I know I know, I left you completely in the dark for like 5 weeks, I’m so sorry. So let’s jump right in. Thailand was incredible. The culture, the ministry, getting to live with other teams, and oh the Khao Soi. My team, Alabaster, was living above a coffee shop outside the city of Chiang Mai called Bella Goose. Two of the other girls teams, Shekinah and Agape Guppies lived there with us also and it was so much fun. The first week in Thailand we were renovating a local playground that was rundown and needed some TLC. Every day without fail while we were painting, some of the neighborhood Thai grandmas would come bearing so much food we couldn’t finish it all. They brought us fruit, sweets, these savory donut hole things, and one time an entire pot of Pad Thai. (So stinking good) Seeing their thankfulness and generosity was so refreshing and reminded me of my Nana, I hope to be like them when I’m a grandma. Then we started with our ministry Mosaic Market. They work with women who have been freed from human trafficking and are now trying to learn life skills and start working for their own lives. We didn’t work directly with the women, but we did meet a few of them and get to help out with whatever our hosts needed in the shop and at their brand new church building. One day we cleaned the church arranged the furniture and went shopping for some indoor plants for decor before their only second service ever. Another few days were spent organizing the shop and getting products ready to sell at their Christmas market. We also made signs for the market and in some free time I made earrings for the girls on the other teams. Our ministry there wasn’t super intensive like renovating the park was, but it was great quality time we got to spend together as a team. We did a Bible study, read books, built relationship with the girls who worked there, and learned how to be ok with being still.
My favorite day of ministry was our last Friday. They had a church service that ended in a baptism of 9 people. Now granted, I’ve seen dozens of baptism services before, but this one hit me so much harder. I was so moved I actually cried tears of joy at one point. This journey has been the most incredible experience and the way that I’ve grown with the Lord is like nothing I could’ve expected, it brought tears to my eyes to know that these women who had endured so much were now completely covered by His peace and love.
We also had a lot of awesome adventure days in Thailand and discovered our favorite places to eat. We went to an Elephant cafe and rode and bathed elephants, walked up a waterfall at Sticky Falls, spent most weekend evenings at the night markets, and learned how to make paper from elephant poop at PooPooPaper. We would eat Khao Soi for lunch almost every day at this hole in the Wall Street food place, and dinner on the weekends at a Palestinian place where we became friends with the chef and waiter and ended up having gospel conversations with them. Also, me, Lydia, Megan, and Clara started doing morning runs which is something I’ve never done before, but it was so nice to start the day off that way.
At the end of our three weeks in Chiang Mai, we all packed up and rode a bus 12 hours to an AirBnB type place an hour outside of Bangkok to have debrief. Debrief is a week of no ministry where our squad mentors and coaches fly out to stay with us and unpack everything that’s been happening as a whole and personally. I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t as restful of a week as it could’ve been because I kept letting my FOMO (fear of missing out) get the best of me, but it was still really beneficial to have time to process and refocus on the Lord. We had Christmas and New Years there and it was so nice to be all together as a squad. We sang karaoke on Christmas Eve with a music truck thing our hosts organized for us, built gingerbread houses (wafers and peanut butter because gingerbread isn’t a thing there apparently) and then exploded them with fireworks for the durability test, had a white elephant gift exchange, and then worship-partied into the new year.
Overall, Thailand was honestly a blur because it was half the length of Cambodia, but it was still such a beautiful country and a wonderful experience to see a new culture with such variety.
Stay tuned for my South Africa update because it’ll be here very soon (I’m writing it right after I post this cause I know I’m so behind 😉
As always, thank you immensely to all the prayers and donations. I’m now 90% funded!! Lastly, I LOVE reading your comments on these blogs so keep ‘em coming, even if it’s just to say hi or ask a question. Thanks everybody! Pray you’re doing well.
