Arrival

Me and my teammates arrived in Bangkok yesterday. It is so good to be here. Many things are familiar to me, but again there are many things that are not. Driving down the road in the sweltering heat I recognized the clothes hanging out to dry on all the balconies, the bamboo scaffolding that seems to be pretty unsturdy but is still used, and people sleeping on the sides of the road. It is very similar to India, yet it seems more modern as well. Bangkok is one of the tenth largest cities in the world, there are 12 million people here! It is seriously huge, I've never seen anything like it. There are skyscrapers everywhere and sooo much traffic! Their taxis are hot pink, mom would like that! But at the same time it is quite obvious that we are far from America.

Despite the fact that it is such a large city, I have found that very few people speak English, which has made things very difficult. Thai is such a difficult langauge with all of the different tones. We had some language lessons yesterday from friends Pen and Yao. They taught us how to greet people, ask someone's name, say our name, ask what something is, and thank you and goodbye. Then we came out on the streets and practiced. Pen and Yao took us on a short tour of the area. There is a huge store called the Big C where people shop... it's basically like a big mall with a grocery store in it as well. There is exotic fruit everywhere! Much of it is very good, some of it is a little weird. So far I have not had any horrible experience with food. They eat noodles for breakfast, I personally think that is pretty awesome!

We are currently staying at the C&MA guest house in Bangkok. Amazingly people are also there from Samaritan's Purse, which is the company my sister works for. They are doing Disaster Relief. I actually know one of the men and several others know my sister. What a small world! I have always wanted to run into someone random that I know in another country and now I have. It's pretty cool.

The guest house is very nice. We have beds and showers and airconditioning... much more than I ever expected! It is absolutely beautiful. We woke up today and had a great breakfast and we were supposed to go to a park to practice our Thai, but as things like this go, they are always changing. There is a prayer meeting today and the man that was supposed to lead it had to leave at the last minute, so now WE are doing it! We had to plan for 2 hours of time with 10 people, some of whom know little English. It should be interesting, but I am excited to be jumping right into ministry.

We leave for a Hmong village tomorrow. We will be on a train for 13 hours. I'm pretty excited! We'll be there until June 2nd, so you won't hear from me again probably until then.

Love you all!!!

Hong Kong

It's been a looong few days of travelling. I've been in the air or in an airport for over 33 hours. I'm almost done! We just arrived in Hong Kong... it's 12 hours ahead of you, so It is about 6:30am here Monday but it's 6:30pm Sunday there. Still trying to get used to the time difference. We have one more flight and in a few hours we'll be in Bangkok! I am very excited. This has to be short... we are at the airport, but know that I am safe and sound! More to come soon....

1 more day!!

Sorry It's been so long since I have posted, I have been quite busy trying to get everything together and spend time with family before I leave.

I leave Saturday afternoon to fly to LA to meet up with my teammates, Daniel and Kristina. We fly from there to Bangkok. Daniel is from CA and Kristina is from GA and they are both students. They have never been out of the country before so I am very excited to get to experience their reactions. They are both great and we have been emailing back and forth and have gotten to know each other a bit. I am excited to finally get to meet them!

As I said in my last post, it is going to be 2 full days of traveling before actually arriving in Bangkok and then once we get there we will also be doing quite a lot of traveling to minister in several different small towns besides Bangkok. After being in Thailand for six weeks I leave my two teammates who are returning to the US and I will be flying by myself to India where I'll meet up with a few people for about two weeks before flying back to the US. Please pray for safety during all this traveling. Also pray for my two teammates and I that we will get along and be able to work together well.

Well... you won't be hearing from me again until I am across the world! Thailand is 11 hours ahead so while you are going to bed I will just be waking up. That just blows my mind sometimes! I should have access to the internet while I am there and will try to update this weekly. Have a wonderful summer everyone and thanks for following my trip!!

What I'm Doing....

Hello Everyone!

Thank you for taking the time to visit my site.

I set up this blog as a way of communicating with you all this summer. This is an easy way to keep in touch and you can come on here and read about what I'm doing, where I'm at, and what God is teaching me. I'm not sure how often I will be able to update it because I don't know how much access I will have to the internet so check it every so often to see if there is a post.

I will be in Thailand for six weeks and India for three. I fly out of Greensboro May 24th and land in Bangkok a whole 2 days later! (That's a lot of traveling!!). Then on July 8th I fly to India where I will be until July 23rd.

I am so excited about this summer!
I will post more details before I leave about who I will be with and what I will be doing. And I would love to be able to keep up with what you are up to, so comment and let me know!