Sa-wat-dee-ca (hey) there friends and family!
As most of you know, I embarked on an 11 month journey just a couple of weeks ago. Since being here in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I have been busy from morning until night. It started with training camp followed by a couple of off days and now we have made it into launch. Hopefully you have the time to read over this blog for the next few minutes as I try to give you a little insight into what has been going on since I left the States.
I feel as though the right way to start it off is by giving some major props to God. He has been moving in and through me and my squad these last couple of weeks in ways that I never thought I would personally see. So far we have broken down walls and admitted some things that some people have never let leave their mouths before, talked about the things we do and don’t like, made our insecurities known and talked about some of our fears. There have been tears, smiles, laughs and much more. And to think… This is all happening with a group of people that just met 16 days ago.
If you will allow me, I would love to tell you a few of the experiences I have gone through and some of the good and bad times. These last two weeks have been a major learning experience for me and I would love to just be a little vulnerable with you guys.
Week 1: Travel Days and Training Camp
As we set off on this journey we had a couple of days filled with travel. We took 3 planes (22 hours) and then a 9 hour bus ride. We arrived at the hostel at about 12am on January 6 where we were assigned rooms and headed to bed. First challenge of my trip… THE STAIRS!! Zion has 9 flights of stairs and the first night we had to go up about 5-6 of them with all of our gear on to get to our rooms for the night. The next day, Pi Emmy sent us in 4 teams around the city on an Amazing Race of some sorts so that we could learn the city a little better. We saw so much stuff! We were at temples and markets. We tried interesting food and bought some neat little gifts.
We stayed at Zion for a few nights and then headed out to a place called FBR for training camp.
(Riding the Sung Tao on the way to training camp.)
What an incredible ministry they have. I don’t want to go into any details about their ministry because of security purposes, but the family was so great to us. They allowed us to come onto their property to do about 5 days of training. Everyday was an adventure it seemed like. From setting our tents up each day to cooking dinner for the squad and leadership.
There were definitely some struggles! The very first one I had to go through was when they asked us to go on a mile hike with every piece of gear that we had on our backs. Mine weighed roughly 100 pounds total. It was heavy and not something I wanted to do in the heat. To make matters worse I ended up having pain shoot through my right ankle which I have had problems with for years. It was very painful and I shed tears. Not pretty tears… UGLY tears!!! I had two squad mates stay with me the whole time and push me through the pain. There was some prayer and encouragement from them and I couldn’t have made it back if it wasn’t for them.
Did I mention that this hike had to be completed in 20 minutes? Yeah. 20 minutes. Not as easy as it sounds. One of the coaches for my squad told Darek and Denise that if they wanted to finish in time they should go on ahead and she would stay back with me. They looked at her and said, “No, we will stay with her. If they make us do it again then we will, but we are staying with her.” Hearing those words made me cry even more. I didn’t know how people I had met less than a week before would be right there picking me up when I was at my weakest.
A couple of days passed and I tried to rest my ankle as much as possible. Wouldn’t you know… They made us do the hike again. They said that anyone who didn’t make it before would have to do it again and if they didn’t make it this time there would be some type of consequence. I get it. They wanted to make sure we were physically fit enough to go throughout this journey for 11 months. But, that’s not all that happened that day.
The same night they told us that we would be doing the hike again in the morning, they also told half the people that the “airport had lost their bags” and they would be without everything they brought for 24 hours. Guess what? They “lost” my bag. At that moment I felt like Satan was sticking his tongue out at me and pulling me down as far as he could possibly get me. Here I am serving on a christian mission trip and should be excited and happy to be here, but now I don’t have any of my stuff, haven’t showered in 4-5 days AND I have to do this hike all over again at 7am the next day.
I was determined to do it in under 20 minutes. We started going and I was doing pretty good. So far no issues. Not too far from the turn around point I started getting super short of breath. I felt like someone was sitting on my chest and I couldn’t get a deep breath into my lungs. I started feeling a little lightheaded and didn’t honestly know if I would make it. My ankle was better and now it was as if Satan had to figure out something else to try to get me to quit. Again, Darek and Denise were right beside me. I also had some other squad mates, that had made it the first time, walking alongside me. They were constantly encouraging me and building me up.
One squad mate told me that we should do small 5 second spurts of speed walking. As if regular walking isn’t hard enough. I finally mustered up the will power to do it and I ended up going from a speed walk to a slight jog. We did that a few times and it hurt. Really bad! When I was around the corner and so close I got super weak. I ended up having to lean on Darek and Denise (who had their packs on as well) to even keep from falling. I was embarrassed and couldn’t breathe and then we heard them say, “30 MORE SECONDS!!” so we took off. I just wanted to fall face onto the ground, but my squad was there for me. Turns out… they were wrong. We didn’t have 30 seconds. We had 1 minute and 30 seconds. I made it in 19:03! I did it! I made it in time and it felt so good. I also was about to pass out so they had to literally unstrap everything from me and throw water down my throat and help me slow my breathing down because I was in a place where I was about to start hyperventilating. It was hard, but it felt good.
Throughout the rest of the time at training camp, God moved in so many ways. He placed things on peoples hearts to share and has grown us not only as a squad, but also each of us individually.
Week 2: Team Assignments and Launch
Once training camp was over, we headed back to Zion Cafe and Hostel. When we got back we found out our teams!!! Yay!!! Let me introduce you to Team Lift.
(From left to right: Danielle, Sarah, EmilyAnn, Darek, dani and Sang)
We chose this name because since being here we have been learning and training on what it truly means to lift everything up to the Lord in prayer. We want to be completely dependant on Him and what He has planned for us as a team and individually.
We go to stay in a room for a night and then they decided to make our girls on the squad have a makeshift bedroom in the library. It’s kinda interesting. We are all having like a huge girls slumber party every night. Since we have been here, we have had 2 days off to just rest and have a little time to recoup. Then we started going through launch. Because we are still in the launch portion, we have had a few nights to do some fun things. I am thankful for this new family of mine and I can’t wait to see how God uses us to bring glory to His kingdom throughout this year.
**To all my supporters (past, present and future), I am still $2,100 away from being fully funded. Please pray about possibly donating towards my race and helping me get to my last and final goal.**
Khaawp-khoon-ca (thank you) for the blessing you are in my life!
-Danielle
