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!!!