"The land of smiles"

Thailand!! Wow it's an incredible place! Filled with beauties that only seeing in person can be understood! It definitely lives up to its phrase "the land of smiles" everyone here is just amazing. This country is special for me! We started in Bangkok just relaxing at the hostel for a few days doing some important paperwork and then we get too that we are doing our Luke 10 in Chiangmai ! So now I'm really excited ! We get given our teams and then we get ready! We took a 10hour bus ride to Chiangmai to a church where we were going to leave our bags and then head off ! There we met some really awesome Germans that were helping at the church ! That next day we all left and started our journey together ! I was with Lucas, Dani and Reuben we felt like we needed to go north to the boarder of Laos so that's were we started heading and on the way we were blessed tremendously. We felt the Lord tell us that we shouldn't take shoes and one just one small bag with a tooth brush ! And this really got people's attention ! The first night we slept In a nature reserve with tents that were set up for us by the lovely workers there ! They were so excited to help us after we explained what we were doing and why we are doing this crazy thing ! They bought us, food made our beds, brought us clothes and shoes and even gave us money for more food ! The next day we got a bit closer to the boarder and that night we slept in a temple where we got help from some monks !! The whole time we were hitchhiking as a means of transport. We met some awesome people that we ministered to on the road as well as just a few 'back of the bukkie rides' In the rain or burning sunshine ! Some people blessed us with money and food so the whole time we weren't hungry at all ! Every meal was covered ! When we arrived at our destination, Chiangdou, we just walked for a bit until we found a church where we just felt 'maybe we should go in', so we did and the people were about to have a service, so we thought you know it's Sunday we are in a church so we might as well stay for the service ! People asked us to speak about what we were doing and we even got to pray for the church! It turned out, they had dinner there and this was the one Sunday in that month that they were making supper. So we got invited to stay and everyone was so excited about us doing this crazy stuff they took photos with us and then kept giving us food ! They also gave us a gift of money to pay for accommodation at a hostel. So we were blown away by how much they gave us !! Excited, we started looking for a hostel that we had heard about called Mercy hostel! While we were looking I saw this golden clock tower which I'd also heard about and apparently every hour it's does this light show thing ! So I convinced my team to stay and watch. We picked the most random spot right In front of it and waited! There was a lot of doubt that it was going to do something and a few jokes were thrown around that it wasn't ! But eventually it did and it was really one of my best moments ! It was just perfect. I really will never forget how good God was that day ! We found this mercy hostel eventually and as we walked in on the wall, written large, was a scripture from Luke 10 and we freaked out at how perfect this was !! So we booked in to this almost 10point hostel and it was fantastic ! We spent some team time and had a few chats with some of the people there ! And then had a good sleep! The next day we had breakfast and felt that we should stay till 11 which was when we had to check out ! So we messed around for a bit talked to the staff, finding out that this place is owned by a Christian and they are also Christian ! So we were really stoked at this point then we gave some of our money to some staff members as a blessing and then we actually found out that one of the ladies is actually the owner so we were like noo ways !! We did this awesome thing where we all stood In a circle and then all prayed at once !! We left there with another gift. When we opened the envelope, it was the exact amount that we paid for the hostel to stay one night!! So we got that for free !! God is good !! Then we decided to head back to Chiangmai ! So we started hitchhiking and we couldn't get a lift for a while ! Soon we felt that we should take a bus and eventually got back to Chiangmai ! While we were there we didn't have a place to stay so we just decided to walk and see where the Lord leads us and then we just went and sat in Macdonalds for a long while and ate some food there and chilled for the rest of the day just waiting for something to happen. When nothing happened we went to look for a place to sleep! We were almost gonna sleep in a construction site on some cardboard boxes, but we saw a hostel and thought to ask if we could sleep and they rejected us ! So we carried on walking then as a joke we thought it would be fun to actually follow the signs on the road ( a bunch of arrows ) and it lead us straight to a church where we stayed for two days, ministering and praying for them. We got such an amazing chance to share our stories and struggles with the people there, to not only encourage them but to show them that God is amazing !! We also got an insane chance to pray over the people one by one !! After the two days we felt that the Lord Was telling us to leave now and carry on, on our journey and so we started walking once more ! We took our time because we had no idea were to go and then we just went back Macdonalds to get our bearings! There we wrote all our options down on pieces of paper, put them In hat and randomly chose ! The paper we pulled had the option "wait" So we stayed and had time to talk and to get to know each other more ! It was really good! After waiting we walked once more and after a while had gone by, walking by faith was all we needed. We walked right Into another church/coffee shop were we stayed and spent the night. There we got to pray with the kids at the school they had for missionary kids and shared some testimonies and we got some inspirational talks from the lady running everything! Some amazing relationships were built on this journey, not only from the people we met, but also in my team ! Then we went back to the church and slept there that night ! Louw arrived the next day and called everyone together and then gave us a paper with a challenge that we had to hitchhike to Bangkok !! And now it was myself and Calvin together !!! Super excited, because the Lord has just done an amazing work and now I get to do it all over again!! We headed off and again it was such a blessing! The first night we got quite far being blessed with a little bit of money and we got help from the police. They actually created had a road block where they asked the people they stopped where they where going so that we could go with them ! So we got to a train station that evening and we slept/fought off the mosquitos for the whole night ! Then next day a guy buys us bus tickets to Bangkok !!! We were so stoked! Calvin and I took the 9hour trip to Bangkok and then arrived late that evening! We met up with my Luke 10 team. Had some coffee there and eventually slept in the bus station station for two nights ! While we were there Calvin and I watched Thai boxing which was awesome !! Then we eventually got back to where we were supposed to all meet up !! Now we are in Phuket helping at ACF and it was such a blessing to just help them with manual labour. I see in our hosts that they actually deeply care about the people who come to help ! And that really has had a big affect on me ! The Lord did some pretty big things in my life here in Thailand and I had to make some pretty big decisions that affected my life positively ! The Lord is doing some insane works in my life and I'm soo happy to be in his plan!