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Wednesday, January 4th.
The sunrise sure comes early in Nicaragua. I discovered this little fact on the morning of Wednesday, January 4thwhen I crawled out of my sleeping bag at 3:45am and rushed to stuff it into my pack. The squad had spent the past two days together on a small island off the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. With sand in every crevice of my belongings, I loaded my pack onto a horse-drawn buggy and hiked with my team to catch a boat across inner coastal. As we breezed across the water in the little rickety boat, the sun began to peak over the horizon. It was 5:30am.
Once we reached land, our squad of 52 people and 52 packs filled a chicken bus and we raced to the airport in Managua. At 2pm we loaded a plane bound for Atlanta. At 5:00pm, after some difficulties with the plane were discovered and fixed, we lifted off…Georgia-bound. I looked out the window to my left as the Nicaraguan sky turned a deep, beautiful orange….my last memory in Latin America. My heart saddened at the thought of leaving a place I love so much.
At 10pm we arrived in the all-so-familiar Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. I was filled with a burst of excitement to be back in a place that I knew….Georgia! We crept our way through customs and finally stepped out into the cold Georgia air (in my flip flops and shorts) at midnight.
Thursday, January 5th.
During our 12 hour layover in Atlanta, we were incredibly blessed with a free night’s stay in a hotel, and….CHICKFILA! (If there is anything that I crave when I’m outside the States, it is Chick-fil-a) It felt like Christmas as we were able to open the packages sent from family and friends. At 3:55am, after I repacked my bag and took a luxuriously hot shower, I crawled into the bed, which felt more like a heavenly cloud of comfort. Five minutes later, it was 4:00am…time to leave for the airport. Noooooo. Five more minutes!
Eating Chick-Fil-a for the first time in 3 months…a little taste of home!
Our next flight was 4 ½ hours to Los Angeles, California. I was deliriously tired, to the point where I did not speak a word to the folks next to me. In L.A., we had another 12 hour layover. Thankfully, we were able to escape LAX, rent a car, and spend the day in the city, visiting necessary places such as Target and REI.
At the end of the day we regrouped at LAX for our overnight flight to Seoul, South Korea. While we waited for our boarding time, I fell asleep. I had to be shaken awake by my teammates later…evidently I had fallen asleep directly in the area where the line forms for boarding. Fellow passengers had been stepping over my head and wheeling their luggage around me. Oops.
Friday, January 6th.
At some point, during our 14 ½ flight to Seoul, we time traveled to the future and completely skipped Friday, January 6th.
Saturday, January 7th.
If you ever get the chance to fly Korean Air, please do so. Although my seat was in the Economy Class, I felt treated like a queen, with constant beverages, a tasty meal, a vast movie selection on my personal touch-screen and my own little blanket, pillow and toothbrush. Unfortunately, I could not take full advantage of such luxuries because my eyelids seemed to have 100lb weights on them and my head spun from lack of sleep.
At 6:30am, South Korean time, I stepped foot into the most luxurious airport I have ever seen. Starbucks was calling my name as I made my way to the next terminal. We had yet another 12 hour layover, which allowed plenty of time to enjoy the luxuries of the airport. I visited Starbucks (twice…don’t judge), ate authentic Korean Kimchi, took another steamy-hot shower in the Relaxation area, dressed in traditional Korean garb at the free Culture center….all with time to spare for a little nap in the terminal.
The Squad boarded our final plane at 7:00pm. I slept the majority of the 4 ½ hours of our flight, waking only long enough to eat dinner.
We still were able to experience Korean culture during our layover…the airport had a cultural center!
Sunday, January 8th.
I first stepped foot onto Thai soil (or concrete, in this case) just past midnight. Woohoo! We are here! We stayed two nights at the YWAM center in Bangkok, Thailand and were given the 2 days to become oriented to the culture and explore the city. Surprisingly, Bangkok was much like what I had envisioned….incredible shopping malls, giant LED screen billboards and Apple Products flowing like milk and honey. However, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before…the language was impossible to understand, along with entirely different written characters for the language. I caught myself attempting to speak to the locals in Spanish, out of habit. I quickly learned that my main form of communication this month will be more like a constant game of charades
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The view of downtown Bangkok at night, during our visit to the mall(s).
Monday, January 9th.
The Squad remained together for orientation at the YWAM base until 2:30pm. Most of the teams left for an overnight bus to their ministry sites in Northern Thailand. My new teammates, who are all girls, made one more trip to the mall, (of course) and stayed up late doing our laundry….in these fancy contraptions known as washing machines.
Tuesday, January 10th.
With our bags poorly packed and no boys to help us carry them, my teammates and I loaded our things into the bed of a truck at 6:45am. We then rode in the truck bed for an hour down a busy, fast-paced interstate. At 10:00am we hopped aboard a comfy charter bus, complete with snacks and a television playing Thai karaoke music videos. The bus took us to Phetchabon, Thailand, which is located in the northern part of the country. Mae, our contact, met us upon our arrival at 3pm and drove us to Phetchabun Rajabhat University, where our ministry is for the rest of the month.
Wednesday, January 11th.
So, here I am, sitting on my very own bed (a luxury I have come to not expect) resting for the first time since the beginning of our travel days. This month my new teammates and I (who I will tell you about in a later post) will be working alongside Mae, a sweet, stylish Thai who has a heart for Jesus and for her English students at the University. We will be focusing on building relationships with her all-female classes and helping to host weekend camps in which we can demonstrate and share about the love of Christ. I am expecting God to do big things here in Phetchabon, Thailand…it is going to be great!
A street sign in Thai….navigating cities just became a whole lot harder!
A Little Recap…in case you skimmed the first part:
-4 Countries (Nicaragua, United States, South Korea, Thailand)
-5 Time zones (Central, Eastern, West Coast, Korean time and Thailand time)
-4 flights (a total of 28 ½ hours of flying time)
-9 modes of transportation (On foot, boat, chicken bus, plane, airport shuttle, rental car, truck bed, sky train, charter bus)
-20 hours of sleep (an estimate….not included the constant state of half-asleep that I was in for the entirety of traveling)
–3 cups of Starbucks coffee (Vanilla Spice Latte, Chai tea Latte, Green Tea Frappuccino.)
….all in the 1 week it takes to travel from Puttaya, Nicaragua to Phetabon, Thailand.
