We are in Thailand!
And, well, we have been for the last 6 days….
This has been our first big debrief of the World Race. We flew into Bangkok on the 31st of August, enjoying an early morning breakfast in Nepal, lunch during the layover in India, and dinner at the night market in Thailand. “Never have I ever” moments have become a common occurrence nowadays.
School has begun once again with the giddy anticipation of learning: the fresh smell of new books, the feel of a sturdy full pad of engineering paper, and the joys of picking out the perfect pens and highlighters for the upcoming semester. Nostalgia you may ask? Not in the least! BUT this month our ministry is to college students in the city of Uttaradit! We will be catching a night bus this evening and rumor has it, there is air conditioning, snacks AND karaoke. The karaoke I could do with out, but this girl loves her travel snacks.
Thailand is…well… the most westernized of all the countries we have been to thus far. There are actual lanes on the road and traffic abides by the law the majority of the time. We were met with the strange silence of a lack of honking as we were carted to the YWAM base. We passed restaurants like KFC and McDonalds. I have been back on my ice cream diet from before the race (an ice cream a day keeps the doctor away… right?) and for the equivalent of an American dollar, you can get an entire meal of delicious pad thai noodles.
7-11 convenience stores have become our new favorite place to eat. There are about 500 different choices of milk, yogurt, and prepackaged, non-refrigerated meals including “salad dressing sausage rolls” and “hotdog and mayo buns”. It all turns into a guessing game at the end since there is little to no written English and few Thai people speak our language. Usually pointing and nodding will get you far enough, but you are never sure if the skewered meat you are eating is chicken or pork or… well I will choose to believe it was harmless.
We have been blessed this past week. It has been refreshing to get away to soak up the Lord’s presence but we are definitely getting antsy to move on into the next phase of ministry!
