First off, if you would like updates from the World Race in general–emergency situations, team ministry, etc–you can get them from subscribing here
http://www.theworldrace.org/
The box is in the top left corner.
Many of you have heard about the plane crash in Phuket, Thailand. All of the racers are fine. Please lift up the passengers of that flight, though.
If you would like to talk–verbally–you can download Skype for free. You will need a headset to talk on it, but you can use it like an instant message program as well. My screen name for that is “Traciny2”.
Okay, now that logistics are out of the way, I can share with you what else is going on.
We arrived in Bangkok airport around 11 PM Sunday. Before passing through immigration we lost three of our fellas and I had to bust out some Thai in order to express that to the information desk. It was a challenge to communicate to them what was going on, but they eventually understood to page them overhead. I hate to call them out, but the pronunciation of theirs names is too much to resist. “Mr. Blan-don Hed-lick (Brandon Headrick), Mr. Allon Blune-er (Aaron Bruner), and Mr. Set Bar-nez (Seth Barnes) to da info-mation desk.” Though it was in english, it was way to quite to distinguish if you weren’t listening for it. The boys eventually found their way to where we were waiting, and we passed through immigration with ease. My bag was fully entact–a major prayer for me, as I was drilled in ATL, GA about the chances of it actually making it through in one piece. We met up with a few Jan ’07 racers that brought us to the YWAM base here in Bangkok. All along they way we saw many banners reading “Long Live the King.” After brief team meetings, the temptation was too great, and 6 or 7 of us went out to eat around 1 AM. The food court people were thrilled to see “rich tourists,” and ushered us to their booth.
Today was our jet-lag recovery day, and so a few of us have taken the chance to visit the internet cafes. Tomorrow we have a cultural orientation and do our first race against the other teams. I will not be participating in this one, as they could only handle 5 people per team. In addition, they wanted the media crew to stay back and work on some photos/videos around the city. Wednesday we do a major temple tour and and “all you need to know about Buddism” tour put on by YWAM. Thursday we head out to our ministry sites throughout Thailand. I just found out, after I posted it on the blog last week, that our team’s ministry location has been changed. I will have more information for you in the coming days, but I can tell you that I am incredibly ecstatic about everything we will be doing. Thank you all for your continued support and prayers.
P.S. I was going to try to upload some photos and videos today, but they were taking too long. I’ll try a different internet cafe later and see if they go any faster.
