TBT: Thailand, June 2015
Oh, the beautiful land of Asia. This was our first country outside of Central America and after 3 planes and dozens of hours of traveling, we made it to Bangkok. Still living life (and laughing A LOT) with “Team Fresh.” I’m pretty sure we only lived ONE HOUR of June 1, 2015. We had an hour layover in Taipei, Taiwan. We took a van to our hostel and arrived around 2am local time (12 hours ahead of our last house country).
{Planning our Logistics}
Our ministry this month was Unsung Heroes, finding new potential contacts for the World Race and following up with names of ministries that may be a good fit. This requires research, networking, interviewing, and spending time with ministries. We met with a couple of really good ministries, but unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to keep us busy. We had to find our own ministry. We decided to pray through the Red Light District in Bangkok. We did that a couple times, but eventually, had to make the overnight bus travel to Chiang Mai and followed up on some ministries there. We continued pursuing the pull to pray over the bars in the Red Light District and found Loi Kroh Rd. After praying for courage, we walked into one. The stories are here and here. Doing bar ministry was something I went on the Race wanting to completely avoid. Very soon after I gained the courage to do it, it quickly turned into my favorite ministry of the Race.
Most “shame-inducing” moment from Thailand: I was in charge of booking the bus for my team of 7 from Bangkok to Thailand. “Not a problem,” I thought. It was going really well. We checked out of our hostel, took the Skytrain to explore for a few hours until it was time to head to the bus station. We were running late for our 10:35 bus, but we were praying and I was problem solving what we could do if we didn’t make it. We did in fact make it, but I missed something HUGE on our bus tickets. 20:35 is NOT 10:35. 20:35 IS 8:35. Our bus had left 2 hours prior. We had to buy brand new tickets and I had to learn to have grace for myself.
Off days full of laughter:
Jellyfish: Not only did I get stung by a jellyfish on my hand, but Tanja and I found a DEAD jellyfish and decided it would be a good idea to throw it on our teammates. They weren’t as excited, but weren’t surprised by our shenangigans. Speaking of shenanigans, we also thought it would be a good idea to prank our married teammates by sticking this jellyfish in their room. We kept it in the armoire in our room, forgot about it, and started smelling something funky. Turns out the jellyfish juice had leaked out of the ziplock bag. It was a stinky mess that we eventually cleaned up. The worst part is that we never got to prank Katie and Steve with it.
Wedding Photography: One day, me and Brittni were at the beach. We were actually really bored and with boredom comes shenanigans. We started finding shells, one thing led to the other, and we staged a wedding with the shells. Yeah, you heard that right – we had a Shell Bride and Groom, Bridesmaids, family members, a table with a Bible, and even a chuppah. Yes, you can laugh, we definitely did.
This month was full of laughter like the month before. But there were also challenges. The honeymoon stage of our team wore off and quickly we had to work together through anxiety and logistical nightmares. The beauty of those challenges, though, is that it brought us closer and showed us how to fight for each other.
{Pad Thai for $1}
{Riding mopeds through Chiang Mai}
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