Where We’ve Been

This is a pretty simple outline of our travels which could contain a million stories of the work and glory of God, however I wanted to give you a basic outline first. And there’s a short story of the strength of God in my life recently. 

After 20 hours worth of flights and an 11 hour time change we landed in Bangkok. We stayed there just until we could book our 10 hour bus ride to Chiang Mai where we met our first contacts: Ray and Candice. We loaded a ten bag pyramid on the top of his truck and have been getting around either crammed in the back seat or bouncing around in the bed of the truck. Ray’s kindness has made this entire month possible! (Not to mention the support of his wonderful wife and daughter as he spends so much time driving and connecting us with the right people and ministries). 

To start off slow we spent a week in Chiang Mai painting a part of a christian school, getting acquainted with the culture, getting to know each other, being briefed on the do’s and don’ts of the culture, learning simple Thai phrases, preparing lessons, games and songs for kids, seeing the red light district and the discussing the beliefs of Buddhism and much more that is slowly becoming a blur as we continue to move around. 

Our group then travelled to the northern tip of Thailand and border of Burma in the city of Mae Sai where we spent our time playing with and teaching homeless Burmese kids. 

(Read Seth’s Blog about the Drop In Center here- Beautifully Written)

After a week at the border we returned 4 hours to Chiang Mai for a night so we could build another bag pyramid in the morning to drive 4 hour west into the mountains and hill tribes of the Karen people. We spent a week working with a Vwerrapong’s (sp.?) sports ministry. This mainly included visiting multiple schools a day to entertain kids and teach them basic truths about Christ’s love. Most of us have experienced that difficulties of trying to preach through a translator… especially if he doesn’t understand a lot of what you’re trying to say either. 

Since this we’ve done a few day trips. One to a school after passing into Burma and another to a beautiful cave where we got to baptize some of our group members. Nothing like baptizing followers of Christ in Thailand… in a rainforest… after passing through a dark cave of bats and snakes… in a small waterfall. 

That brings you about up to date with very little details into what God is actually doing in our lives. That’s not because God isn’t working like crazy on us… Here’s just a quick story of the strength I’ve found in Christ daily. 

I woke up one morning in prayer and God spoke to me and said “Today’s going to be hard”. I long to hear God’s voice… when He’s saying things other than that. Having no idea about anything we were to do that day I believed Him and went down for breakfast. Our first task was to mow a nearby football (soccer) field for the government to build relationship with them. So the guys mowed for a few hours and we had high spirits and really enjoyed some hard work in the hot sun as sweat poured from us. And by mowed I mean we pushed a platform holding a big engine on bicycle wheels through knee high grass over and over again until the handmade blade cut it. But we had joy. We didn’t finish, but hurried back to shower up and go to a school for a few hours to put on skits, sing songs and run around with the kids. After a few hours of this we went back to the house fairly beat to eat dinner. Being at a sports ministry we walked to the football field and challenged some locals for a few hours. We lost the first game in literally about 10 seconds. Lost the second one in an admirable two minutes. (Games are won by the first goal). Then came back determined and won 5 straight games with Seth as our goalie. He dominated and the Americans breezed through the locals. Maybe half of our team was locals also but that’s a minor detail. I was pretty done at this point but still I had joy and still something was inside me pushing me on as I walked cautiously threw the day asking God what was next. The next thing was ministering to a boarding school that night. We worshipped with them, which blessed us immensely, a few of us spoke, we did some songs of our own and a skit, prayed for them then finally came back to the house again. It was a full day… so we then had to sit in a circle debriefing for an hour. I was so glad it was over and was completely worn out but was still so joyful and kind of confused asking “I thought this day was suppose to be really hard, as in I thought I’d be left tired and in a crappy mood?” this is when He said “Yeah but when you lean on me even the hardest days are made enjoyable.” And That’s why I still had joy after pouring out everything I had all day. That’s was  one of my favorite day of the trip so far.