Belated Thailand Tuesday

Thanks so much for the interest you all showed in Thailand Tuesdays. It means a lot to me that I'll get to record some of our experiences, and people might even enjoy reading! My apologies for missing the first "Thailand Tuesday" post yesterday. I was so sad. I did, in fact, prepare the entire post, however, I was unable to post it because of internet difficulties. You see, the back-up computer I was using yesterday refused to connect to the internet. The other desktop computer we have was in the bedroom that H takes his naps in so I was unable to use it. Thankfully, J moved the desktop from the bedroom to the dining room table, so that I can use the internet during H's naps now. It's only a temporary fix until we get our macbook up and running again. Either way, here is yesterday's post. Thanks for understanding!

So, I thought for the first installment of Thailand Tuesdays I would share about how we came to spend a year in Thailand in the first place.

Throughout college, J and I were both very involved in an organization called Campus Crusade for Christ. Many of you may have heard of it, but for those of you who haven't CCC is an international, interdenominational Christian oganization that is centered on the college campus. CCC staff and volunteers work to share the Gospel with students as well as encourage, disciple and train them. CCC also has various stateside and overseas programs such as summer projects and STINT.

After J's sophomore year of college, he decided to go on a summer project to Thailand. He had no idea where Thailand was even located, but after our CCC director suggested it to him, he decided to go. During his six weeks there, he grew in many ways including developing a huge passion for the country. He made a decision that summer that he wanted to give a year of his life to full-time missions, but he had no idea what that would look like at the time.

Fast forward a year and a half later. J and I had been dating for about a year when the tsunami happened in S.E. Asia. The southern coastline of Thailand was greatly affected which resulted in CCC organizing multiple trips to help with relief efforts. The first of these trips was planned for spring break. When the opportunity was first presented, I had no interest in going. I already had plans to spend spring break with my sister in Dallas, so I didn't even think twice about it...until about two weeks before the trip was supposed to take place. I was sitting in a CCC meeting one night, and during prayer time I suddenly felt this urging from God that He wanted me to be going. I didn't have a passport or any money to pay for the trip, but the next day I made the commitment to our director that I wanted the last open spot. I knew without a doubt that God wanted me to go, and I knew He would somehow provide.

He did provide...abundantly! Over the next two weeks I received my passport and raised more than twice the amount of money that the trip cost. I had never experienced God in such a tangible way before, and it was incredible.

While my time in Thailand was much shorter than J's and I was involved in a different kind of work/ministry, I had a similar experience in that I fell in love with the country and the people. After just a short week, I came back to the U.S. with full intentions of returning to Thailand at some point.

Fast forward another few years. J and I were married, and I had just finished up my last semester of college. Since we had been engaged we had talked about how we both wanted to return to Thailand. Regardless of the fact that J loved his job that he had been working at for over a year, we knew that it was the best time to go if we were ever going to. While we felt that God had been calling us to go back for a long time, we knew that He would have to confirm that in many ways if we were actually going to make it. We made the decision to go with CCC because we were already familiar with the ministry. So, we applied for the STINT (short term international) program, and we were accepted a few weeks later. We started raising support in May of that year. By the end of June, God had provided every last thing that we needed; all of our financial support had come in, which only could have been a miracle from God. J's boss had granted him a year's leave of absence, and everything else had fallen into place. It was official....we were going back. And it was going to be even better this time because we were going together.

We spent one week of August 2008 at a briefing in Colorado. Then we flew from there to Thailand and arrived on August 21st. Thus began our year of adventures, hardships, joys and challenges. I'm so excited to share more next week!

The following are a few pics I scrounged up of my first trip to Thailand.

Our group when we arrived back home in Tulsa (I'm second from the right on the bottom)

My friend, Elyse, and I. The tsunami washed out all of the sand from around the roots of this tree.

This statue was one of the few things left standing on the island

We took these boats from the mainland to the island and back everyday.

Me, my friend JJ, and my friend Elyse. This is the part of the island where the tsunami hit first. (Please excuse the "freshman 30" I was still carting around at this time)

The water carried this boat to the middle of the island

This girl was a survivor from another island that we visited.

Another survivor. (I could only find the black and white version of these two pics.)


Some Thai men chilling on the pier. They're giving me the peace sign...very common for Thais

The island we worked on

I didn't know this little girl, but she just walked up and wrapped her arms around me

The island

These two men prayed to receive Christ!

I wish I could find the color version of this...it was so pretty!