Hello from Thailand! After a long two full days of travel from Atlanta: New York: China: Bangkok: Chiang Mai, Thailand; I have finally arrived where I will be learning about the culture and religion here. The first couple days were free days. On Saturday I went through the local street market to experience the wonderful Thai food! Sunday the guys in our group and a couple of the girls from the different squads went to Grace Church in Chiang Mai. There the pastor taught a lesson on how we all have our own different gifts that make each one of us unique and that we should not be ashamed or even embarrassed being the people that God created us to be. This can range from some people being more relational or able to talk and understand others better than the opposite group who may not be as good at talking but are gifted in their ability to show their care for others through actions. Meaning people can always serve others, such as emotional support for when we just need someone to listen to what has been bothering us. By simply sharing something that has been bugging you get two benefits. One of them is the relief of getting it off your mind by putting it out into the open and the second is you give the listener the opportunity to provide their opinion on the situation. At times we can get too deeply entangled up in an issue and this is toxic to be overly focused on a statement or acton. Now if you are not good at understanding people through speech that is okay too! We can still show others our love for them through actions. Something as simple as giving someone a snack or drink at the moment they least expect it can impact their day a lot more than one might think. Afterall, how often in our day to day lives do people offer us little favors or give us little gifts of appreciation? Now imagine that you had a lot on schedule and as you are starting to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work you have to do somebody took time out of their day to help you. This would make you feel incredibly loved and you might even feel like you have to return the favor to them in the future if you can. Instead of being a culture that does almost everything independently, how great would our society look as a whole if everybody would help others? I encourage yal to try this today with the purpose of showing others that they are loved, not only by you for offering a helping hand, but also by their heavenly Father above.
