A recent visit to Kuala Lumpur proved to be more than we bargained for!
All of the teams arrived at Kuala Lumpur airport and we all made our way to Pudu hostel like a nice little group of tourists! Around 2 am we all went to bed in the extreme heat and struggled to fall asleep. 4 hours later Hatting woke us up cheerfully with a little brown envelope on our beds: Challenge number 2!
All of us decided the previous day that we would have breakfast together so we did that and then the challenge started. The yellow team headed to the Petronas towers first. We stood in the line for quite some time, but got our trip to the suspended bridge. We then went to the bird park, but because we are five in our team it is not legal for all five of us to get in to one taxi, so we had to walk every where we wanted to go except for the trains and one bus ride. We found the bird we had to take a picture of and we went back to the train to go to Sunway lagoon, a water park, where we had to spend three hours relaxing a bit, but on the way there we decided that we would take pictures of "spirit houses" (small bird feeder like things outside homes) if we found any. It so happened that there was one right next to a small train station on the way to the lagoon. Paul grabbed the camera and jumped out the door, the rest of us were just sitting because we where a bit exhausted. As the warning signs where going of for the train to leave, we saw that Paul wasn't back yet so we tried to keep the door open for him, but we didn't see him on the platform, but he luckily managed to catch the other door on the train.
After a long day of running around we had to get to Phuket. We where able to catch a bus to just over the border (where our money ran out).The bus dropped us there at the bus station. We then decided to hike to Phuket but the people kept on directing us back to the bus station when we tried to hike. As we where losing hope ( this was after about five hours in that town) we where just about to give up hope when we met some english speaking people who helped us to buy a bus ticket to Phuket!
Arriving in Phuket we still had to eat sticky rice and mango, find a Tsunami memorial and find our leaders on the beach, and if we wanted bonus points we had to ride elephants. We got off the bus at about nine in the evening and barely caught the last sticky rice and mango stall, but we still had to get to Nay yang beach, 45km from Phuket and we reckoned that there would be a memorial site. As we where standing there eating our sticky rice and mango we started looking for a lift. We tried to get one of the hotel shuttles because the camp site is next to the airport, but there was no success. As we where walking back we passed a place where people where entering and we went there and asked for help. After a lot of explanation we got a young woman who offered to take us there, we just needed to go and get our friends. I had a lot of doubt in my mind because this was a young, single lady, what are the chances that she will have a big enough car for five people and our backpacks? We prayed about it and when we all got back to the place she pulled up in her Toyota Avanza, the big family car. We all sat with our backpacks on our laps, but we got there with a lot of explanation because she couldn't speak english. She even phoned a friend who spoke english when we asked her if she knew of a memorial site.
We landed in the small tourist town and tried to get a lift to a memorial site, but we learned that the closest one was 30km back in the direction we just came from! At about midnight we gave up and decided to go to the beach and just finish the challenge. We walked down to the beach and set our backpacks under the beach umbrellas because it was starting to rain. Two hours later we gave up looking for the tents on the beach and slept in a restaurant. We woke up at five and started looking again. Some of the girls went looking for a lift when they found the others and we where so happy to just finish that we immediately went there, pitched our tents and showered, or tried to at least ( you only have a tap and a bucket). We really enjoyed the challenge and got to see the Thai people's friendliness. We appreciated their friendliness so much.
We then left to Ban Bangmuang, where we are staying now. This whole week we have been working at a pre school that was built recently. It was funded by a tsunami relief fund, because the school is built about 300m from the beach. It has been hard and challenging work because we had to level heaps of sand and level the entire terrain around the school with truck loads of sand dumped on one spot and we moving it with shovels, baskets and wheel burrows. After a week we have not only done that but we have also helped with the last remaining building work, fencing and cleaning. It was a good time where I learned a lot of patience because I got irritated when the people sat on the steps and simply decided that we look bored so we should move this heap of sand to there, but God taught me a lot of things like patience and perseverance.
Saturday we had a fun day with the children on the beach and it was just amazing to see their appreciation and love when we did the smallest things, even the naughty ones that we had to go and fetch from the ocean whenever we wanted to play a game was filled with joy when PJ started folding balloons. The Thai people are very warm, possibly even warmer than the weather...
All of us are really enjoying it, but at the same time we are learning and being shaped by God, little by little we move closer to His plans for us!
We really need prayer for our China trip because there have been some difficulties with regulations and the fact that we are a big group.
Thank you for all your constant prayer, it is really effective (especially when we are working with power tools!) and I just ask that you never stop praying for us!
May every one have a blessed and peaceful week!
Janus