How does one describe travel day!? World Race takes travel day to the extreme and there is nothing that could have prepared me for our last travel day! Almost 5 days of traveling, we went through 5 different countries, rode in 4 different buses, flew in 5 different planes and 2 taxis!
Let me see if I can paint a picture for you:
Our starting point was Carrefour, Haiti…Our Destination was Chiang Mai, Thailand
First of all we were suppose to leave Haiti and have debrief in the Dominican Republic but a little storm called Hurricane Sandy had different ideas. Thankfully we were on the outskirts of the storm and had nothing to dangerous around us. We just experienced nonstop rain for 3-4 days straight.
The storm did cause the only bridge that lead out of Haiti to collapse; which meant we were stuck until further notice. We had debrief in Haiti and after a week of much needed R&R we jumped into our first bus to head to the bus station.
When we got to the bus station, we were told our bus was going to leave around 1ish. We rolled out of the bus station around 4pm. After a very LONG bus ride we made it to the Dominican Republic airport around 11pm.
Our flight was at 615am!
Sitting on the plane waiting to fly to Miami, the pilot came on the intercom and made an announcement that they were having mechanical difficulties. They were working on it but our flight might be canceled. At this point I was exhausted because I hadn’t slept in the last 24 hours. I was half way asleep anyways so I decided to just go to sleep and if it was canceled they would wake me up. Next thing I knew we had landed in Miami!
Thank you Jesus!!!
Because we didn’t take off on time…once we landed in Miami we had about 15 minutes to get 63 people off the plane, pick up our luggage, go through customs, go through security and on our next flight! The Miami airport staff wins a GOLD STAR for the day because they held the plane for us and created a human path from each check point to get us to our location.
They were amazing.
We got to LA around 1pm and our next flight was at 1am. We were able to soak up American soil for 12 hours. One of my amazing team members Chelsea had a friend who came and picked a few of us up. We went to Chick-fil-la and Target! I loved every minute of it.
Now I am even more exhausted and super ready to jump on a 14 and a half hour flight to Hong Kong. The plane was amazing but soooo long. I watched one whole movie and bites and pieces of lots of other movies because I kept falling asleep. There is nothing much to tell about a 14 and a half hour flight because you really can’t go anywhere!
We landed in Hong Kong where we had about a 2 hour layover. I enjoyed an Iced Salted Carmel Latte before we got on yet another plane.
It was like heaven in my mouth.
Our next flight took us to Bangkok! I really couldn’t tell you how long that flight was or what time it was or even what day it was. I really don’t remember anything about this flight!
My brain had stopped functioning.
We arrived in Bangkok before 10am and YWAM had someone waiting for us to help us get our bags and had arranged trucks to take us to a bus station! When we got to the bus station, we went and bought our tickets to take us to Chiang Mai.
This bus ride would take around 10 hours!
BUT we missed the first bus and we wouldn’t be leaving until 8pm that night! I crawled into a ball next to our bags in the middle of the bus station and passed out.
Now this bus that we got onto was 1st class all the way! Thai people know how to ride on buses. Each seat had their own TVs, reclining chairs that had massagers on them, comfy blankets and we were served tons of food. We even stopped for a 20 minute break where they provided a dinner for us. I would travel across Africa in this bus!
So 10 hours later we arrived at the Chiang Mai’s bus station! We were tired, exhausted, excited, smelling, and pretty much walking zombies. My team jumped on 1 more taxi that took us to our new home which is above a coffee house!
This is where our ministry will be this month.
We are working in a coffee house and building relationships with the college student.
This is my life right now. It was a very crazy long travel experience but I am so thankful God provided safety and peace among my squad. I am so excited about this month and I can already see God at work!
I love Thailand!
