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If there was one word to sum up everything about this month it would be LOVE.

God effortlessly showed His love for me in innumerable ways, I learned about intimacy with my Father, I was shown love by complete strangers, and I learned to love complete strangers.

Wongen, though a short but sweet stay, was half of my Thailand love saga.

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While at Wongen I had copious amounts of free time. I only worked in the cafe for about four hours a day and the rest of the time was free time, but even when I was working, the women we worked with wouldn’t let me do anything so that was basically free time too. Fortunately, I learned from my mistakes in Malaysia and I took advantage of this free time to see what God had to teach me.

It was kind of rough at first because I really had no idea what I was doing, I mean, would you know what to do with 12 hours of nothing to do? So I spent a lot of time sitting and asking. Then I spent a lot of time sitting and meditating. Then I spent a lot of time sitting and listening. In all of this time, I learned three lessons:

Lesson #1:   Intimacy. This is a word that has been thrown around a lot lately. It’s a good word and I’ve used it often but I realized that I don’t actually know what that word means, so I started asking people. The best answer I got, or at least the best for me, was that intimacy is when two people are so bonded and united that they are looked at as one. In all of my free time, God gave me the chance to see what intimacy actually looks like.

 
Lesson #2:  Value. So the girls were sitting around Wongen one day talking about tattoo ideas and most of them had to do with their names and what their names mean. When asked what Sarah means, I told them it means princess and we all kind of scoffed because I’m the least feminine person on my team of women. But it wasn’t until later that day that I really thought about it and God really opened my eyes to what that means.
                                          A princess is a King’s daughter.
Ok, so maybe I am a princess because I am the daughter of a King. The King of the Universe looks at me with proud “daddy eyes” and says I’m his favorite. So nappy hair, basketball shorts, and all, I am a princess.

 
 
This is my Wongen bff and kindred spirit of Chiang Mai, Bing. Her sarcasm managed to cross our language barrier and mask the huge heart full of love that she has. Though she spoke some English, communication between us wasn’t always the smoothest, mostly it was her grunting at me or yelling at me in Thai, but she loved me. This stranger whom I only got the privilege of hanging out with for a week loved me. By the end of our stay at Wongen, she and I were walking arm in arm through the night market during the Festival of Lights while she taught me Thai culture.

 
 

Lesson #3:  How to love. I am not one who is quick to love, in fact I’m not one who is slow to love, I just don’t love. But that’s why I’m here, not only on the Race but in the world. I have been shown love, so I need to show love. Because “if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1Cor 13:2).

But this love story doesn’t end here…