Thailand!

Well I wanted to start this blog off with pictures but for some reason I can't which is frustrating so I am sorry for that. I will give everyone a brief update of all that we have done here in Thailand.

We stayed in Bangkok for three days and on one of the days we did a prayer walk all over the city. We went to famous Buddhist temples all over the city and prayed over them. We prayed over parliament buildings and prayed over the riots that are taking place around the city. We saw a lot of the city in one day and it was amazing, but also sad to see how much idol worship there is here. There are spirit houses in front of pretty well every house and business, which are like tiny little houses where the Spirits can live instead of coming into the actual home or business (A spirit house would be placed similar to a mail box in the States, out front where everyone can see it). People place drink offerings and food offerings on these spirit houses to keep the spirits happy, its tough to see that everyone believes in that kind of stuff here. Never the less the people here are so amazing, they are like the warmest and most smile filled people ever.

After spending some time in Bangkok we took an overnight bus to Chiang Rai which was about an 11 hour bus ride, and the bus was so amazing haha. The seats reclined basically all the way down so we slept all the way here to Chiang Rai. We are staying at the base of a local pastor here in Chiang Rai, his name is Pastor Suphot he is such a great guy. We are outside the city a little ways but its really nice here. The weather is really hot, its been like 38 - 42 degrees every day since we've been here so I've been sweating a lot. Since being here in Chiang Rai we have been promoting free english classes at the church and been teaching them as well. This past weekend we went up to a hill tribe about 2 and half hours away.

While we were there we painted their church inside and out and we also shared testimonies and did woship with them. I also got the opportunity to do the Sunday service, which was a real honor for me. They made us so much good food, lots of rice haha. On Saturday the two pastors of the church of the church said they wanted to take us to a cave. We all thought it'd be some sort of tourist attractions or something off the side of the road, but it definitely wasn't. We hiked straight uphill for about thirty minutes through bush to get to this cave and it wasn't just a dinky little cave it was a massive cavern with millions of bats in it. It was so amazing, I've never seen anything like it before and they took us inside it. I forgot to mention i was in flip flops this whole time and its not easy doing rock to rock jumping and climbing in them.

When we got to an opening up in the side of the mountain we were looking out on the hills and we spotted a bear. As we were watching this bear walk around we saw it take off into a field that was full of farm animals and it started chasing them around, I'm not sure what it caught, but it got something. Meanwhile there was another bear on the main road where our van was parked and our pastors basically took off ahead of us back down the hill. There were a couple girls that didn't come in the cave so I think the pastors were worried that the girls didn't know there was a bear on the road where they would come out of the bush. They ran past them and down to the road, the girls said that the pastors were practically running down the hill that took us forever to climb. Now the story they tell is that when they got to the bottom they grabbed two huge sticks and started chasing this bear away and as they were chasing it one of the pastors hit it on the back. The bear turned around on them and reared at them and they hit it again, and it got scared off thankfully. When we got down to the bottom we heard all about it and I couldn't believe it, the pastors both said they had never seen a bear before haha.

Now we are back in Chiang Rai and today is a day off. There was talk of going to ride some elephants today but I think we are going to a waterfall to do some swimming and cool down from the heat. Tomorrow Songkran starts, which is the festival for the Thai new year. The way they celebrate is with a three day all out water fight. If your out driving or walking your fair game and your going to get soaked by trucks full of people with water guns and buckets of water. (We already have been the last couple days, this water fight actually lasts about 12 days, so if your driving your windows better be up cause people aren't afraid to get you in your vehicle) The water represents blessings and when you get splashed by someone it is received as a blessing for the new year, so the wetter you get the better. We have a huge flatbed truck with seats on it that we are taking out and for the next three days we are going to do some major water dumping. Its going to be a lot of fun!

I hope that you all are doing well and thank you again for your prayers and support, God Bless!

Adam