2016 G Squad (Fusion 2.0) has left Asia!! We now in Europe for four months! Wow, there is a lot of traveling with this trip.
My team, P2, slept Friday night to Saturday in the Medan airport, and were joined by a second team on Saturday morning to fly to Jakarta together. P2 was joined there by the guys’ team and spent the rest of Saturday in Jakarta. Some of P2 went back to the Teduh Hostel we stayed at during Unsung Heroes. One of the guys, Darek, and I went to meet a couple of friends who were in the city. The rest of us just stayed at the airport. We slept in the Jakarta airport, and were joined by the fourth team around 05:30 on Sunday. One of our international squad mates, Nina, caught a 07:30 flight out of Jakarta to return home to Russia for visa purposes. Once she has applied for her Europe visas, she will rejoin us in Latvia.
The first leg of our journey was from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Around 08:00 the entire squad checked into Malaysian Air, and headed for our gate. We took off around 09:40, and after a two-hour flight, arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 12:40 local time.
We had a layover of two hours and boarded our second flight (Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, Thailand), at 14:45.
While we were waiting for our flight to Bangkok, an elderly couple sat down next to me and struck up a conversation about our travels. Turns out they are Christians and helped start a children’s home in Cambodia, in Kampung Speu, in 1996. I was 4… Anyway, they were looking for teams to come and teach their children after they were done building their school building. They have regular teachers, but wanted people to come play with the kids and teach them new thins, like music, crafts, and just speak English with them. Joanna was able to get all of their contact information and some extra details, as we were able to submit them to AIM as people to look for in Cambodia.
#UHneverends
Our second flight was about two hours, and we landed in Bangkok at 16:20 local time.
In Bangkok, because of airlines and alliances, we had to go through customs and get a transit visa, and get our bags from baggage claim. We waited until 20:30 in the large area outside of the checkin counters, then checked back in to Turkish Air to go to Latvia. This transition happened during our 7-hour layover in Bangkok. We then boarded a 10-hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey. We left at 23:40, and arriving in Istanbul around 06:00 Monday.
As we dropped altitude into Istanbul, my thoughts were circling around the fact that two years ago I was flying into this city around this same time of year. And a couple years before that I was flying in just for transit to Central Asia. Father let me know something interesting. This isn’t my last time in Istanbul. It’s the first of many more. I guess he will let me know what that means when I get there in life.
We had another brief (30 minutes) layover in Istanbul, and boarded our three-hour flight to Riga, Latvia, around 07:00. We got into Riga at 11:00, went through customs, and split into teams. P2 took a cab to a bus station and took a two-hour bus to our ministry city, and our host met us to drive us to the ministry site. We arrived at this final destination around 15:20 on Monday.
I’ll post about our new ministry soon!
