Sorry it has been a while, but between all the debrief and travel we haven’t had a lot of time for internet. I’ll try to give a brief summary of what has been going on the last few days.
After ministry ended in Phuket, Thailand, we all met up at Katanoi beach on the island for debrief. We had a packed schedule of meetings and worship and speakers. Captain Ron made a guest appearence to speak to us one night, but most of the other sessions were led by our contact on the island, who I will opt to call Mr. Chuck Wagon. Even though the schedule was packed, we still we able to squeeze in some time at the beach and in the pool at a really nice resort down the way.
As part of debrief we also had to prepare for India, where I am flying to tonight. The culture is quite different from everything we have visited so far. I will have to wear a skirt everyday and probably cover my head. To prepare us for this, Kim Lynch gave each of us girls wrap skirts and the boys blue bandanas, which I like to call their blue bonnets, because obviously they wont need skirts. Pray for us as we are going to be in very hot weather, sleeping in tents, rarely showering, and eating really spicy food. We will be working at an orphanage, which I cannot wait for!
Debrief ended on Thursday and the race began Friday morning. We found out quickly that all the teams, but Brown, opted to fly from the island down to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. It was fun as we all got on the same plane and rushed to get the front seats (since none of them were assigned). Then as the plane landed the race was on. We all sped walked to the terminal to be the first through immigration. After that it all was in the hands of our luggage handlers. It was almost as tense as that feeling you get while sharpening your #2 pencils waiting to take the SAT.
Lime’s luggage was out first. They were off. Then Yellow, then ours, and right behind us we knew Blue was coming. Our goal was to get to the Petronas Twin Towers (tallest buildings in the world) and take our picture to stop the clock. We jumped in with a taxi driver who was very good and had no problem cutting off people to get us ahead in line. However, as we pulled into downtown Kuala Lumpur, we got stuck in the worst traffic. One time it took us 5 green lights to get through the light. We could see the towers a way off and thought that maybe we should just get out and run and trust our driver to bring our stuff. However, we weren’t too sure about this an decided our luggage was more important than winning the race. We we arrived we noticed all three teams there, but found out we were only a couple minutes behind Blue. Nice work by all the teams.
We have spent the past 2 days in Kuala Lumpur at a hostel. It has been fun exploring the city. We visited an aquarium, planetarium, and water/theme park. We experienced the sea, space, and land, all in one weekend. We have enjoying being able to hang out with each other and not be in meetings. Tonight (as I’ve said) we will fly out to India about 6:30pm. We will get there this evening and have an hour bus ride. Then, at least to my understanding, we will pitch our tents in the dusty field by the orphanage. We have been told we may not have internet access in India…so the blogs may be few and far between, but I promise to update on all that God does in India whenever I get the chance! So until the next internet cafe…bye bye bye.
