Travel and Arrival

4:35 a.m. Wednesday, February 20th. (4:35 p.m. Tuesday February 19th for you all in Michigan)

First and foremost: Happy Anniversary Blair. You've been a wonderful husband to me and father to our kids for the past 14 years. I love you!

Finally am getting chance to post. We've been booked busy since we arrived at 2:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning our time (that would bt 2:30 p.m. on Monday for all of you) The reason being....Becky said if we stopped moving....we cease to be awake. She didn't want us to sleep until it was "time" to sleep in Thailand again. Uff Da. My eyes burn as I type this, but I've been in bed lying there since 3 a.m., so I thought I'd come down to the business center and give their internet a try. I heard that the service was like dial up, but instead of looking at the ceiling for another hour (well, I imagined the ceiling, it was dark) I got up and came 11 floors down to the business center. Internet works about like Comcast.

Okay, trip details. The plane ride from DTW to Tokyo was a breeze. We all commented on how "easy" it was, laughing and making merry at the anxiety we had felt for the 13 or so hour leg. We were a little tired in Japa but giddy with anticpation, as we waited for the next flight, but all were pleased as a whole.

**Insert: Drum Roll and dramatic music now (like a Geico Commercial)"** Then we got on the MUCH smaller A330 airplane. After the 747 it felt like being in an elevator with 42 other people that had all been up for 24 hours straight. Air traffic control in Japan was having trouble and once packed in the plane, we had to sit for over an hour before take off. Then a slight amount of misery started. My body started to complain. I felt like I felt the fifth day of basketball practice after the season started. Sore, tired, groggy, impatient. Absolutely exhausted--but unable to get comfort in anyway. Long story short--we made the 8 hour flight to Bangkok w/off and on sleep & soreness, but we arrived safe. Thank you Lord!

Went through the diddy w/checking inw/passports and declaring why we were in THailand. No problems. Becky procurred us a taxi (the coolest Toyota vans that seat 12! Christy, you gotta check it out! They are very nice looking--) Got to the hotel around 2:40 a.m. Got to our rooms around 3:30 and finally were lights out around 4 a.m. We were up at 8:25. and down to breakfast at 9. Becky's goal today (yesterday) was just to keep us moving and awake.

Walking through the streets of Bangkok is like nothing I've ever seen. The city is LOADED w/people. Okay, some of you think Atlanta or New York is bad traffic. This is INSANE. People are too poor to have stoves and fridges and to purchase gas to cook. So almost the whole city eats out every meal on the streets. For .45 cents, they get a meal. The entire city is out at meal time to eat off the street vendors. No FDA regulations--anyone and everyone is selling fish w/the heads still on cooking right there as you walk by...that and every other sort of "thing" you an imagine cook on a little grill right before your nose--the smells just assailed me as we walked...stench, fish, waste, fruit, dirty river water...you name it...my nose smelled it. Kim and I had a really hard time last night.

I have to go shower and get ready to leave here for a 2.5 hour taxi ride to Pattaya to a safe house in a not good area. So have to go. The saddest thing I've seen so far, other than the throngs of people living off the street, was on the way home from dinner last night, the shrines and statues of elephants, statues of figures (not sure who) both Hindus and Buddhists kneeling on the street corners where these "shrines" are set up, tons of fresh fruit and vegetables laid in front of the images, floral wreaths draped over the elephants tusks or heads, boquets of roses left, and 100's of sticks of burning incense (adding to the smells of the already stinky city) being added to left and right. Young girls w/not much on, teenagers, grown men, moms w/babies, kneeling and offering themselves to hopeless idols made of stone.

Made me thankful in a whole new way for the Hope that lies within me. Christ the Redeemer, the once for all atonement for my Sin.

Now that this is so easy to post on their computers, I'll be more faithful. We literally have been running since getting here. Not sure if I can post pictures yet. Janelle has a flash drive, I'll see if I can figure that out...otherwise, I"ll just post through writing.

Today, again, on to Pataya, in 1/2 hour...so I gotta go. Please keep praying. The safe house we are going to, Becky has never even been to yet and she doesn't know what to expect either, other than that Pattaya has a really bad reputation as Sin City. Praying for safety and the possiblity to love these girls/women and show the Gospel through our lives. We did meet another missionary in the Tokyo airport that saw Janelle's computer screen w/our prayer card. He and 3 others were going to Thailand on the plane w/us...but they couldn't disclose to us what and where they were going, only said they'd pray for us.

Love to all. (I won't spell check or anything..as I"m paying by the minute. please forgive grammar and writing)
Karen