostage until insurance things were sorted out (always a fun time) & once again He came through and proved His faithfulness.
While it was certainly not the most ideal situation, I’m thankful that it gave me more time to reflect on my month in India, and that I got some much needed quiet time and R&R…when I wasn’t being poked & prodded by needles, of course. God knew I needed time to recoup and recover before jumping into the next month.
Skip forward to week 2… Melody and I discover we have head lice! Yay! We were told we probably got it in India and brought them with us to Thailand (so we really DID love on the kids hard enough after all!). Needless to say, the first day of finding our little critter friends was a not so great day.
Skip forward another 2 weeks… Melody and I stiiilllll have lice! Yay! It has been incredibly frustrating (to the point of tears sometimes), but still God never stopped providing. I’ve been so thankful to have a sister to go through this annoying thing with, and it’s given us plenty of quality bonding time! Just a few nights ago I walked into the kitchen at midnight to deliver the terrible news that I was in fact not lice-free (we thought we got rid of them all the previous week). We then proceeded to lice-comb our hair and jam out to some T-Swift until nearly 3:30am…when we had to leave to go do construction work at 7:30am! I mean really, how many people would do that for/with you?? Our team has been awesome about it too…I half expected to be treated like a leper and everyone be grossed out and not want to be around me, but they have all been so compassionate and patient with me/us. So instead of being a completely miserable experience for us all, it’s kind of just turned into this rather humorous (yet still annoying) situation…we also play a cool game called “Lice or Dandruff?”! ((I pray you never have to play it.))
So what started as a series of unfortunate events, ended as blessings in disguise.
Stay tuned for the 2nd part of this blog–Prayer Walks & Building Up Walls!
Also a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who helped me meet my deadline this month. I was quite literally blown away and brought to tears when I saw your donations. I’m so excited to continue on this journey and I can’t wait to see how God moves in the months to come!
(Bug-eating will commence in the next week or so, so also stay tuned for that!)
