Wow! Can’t believe I am officially finished with two of my countries on the World Race! I love Southeast Asia so much! My time in Thailand was so good! For our time in Thailand, our teams were separated into different cities! My team, Salt and Light, spent our time in Bangkok, which was 10 hours away from all of the other teams. Living in the big city was so good for us. We got the chance to meet many different people and meet people from all over the world! We also walked pretty much everywhere, which was so perfect! It was definitely a change from our previous ministry in Malaysia. We went all over the city for our adventure days. We went to different churches almost every Sunday and got to experience the different kinds of churches in Thailand. We did a few different things for our ministry, from helping out at one church’s international food fair, to helping teach English, and even visiting a village called Lopburi. We also sang Christmas songs at a college’s Christmas festival on stage in replacement of a K-pop band! We definitely were not the best entertainment those people saw that evening haha. We also helped out at a station at an international Christmas fair at another nearby college.
The trip to where we were staying was also just a cool experience. We started on a bus from where we were in Malaysia to a train station just past the Thailand border. We then boarded the train and had a 16 hour train ride to Bangkok. The train took us through the countryside of Thailand and we drove past so many little villages. It was so cool to experience, even though the train ride ended up being so exhausting. We then departed from the rest of the teams as they had another train ride to their respective places. We arrived at our hotel earlier than we could check in, so we took naps in the lobby until our rooms were ready. We were split up into three rooms with three people in each. The three of us shared two twin beds that had been pushed together. It was so good to have our own bathroom and real beds to sleep on! We also met our host and then had orientation the following day. We met three of her kids, who were just the best! I loved getting to know them as well in our time there!
The majority of our time there was spent working at A Mane English Center. We would see the same kids every week on their set day. We would do little vocab lessons for about 45 minutes before they went to their classes. We taught them about things like first aid, camping, and different bible verses! For camping, we taught them camping words and then taught them how to set up tents! For first aid, we taught them the vocab, and then they practiced cleaning and bandaging fake wounds on each other! They really loved those activities that applied what they learned! We played games with them as well, the favorites of which were four corners and head, shoulders, knees, egg! We also taught them and performed the church clap pretty much everyday! I think I have done the church clap about 100 times since I’ve left the states! It was so precious to see the students dance and enjoy their time at the English center! The English center was also used as a place to teach the students about the Gospel and show how God loves them. One of the kids we met became a Christian because of this ministry, even though his parents aren’t. It was so cool to hear his story and get to know him!
Our host, P. Benz, and her husband, P. Golf, were the owners of this English center. They had been there for a while and you could tell just how much they impacted these kid’s lives! They also had been so obedient to God and their faith in him was so great! Whenever they prayed for more students, God would send them so many students! P. Benz was such a good ministry host for us! She took care of us and made sure everyone on my team was doing well. One of the last weeks we were there, a couple people on our team got sick. P. Benz set them up with medicine and anything else they needed to get better. She really cared so much and showed her love so well! I got to know her kids as well during this time and I love them so much! On one of our sabbaths, our host invited us to walk with them at the park. Me and one of my teammates, Alia, went and we got to know them so well! Alia and I also went to a fruit market with them and got to try durian and jackfruit! We really have had such good hosts that have treated us with such love and kindness! On our last night in Bangkok, they took us to a rooftop buffet and it was the best thing ever. It was such a sweet time with them. Me, Sophia, and Alia gave Christmas gifts to our host’s kids there and it was so sweet to give them something, even though it was so small compared to the things they did for us. We also got to know and worked with two sisters who worked at the english center! (They both went through and graduated from the center!) Their names were Noinah and Nadia and they were also some of the sweetest people ever!
One weekend, we took a train an hour and a half to the village of Lopburi, where Noinah and Nadia were from. We slept on the floor of the church there and there was a projector, which was so fun to watch movies on as a team! During that weekend, we attended the church service and helped out at a Christmas event there! We invited students from the local school. We met some girls who didn’t know much about the meaning of Christmas and Christianity in general. We got to share the Christmas story with them and they really enjoyed their weekend. We also visited an old (monkey infested) palace, and a sunflower field! We also saw a few mountains and experienced so much nature, which is very hard to find in the city. The weekend was such a good time and was definitely one of my favorite parts of Thailand! The church community was so close and it was so beautiful to see!
We also had a lot of time to walk through the streets and have conversations with people. During one of these times, me and my teammate Sophia bought a bouquet of flowers and handed out individual flowers to people on the street! It was such a cool thing to do because it brought people so much joy, even though there was a language barrier and we couldn’t really talk to them. I also talked to several students from schools nearby and got to know about them! We also would go back to the same coffee and smoothie places and talk to the owners and baristas there! Definitely didn’t help my money saving plans haha! We had our regular places where we would go, and each time we would be greeted with the happy smiles of those people. When I think of Thailand, I think of markets! We visited so many night markets! The food was so good and the best of which was the chicken on a stick! We visited an old floating market and a market that had a railroad track going through the middle of it. The train went right by us and the shops had to put down their awnings to make room for the train! We also went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, which is the biggest weekend market in the world! We also saw many beautiful temples!
Being in Thailand in November and December also meant spending Christmas and Thanksgiving time there! For Thanksgiving, we went to Sizzler’s for a big lunch and then we saw Wicked! It was so perfect. We did a few Christmas events and things at that time. We did the aforementioned college events, as well as the Lopburi church event. We also helped with the Christmas parties for the students where they did a white elephant gift exchange. We also went caroling with a small, local Thai church that we attended one Sunday. We started at about 6:00 pm, and got home at about 1:30 am. It was a long night, but such a fun experience. It was the first time, though only a few days away from Christmas, where I really realized that it was about to be Christmas. With the 80 degree heat and being away from home, it was really hard to realize it. While we were caroling, at each home we went to, we would sing a few songs and then each home would give us food and drinks. We had so much to eat that night, including the best pad thai I had ever had. We also drove around in a big white van that only had three seats. Me and one other teammate sat in the seats along with all of the goodies we had accumulated. Everyone else had piled into the back on the floor of the van. It was such a fun time for us as a team and I really love laughing and being with those girls!
As our time in Bangkok came to an end, we said our goodbyes to our new friendships and relationships we had made. It really is so hard every time. It’s crazy to me how I can meet random people, get to know them for 5 weeks, and then leave them, but I know it’s not for forever. I really reflected on how we are all so connected with God as the one thing we all have in common. It was God that brought us together, and God that will reunite us again. One of the things that my time in Bangkok brought me was more time to press into reading the bible. I really grew in my faith by reading the bible more and seeing just how good God is and how he was and is and is to come! I feel that we had planted many seeds during our time there and I feel as though many people will come to Christ because of our encounters. P. Benz and her whole family came to our hotel to send us off. It was so hard to say goodbye to them and them waving bye as we drove away was so bittersweet.
Even though our time in Bangkok came to an end, we still had about a week left in Thailand. It was time to celebrate Christmas and reunite with the rest of the squad in Chiang Mai for debrief! We took a bus overnight that was about a 10 hour trip. We arrived at the missionary center at about 4:00 am and then headed back to bed, ready to meet up with our friends again! Our time in debrief was so good for us as a squad. It was an amazing time to catch up with everyone and hear all about everyone’s ministries. It was also so good to spend Christmas and New Years with everyone! I’m not going to lie, Christmas was a lot harder of a time than I thought it was going to be. It was so hard not waking up to opening gifts with my family and then spending the day celebrating with them. Even though I wasn’t with my biological family, I still got to spend it with my newfound family in Christ. We did a secret santa letter exchange, a white elephant exchange, and, as a team, a secret santa gift exchange. We also had a Christmas tree, which was such a blessing to have. In the evening, we had a fancy dinner, put together by our absolutely perfect hospitality team! It was such a bittersweet time, and I really did miss my family so much. My support system of leaders and mentors, were so good at reminding me that Jesus spent time away from his family, and that Jesus was worth sacrificing a Christmas at home with my family.
During the week after, we had sessions taught by our coaches, leaders, and mentors. We also debriefed our time in Thailand as a team and swapped leaders, who would be our leaders in our next country, Albania! My new leader is Lee, who was the leader of the boy’s team! The boys, who had been living in Chiang Mai, took a couple of us on a hike up a mountain called Doi Suthep. It was a challenging hike, but it was so rewarding! We then said goodbye to 2024 and counted down the seconds to 2025! We sat on the roof of the missions center and watched fireworks and the sky as it lit up with lanterns. It was so beautiful to see. As we headed into the new year, we also headed into our next country, Albania. On January 1st, my team set off for Tiranë, Albania! Can’t wait to see how God will continue to move!
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