At the time I wrote this I was sitting in the back of a truck cruising down the highway with mountains and jungles on either side of the rode, on our way to “the city”.
Travel day or days were not to great for me. After I stepped into the plane and realized that our plane was straight out of the 70’s I was not to excited for the next 14 hours. Luckily I fell asleep right away and that lasted for the next 8 hours. However after I woke up I am pretty sure I had gotten some sickness, from someone on the plane. I threw up in the plane and, then again in the airport in Bangkok. Immidiatley after stepping foot outside of the bangkok airport, I started noticing so many differences to Guatemala. What hit me first was the intense humidity and heat, I still haven’t gotten used to that.
While we were in Guatemala we learned a few things about what our next 3 months would look like. First of all we are doing ministry in the province of Kanchanaburi Thailand. We are going to be pairing up with Ywam bases and each team is going to be on their own. So goodbye lavished Warriors, I am going to miss you ladies. From here out it will just be Grace, Mack, Meg, Anna Josh, Sam and I.
After leaving the airport we arrived at the Ywam Thailand base in Bangkok. It is so cool to see the tall buildings stacked upon eachother, with market stands below selling who knows what, most likely squid, bugs, or cow blood. The city of Bangkok has such a different vibe than the city of Guatemala. All around I can see brands I recognize such as seven eleven, or pizza hut but for as many as I recognize there are three times more of foreign things I don’t recognize. After arriving at the base I was still feeling really sick so I took a nap. I woke up three hours later and looked out my window to see that it was extremely dark outside. This really confused me and It took me a bit to collect myself. I went out with Josh into the city and he got some KFC. Then I came back to the base and slept. The next day and a half we had training and briefing on Ywam and their operations in Thailand. My favorite part of my time in Bangkok, is when Mackenzie, Anthony, Jacqueline, Shelby, and I went to the Kings garden during the Kings festival. The Kings birthday in Thailand, is also the nations fathers day, so shout out to you Dad, I love you, Happy Fathers day from Thailand. This Garden was by far the most beautiful I had ever visited. It was gigantic, and had flowers everywhere, with christmas lights hanging off of trees, little waterfalls, large fields, cute bridges, and shrubbery cut into the shape of animals. Almost everyone in the park was Thai and was wearing yellow. Seriously though Mack and I played a game where we would look for other gringos and we only saw two the entire time. Oh also it has beeen seriously challenging trying not to speak Spanish to the Thai people, #WorldRaceStruggles. Anyways as the night went on more and more people started to arrive. WE waled around going from market stand to market stand, watching presentations, and much more. There was some delicious food in the markets, especially the coconut ice cream in a coconut shell with coconut shavings. After it got dark there were thousands of people gathered, it felt like the wholecity of Bangkok was in attendance. It felt like New Years at Disney World, you couldn’t move anywhere without bumping into someone. Suddenly all at one everyone started to sing a song in Thai, what I assume was Happy Birthday. Everyone pulled out a candle and lit them. All around us there were thousands of candles burning brightly in the dark. At the end of the song a firework launched into the air marking the beginning of one of the best firework shows I have ever seen. The firework explosions were giant and they launched them in a way that they were making designs with the explosions. It was second only to the firework show that I helped lit off at my camp during the fourth, nothing can beat that one!
The next morning we packed up our stuff said our goodbyes to the squad and headed off as ateam to Kaanchanaburi. What we expected to be a 2 hour drive turned out actually being around 5 hours long. After the fourth hour, we realized that any expectations we had of where we were going to be staying got thrown out the window. Driving into the jungle of Thailand felt like stepping into a scene from an epic movie like Avatar or Jurrassic Park. We are in the middle of nowhere. Gigantic mountains tower up around us. The mountians look similar to Yosemite only with jungle all around them. It is so beautiful, I am sitting here trying tot hink of how to describe the place I am living at however words really don’t do it justice. I will try to upload some pictures to facebook soon. When I got to our ministry cite I relaized that I will quite literally be living in a Thai farm for the next 2 months. They have chickens, a dog, a church, lodging for both girls and guys, squatty potties, storage barns, and a ton of crops including banana trees, pepper trees, pepper plants, rubber trees, and more. The guys room is like a loft type deal, lacking any real walls, meaning I will be sleeping in a misquito net for a while. Btw there are a ton of mosquitos here.
Our ministry host Pang is married to Arun, and has a 2 year old little girl named Mary. The others who live on the farm are Pang’s mom, dad, aunt uncle, and now us. They make such a cute family, and have already been very welcoming and have loved us so well. Pangs mom, Ma, and aunt Na noi are amazing cooks and have made us all of our meals so far. I don’t think I will ever go hungry here, they give us huge servings, and are always willing to give us more. Ministry here for us will be pretty varied and different day to day, as life on a farm usually is. For example yesterday we were decorating the church for christmas in hundred degree weather, when suddenly ma walks in and says she needs help with something. Not knowing what it is we all loaded up in the back of the truck which is our primary moad of transportation and drove to a pepper farm. Next thing I knew I was in 100 degree weather picking peppers off of plants. Immediately after that we drove to their fish pond where we fed the fish rotten bananas. We couldn’t help but laugh at the whole situation. Here whenever we want to go to civilization, or as they say “the city” we have to jump in the back of the truck and ride an hour to get to a grocery store, or wifi, or fun stuff like, the worlds fifth most beautiful waterfalls, an elephant palace, or a tiger temple. I can not wait to visit these, it is so exciting. Getting to touch a tiger will be absolutely incredible, I never thought i would get to do something like that in my life.
All together the aspect of living on a farm is quite daunting. I love the outdoors and nature, but it will still be challenging not having all the conveniences we had in Guatemala. Such as a solid roof over our heads, wifi, cool air, grocery shops, coffee shops and much more. I am nervous yet so excited to live the village life and get on these peoples level.
Also my wifi will be very unreliable in the foreseen future.
