Thailand

My journey to Asia started uneventfully by me loosing my passport. I got home after my last yet long night from the office to not knowing where my passport was. Umm, considering the fact that I was leaving within 24 hours the panic was minimal. I searched my house in every crook and cranny, wherever I thought it could be, praying fervently but not finding it. Out of sheer fatigue, since it was 4 in the morning, I resolved to go to bed, having a sneaking suspicion that the darn thing might be at the office. The next morning at 9, as I woke up 2 hours later than I had planned, I called the office and sure enough, Jenny our secretary, found it in one of my folders. Praise the Lord! Now all I needed to do within the next 3 ½ hours was pack for a month, shower, exchange Euros into Baht and RMB, buy small gifts for the Chinese, buy some personal necessities AND get my passport from the office (a journey that usually takes an hour each way) – no sweat! Let’s just say that it was a lot of running around but by God’s grace, and lack of traffic on the roads, I managed!
The rest of the trip was really relaxing. Sarah, Debbie, Noel and I, got to the airport in good time, we had a good and healthy lunch at McDonalds and were on our way. The airplane was really nice. It was a 9 hour flight that went by really fast as we each had our own personal screen. I watched like 3 movies and had a grand time :o) We arrived in Bangkok and boarded our next airplane within the hour. I love Bangkok International Airport. It’s huge, and I mean HUGE, we walked a good 20 min to our connecting flight. The second ride was shorter but equally as sweet as I slept through the entire thing! I fell asleep before takeoff and slept all the way through till about 15 min before landing. Then all of a sudden we were in Chiang Mai. It’s so weird, you board a big, white contraption, you sit still for 9 hours, watch a few movies and all of a sudden you’re in a new country with new sights & sounds and definitely new smells. I love Thailand with its lush vegetation and exotic foods.
I’ve just come back from a wonderful day that has just felt like a reward for all the work this summer. I have just spent a day riding elephants and a bamboo raft down a river. I absolutely loved it. As we were riding the elephants I was just gazing at the jungle, listening to its sounds mingled with the clinging of the equipment on the elephants and people’s laughter in the background. What made it even more interesting was that it rained the entire time, resulting in us fighting gravity, trying to stay on the elephant and not land under it, as our seats were so slippery! LOL It must have been a funny sight seeing so many white people on elephants, pulling strange faces trying to keep from falling. It was amazing, though, sitting on the back of such a big animal walking in between the trees surrounded by God’s serene creation. What an experience.
The second thing we did today was bamboo rafting down a river. That was probably my highlight. We spent 45 min on a raft constituting of, probably around 10 big thick bamboo shoots, floating down a river. It was awesome. As we slid down the river my thoughts went to ‘The Jungle book’ when Mogli was floating down the river on Baloo’s stomach right before the monkeys came and took him, lol! We were 4 people on my raft, the driver, a couple from South Africans and myself. We stood the entire way, ducking for branches dangling over the water, trying to stay balanced on the raft as our driver tried to make us fall overboard, while having a water fight with him. Like I said we had a blast! We ended the night by going to Chiang Mai’s night market where we had another amazing meal constituting of curry rice with cashew and pineapple, pork with greens and rice and then sticky rice and mango for a desert. My stomach is very satisfied and happy right now.

Oh, I’ve got to share one major praise before I end this. I was leaving on Thursday mid-afternoon for Asia, on Wednesday morning I still had no idea how I was going to finance my time there. I had bought my tickets, with some money on my credit card but had still to pay my participation fee and have some kind of spending money. Well, I’m not going to go into all the details but by the end of the day I had paid my fee, given money I had promised to other people and had loads more money to spend and use during my time in Thailand and China! Praise the Lord Jehovah Jirah, our Provider, He did it again. Why do we ever worry about finances? The Lord promises that as we seek Him first, as we put Him in the driver’s seat, He will provide for all that we need. It is a promise I have clung to during my last 4 years in Greece yet it never ceases to amaze and stress me out at the same time. One night, as I was sitting out on the barge at Proto Astro worrying about how I was going to pay for all of this, the Lord rebuked me and basically told me that I didn’t trust Him. That was painful to realize. I’ve been living by faith for the past 4 years, I’ve seen Him provide for me time and time again yet I still worry about this. Why are we so fickle? Am I just like the Israelites who, after witnessing and living through all of the miracles the Lord did, turned right back to their old ways again? I’ve seen Him provide for me, I’ve never gone hungry, I have everything I need and then some how I still worry about what I’m going to eat, what I’m going to ware and where I’m going to sleep. Why can’t we just let go of our fleshly nature of doubt and desire of relying on oneself instead of the Lord?
I just want to leave you with this quote that’s helped me more than any other quote I’ve ever heard:

If you’re worrying you’re not trusting and if you’re trusting, you’re not worrying

I don’t know when I’ll be able to write again but until next time,
Blessings