Travel Mercies

(from Laurie) “Travel mercies” was the operative phrase for the day. We had to get our 700 pounds of books as well as the team to the Bangkok airport for a 2 hour flight to Fang. The wonderful people at the Good News Bible Center in Bangkok facilitated the whole thing. They arranged for transportation to the airport for books, bodies, and bags. Bruce and Michael went 2 hours ahead of the team with the books because it was determined that it would be 15 times cheaper to air freight the books than to bring them with us on the plane and pay the over weight limit charges. Because they packaged in boxes rather than in luggage like we had originally planned, we were charged a cheaper book rate for them. (Thank you, Janice Busboom!) Unlike how things usually work in Thailand, all transportation arrived on time and we got checked in without difficulties. Our only bad moment was checking out of the hotel. Bruce had pre-paid 60% of the bill on check-in, but they tried to charge us the full amount when Jan went to pay. When I kept saying “no” and shaking my head, then looking for the phone number of people who had helped us check in, they backed down and actually gave us a better price than originally intended.

Pastor Timothy and his wife Fang were waiting for us at the Chiang Rai airport with 2 vans, a pickup for the books, and his pickup. We stopped briefly at the world’s largest gong on the way to Fang. It was big. Our next stop was at the Lihu hill tribe village where I gave medicine to the mother for her little boy’s ears. Pastor Nathan from New York City brought a team there after we built our church and built a church for this village. It was exciting for the team to meet the people of the village. For most of them it was their first experience with people living such a modest life—content with their simple bamboo huts.

Since we built the first hilltribe church building (Akah tribe) for pastor Timothy, he has had teams build 5 more churches in just over 12 months.

We’re staying at the Tangerine Villa again this year, beautiful and very clean, but as Angie says the beds give a new definition for firm. (Imagine a very slightly padded board.) But the place is clean!

We had a wonderful Thai dinner--Pastor Timothy did the ordering and we had a feast. We ended the day with “debriefing”—talking about what most impacted us. The person who leads the morning devotions leads the debriefing. We each have a day to lead. Already, these times have been powerful. The Lord is working through the youth as well as through the adults.

The Lord is honoring our prayers. Travel with a group of 13 is going much more smoothly than expected. The youth have great attitudes. They’ve been willing to pitch in and help where ever needed, and we haven’t heard a word of complaint despite long days and HEAT and HUMIDITY. Thank goodness Fang is less humid than Bangkok and it cools down to the 70’s at night. We’re all doing well now.