Merry Christmas!  I pray this Christmas is one filled with blessings for all of you!  

If you didn’t receive one of my newsletters I just  sent out, please send me your e-mail address as I’d LOVE to update you on what’s been happening in Northern Thailand!

As a word of advice, don’t read this blog yet, wait until after Christmas.  It’s not particularly a happy-go-lucky blog, so wait until later to read it if that bothers you!!!  

I decided at the last moment to go to a Christmas eve service in Chiang Mai.  I didn’t know anyone, and didn’t really care at the moment.  During the drive there, I knew it wasn’t going to be like any  Christmas eve I’ve ever experienced…and it had absolutely nothing to do with the church service at all.  I just knew from deep within that something was different.  I had looked at a map before leaving and knew several of the streets near the church, so I somewhat guessed my way there, only making one wrong turn kind of impressed me!

It had nothing to do with that either though.  

On the way, I passed bars.  Not the kind of bars you’d expect too drive past on Christmas eve (if there is such a thing), but prostitution lined the streets, women sat on chairs along the road, many wearing ‘Santa Hats’.  It wasn’t the part of town I thought to be the red-light district, but it wasn’t a clean part of town either.  It bothered me,  although I know it exists here in Thailand…there’s almost nowhere in Chiang Mai that escapes it, but I just wasn’t expecting it on the way to Christmas eve candlelight service.  It bothered me.

I continued onward, down the street where a few extremely intoxicated guys stumbled out of the bar and into the street causing me to swerve to miss them.  Another bout of insanity that bothered me, but again, it’s all over the city, so as normal I moved onward as the church had to be less than a quarter mile away.

Sure enough, I found the church…snagged a parking spot in the entrance and called it good enough (it’s Thailand, you can park where you want…kinda…).  I was relieved it was a large church service with tons of people, as I realized I was 15 minutes late and didn’t want to cause a disruption.  On my way, I felt something different again.  I was bothered by the fact that I hadn’t dressed in my best attire as I assumed many of the others had.  I may have been slightly under-dressed…which normally wouldn’t bother me, but for some reason tonight it did.  I almost turned back, but started thinking about it for a minute…I had just gone through all I went through, and all the sudden felt unworthy to go to church on Christmas eve because I had on shorts instead of something ‘dressy’?  I went on, was dressed just fine, nobody cared what I was wearing at all…and really I fit in.  (with the slightly under-dressed crowd anyway).

I was glad to realize it was a fully English church service, as close to something you’d expect in America as I could ask for.  I was glad to sing the normal Silent Night and Hark the Herold Angels Sing…I won’t go into the rest of it!

After the service, the insanity just continued.  On the way home, I got caught in traffic.  I thought it was normal as again, I’m not usually out late and don’t think much of crazy traffic here anyway.  It took a minute.  Then I saw the flashing lights.  It didn’t take long for me to creep up on the scene of the accident, complete with another victim of a traffic accident that didn’t survive.  It’s all too common here.  

I did the only thing I knew to do, said a prayer and moved on…something I do a lot here, wondering what’s next, what happens with those prayers, and bothered thinking about people’s families and what how they are impacted by everything.  I’m learning slowly that often times all we have is prayer, and a drop of faith has to go a long way.  I really had no point to push writing this blog, I simply came home, and had to process some of it all…and figured why not write about it.