Malaysia & Thailand in faith (part 2)

After Langkawi it was a 1500km hike to Kho Chang, a Thai island close to the Cambodian border.  After only 33 hours, numerous lifts including a 10h one from southern Thailand into Bangkok on the back of a twin cab Hilux... tight squeeze, we were on the island and met up with South Bound (one of the other GCX teams).  So while everyone worked, went on fishing and snorkelling trips and had good food, I was admitted into hospital for Dengue fever.  I started feeling feverish in Langkawi, but thought it was just too much sun.  After 4 days of fever and feeling sick whenever I saw or smelt food, I had it checked out and only left 3 days later!  It seemed that I might have to stay behind while my team left for Bangkok, but God answered my prayers again and I was discharged on the day that the team left.  On our way to Bangkok we were again blessed by a stranger who gave us a lift, offered to let us stay at his place for the night and after we prayed for God’s will to be done, changed his mind and bought us bus tickets to Bangkok.  Our stay in Bangkok was short and we only had time for a 2h cycle ride, a temple or 2 and a Cornetto or 3 before taking a bus to Phuket.
I was amazed to find Phuket a bussling hotspot for tourism.  I thought I would still see the remnants of the tsunami, but none of that.  Places like Phatong beach were as busy as ever.  If I really searched, I would probably find some tsunami signs, but we were kept far too busy with other incidents...
Our faith story of Phuket has to be the one about our team money.  While Anthony went looking for a place to stay for the night, the rest of us headed for the beach for a sunset swim.  Stoffel was the one who noticed someone at our bags and got out the water and chased him away.  After we checked our belongings, Stoffel announced that his short was gone, not such a big problem... until he shared that our team money and credit card were in the pockets... huge problem!  After praying, we started to look for the “beach comber” and found him about a 100m down the beach... wearing Stoffel’s shorts that he scaled 20 minutes before.  As jy dom is...  He quickly gave us back the shorts and followed it by saying he had no money, strange as we didn’t mention any money.  So after a real life chase down the beach Anthony caught him, and phoned the cops.  Then off to the police station to give our statements.  After some hours we could leave, still without any cash.  So back to the beach it was.  We prayed for wisdom and knowledge into the situation and after 20 min we could again go swimming with our money (2100 Baht) and our credit card “safely” in Stoffel’s shorts.  Again, God is faithful!
From Phuket we travelled by ferry to Phi Phi island, the island from the movie The Beach.  It was beautiful and although we couldn’t go to the actual beach that you see in the movie (Maya beach), Phi Phi was pure paradise with white beaches, palm trees and turquoise water.
So after a ferry back to main land (Krabi), we started hiking again to KL.  Back in KL we hung around for some hours doing some last minute site seeing before going to the airport.  Never would we guess how this day would turn out though.  To make a long story short, we missed our flight to Melbourne and subsequently missed our flight the next morning from Melbourne to Sydney.
So with ample anger, confusion and frustration in the air we sat down for a bear fisted, emotional, heart-to-heart team chat.  It was only in retrospect that we could see that although God was still faithful, we weren’t.  We let our relationships with God slip and were so focused on our trip and the places that we were seeing and going to see that we forgot to check in with God.  This, the missed flight, was just God’s way of saying to us “Slow down, talk to Me.”  What was amazing to me was hoe God, in spite of our selfish ways, still blessed us in abundance.  So after some repenting, confessions and forgiveness, God again made a way and we flew to Melbourne the very next day.
This was WYW’s Malay/Thai adventures in a nutshell.  Keep an eye on this space for the next chapter which would be New Zealand.
Much love De Necker