Hi, friends!
It's been a few days and I only have a few minutes, but I wanted to let you know that I am, in fact, alive! :) These last few days have been filled with lots of time on a bus with the SST students and exploring ruins and temples and museums. I'm currently in Bangkok and I'll be catching a bus down south to Krabi tonight with my friends. More good times to come!
Some of the highlights of the last few days included doing a bike tour around Sukothai ruins, feeding monkeys in downtown Lopburi (there were millions and Jonathan got in a fight with on when it stole his bag of chips..classic), trying the different kinds of iced coffee from bags in the various markets outside the temples, practicing my thai with locals, exploring cities at night, getting lost, finding my way home, spending the night in ritzy hotels, a boat tour down the canal through Bangkok, a karaoke night cruise in Pitsanulok, and revisiting Khao San Road last night where we found a street singer who sounds exactly like Alanis Morrisette.
Particularly awesome was that I was able to connect with my dear friend Melody (who I went to Thailand with this past summer). She came back to Thailand two weeks after me and started teaching English in Lopburi. I didn't know Lopburi was part of our trip until the night before, so I facebooked her and the following evening, after a series of crazy encounters with strangers and the graciousness of a Lopburi resident, I was reunited with Melody over an awesome dinner. It felt SO GOOD to catch up with her and see what God is doing in her life these days! A God-thing for sure. I was so blessed.
While I've been having so much fun, I've also been experiencing moments of spiritual exhaustion in these last few days. Watching the way Buddhism affects this culture and seeing how much money is invested in temples and how dedicated people are to "making merit" is really exhausting. There's a lot of darkness in these places..I've been seeing a lot of poverty, a lot of sexual confusion, a lot of brokenness. I have a heavy heart about these things. So thankful that God extends his grace freely...and that grace frees us and that there is hope in the most hopeless things and light in what looks like darkness. But my heavy heart is especially heavy these days..if you could keep me in your prayers as I pray over and process through what I'm seeing, that'd be great. God is good.
I'm looking forward to a nice long 10-hour bus ride tonight and beautiful blue waters in the morning. Thinking/praying time (and sleep) is very much needed.
Thank you for your prayers! I'm needing them and feeling them.
BLESSINGS, friends.
Fully engaged and broken,
Desiree
