I'm here!

A quick update from Thailand - after 3 days of planes, buses, taxis and trucks we have arrived safely at our destination! Thanks to all of you who have been praying for my team's travels along the way - through delayed flights and schedule changes, we made it with all of our luggage to Bangkok on time, and even got free food vouchers in LA. Granted, what was suppose to be a nice and luxurious layover in HongKong we spent running through the airport, God totally had a hand over our travels.

We arrived in Bangkok around 2am Saturday morning (which is 1pm Friday afternoon in Colorado Springs), and spent the day there with an Australian team going through some Thai orientation and taking a scavenger hunt around the big city. I tasted authentic Thai food for the first time, and am already hooked! Each meal since then has been different and delicious, and usually costs less than $1 per person. After dinner we loaded an overnight double-decker bus to travel to our home on the Northern Thai/Burma border. We made it in around 4am, and have since been trying to tackle jet lag and get back on a normal schedule! I'm stilling wearing my watch set for Colorado time - but it works great because I only have to add 1 hour (3:30pm here, 2:30am back home).

Our home is beautiful, a hotel surrounded by flowers and big green trees, located right on the edge of downtown and within walking distance from any major hot spots in the city. Tomorrow we begin ministry with Compasio, splitting up to various locations to work with kids, building projects, schools and more. This morning we went to Partners Relief and Development (www.partnersworld.org) and learned about the Burmese people we will be working with, and the state of war and deprivation that their country is in. I wish I had time to write about this subject (maybe in a later post), but my eyes were opened and heart broken to issues I was completely unaware of up to this point. Basically the Burmese government is going through a controlled racial cleansing, killing off their own people and spending all of their country's income for militia funding.

More to come soon! I only have an hour on the computer each week, but I wanted to post that I am here, am safe, and anxious to begin serving! The people here are welcoming and beautiful, and my heart is bursting to get started. Please continue to keep us in your prayers, for patience with language barriers, unity as a team, and to be fully committed in service as we go out in ministry. Also, pray for our health - so far all of us are feeling great (besides falling asleep during dinner) - but I know with different foods and environments, illnesses tend to sneak in and slow down a team.

Also, some people have asked if it is too late to give and partner with this ministry... absolutely not! Any donations are still greatly appreciated, and we will be using those funds to build classrooms and aid medical vehicles here in Thailand. Also, I have made plans to partner with YWAM full-time in September, and will need to raise a support base to continue doing outreach ministries. Please pray if there is any way you can be apart of this! Thanks for checkin in... stay tuned for more stories from the 10/40 window :)