Hello from Thailand! Where do I even start about my time here so far? I love Thailand. My team and I have been busy this past two weeks. I’m sitting on a beach in Phuket and telling myself that I need to start this blog somewhere. I’ll start with my flight to Bangkok from the Philippines.
We arrived at the Y.W.A.M (Youth With a Mission) base in Bangkok. All of our squad’s contacts are through Y.W.A.M this month. We had to have a cultural briefing in Bangkok before being sent out to our different ministry sites. Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist nation with over 94% professing to be Buddhist. Only 1% of the 65 million people are Christian. I’ve learned a little more about Buddhism and really enjoy this religion, but it is missing the key ingredient of Jesus.
The greeting in Thailand is the “wai”. This is done by placing your hands palm to palm and bowing while bringing them to your face. I’ve done this many times while giving the greeting of, “Sawasdee”. I love Thai culture, Thai smiles, and the Thai food. You will have a problem if you can’t handle spicy.
We learned our site only a couple days before heading there. It was about a 10 hour bus ride from Bangkok to Phang Nga in the Southern region of Thailand. We arrived at the lovely time of around 2am. In fact I was dead asleep and someone had to wake me up and tell me this was my stop. With 5 of our 9 teams on one bus and everyone getting off at different locations, this was a little confusing.
The organization we were going to be working with was called Eagle’s Rest. We get an e-mail with information about our site which usually has a short paragraph about what the goal of the organization is and boxes checked about different specific things we will be doing and about accommodations. Every single box was checked including other. This didn’t matter much to me because I’ve learned not to trust the box checks. This org. was mostly for Thai locals who had their own ministries and were burnt out or having some sort of trouble. This was also a place they could come for free if they couldn’t pay. The couple that started it wanted this to be a place of rest and rejuvenation for whoever needed it. Counseling is also available.
When we stumble off the bus at 2am, our contact Pastor Rummel is there to give us a ride to Eagle’s Rest. The Pastor is from the Philippines and his wife Jeanne, who we meet later is from Australia. We get t to know the family a little more the next day. Rummel has four children. Colleen is 16, Steph is 14, Jeff is 12, and Nickky is almost 10. Their first mom as they call her died and about 6 years ago and Rummel married Jeanene. They are the most adorable family. They love Jesus and just live out their faith and talk freely about what they believe. The girls and Jeff all have musically ability. They all play instruments and sing like angles. We go there for dinners and my favorite part is hearing them play after. All the children are home schooled by Tim, this young guy from England at the moment. It has been really fun for me getting to know this family.
There are no guests here at the moment besides us. We have been able to have a lot of team time and feedback which we are all learning from. We have also gone to a church a couple time and done singing and skits out on the street. The church is right on a busy street full of shops so there are many people that stop and watch. I am not a skit person for anyone that doesn’t know and neither are some of my team. I was so proud of everyone for all being involved and we ended up having a lot of fun. Our team leader Allan is a great mime and the rest of us may have a little talent in acting as well. It was so funny to see some of the Thai people come up and take pictures with us, some even right in the middle of the skit.
We have also been working with an elementary school. One day we taught English to kindergartners through third grade.
There are about 1,500 children. I taught more children then every before. They were adorable. In some ways they look like they are in a little military academy with their little uniforms and how they walk in straight lines. They try out the English they know on you and it sounds very proper, because they have to think hard while speaking. Another time at the school we had to set up four stations. Each station we had different things for the kids to do. This day we worked with all 3rd graders. Do not ask me what I was thinking when I said that I would do a relay. Imagine eight different groups of 25 children each. I felt like a record by the end of the day. Ginger and I worked together and the kids seemed to have a lot of fun. I had to jump in at times to help the poor little Asian wheelbarrow when they couldn’t lift the not so little Asian wheelbarrow for the races. You also just have to demonstrate everything. They know some English, but not a lot. This was a very HOT day.
The weather is hot with a lot of humidity on the side. The camping box was also checked for this month, but we are once again blessed with bunk beds. I have been drinking more then every before on the race. I sweat pretty much 20 hours a day. I have guessed that there is a couple hours during the night that get cooler, but I even sweat while I sleep. The good news is I now get really excited about the cold showers.
Pastor Rummel wants to show us as much of this country as he can while we are here and loves showing us around. On our off days we have done some pretty fun stuff. One day we went to James Bond Island.
It was an amazingly beautiful place and I love the water so it was fun to be on it all day. We explored a cave with headlamps, swam on this island where we were the only people, and took canoes into these caves that were so low we had to lay flat in the canoe just to enter them.
We just went elephant trekking this week. This was much more fun then I even thought it would be.
I was allowed to sit on the elephant’s neck and put my legs behind his ears. My elephant’s name was Pannon and I think he liked me. I think my new favorite animal is an elephant.
Today I was able to have a personal retreat to just have some silence with my thoughts and God. We live in such close community that it is hard to have that sometimes. It was a beautiful park with caves to explore and a lake to just sit and enjoy. I keep learning that it is so much more about who you are becoming and not so much about the work you do along the way. Someone described this year of being on the WR as being on a honeymoon with Jesus. While I think that sounds a little funny, in a way it’s true. I have had more time to just be intentional about what I should be focusing on. I’ll continue to write more about what God has really been teaching me through all this, even through riding elephants.
*Read my teammate Alex Wilson’s latest blog about our team. http://alexwilson.theworldrace.org/
We had a slight team change with the addition of the lovely Ginger. http://gingerlarson.theworldrace.org/ She was just what our team needed and it’s been great getting to know her.
