Just returned from Thailand....
God's amazing thumbprints everywhere... every single minute was grand!
While at a worship service in Chiang Mai I was challenged by the sermon... how often we pray puny sized prayers. I know that, even in my praying regarding Thailand, God answered much larger than my little prayers and hopes for the time there. Truly I'm in awe at God's lovingkindness!
Highlights... meeting Christ followers various places and hearing stories of what He is doing there, the night market in Chiang Mai, seeing the tribal children at the home in Pua (near the Laos border), our crazy bus adventures around Thailand, bicycling around the ruins of Sukhothai (I felt as if I were walking through the pages of a history book), seeing those elephants out my bus window, touring the palace area in Bangkok, buying fabric from a Sikh family in Little India while in Bangkok, boating through a water market, etc. etc.
The only concerning moment of the trip was on the way home on the flight from Korea to Atlanta. I had decided to embrace each moment throughout the trip... eating the native food, etc. (which I held to except the one morning I felt a little sick and deviated off course and ordered cornflakes) so while on the flight I figured I'd choose the Korean entree... and thought I was eating tiny funny tasting noodles with my main course and seaweed soup... until after when I realize the little specks on each one were eyes... my first (and I do hope) last time eating mini fish (so thin and tiny... smaller than minnows).
Besides eating those mini fish, I did another first which I never thought I'd ever do. While in Sukhothai it was so, so, so hot that I actually turned down a cup of hot coffee (this had never happened in the history of my life... I had always insisted it could never be too hot to order coffee).
It was well worth the long journey. It took 58 hours to get from Fort Lauderdale to Pua where I met up with Annie and Sarah who are teaching there... what a crazy interesting adventure (and God took care of every detail... the one step I really couldn't have figured out on my own - getting the correct bus from Chiang Mai to Pua - I was with a wonderful American who spoke fluent Thai)!
This was such a special experience and just made me want to see more of what God is doing around the world. However, before heading off on another world adventure, I want to spend some time enjoying/remembering to be grateful for things such as air conditioning, toilets, and Starbucks.
All in all, Thailand has officially made my list of happy places to go.
