SEW

Spiritual Emphasis Week, SEW, is going well so far. We are in day 2 of 5. Yesterday my dad spoke in high school chapel introducing the theme for the week. Then in the evening we had about 100 teens and adults come out for a continuation of the teaching. Our theme is Making it Count. So last night was Making it Count: Forgiveness. My dad did the majority of the teaching and I facilitated the small group discussion time as well as giving an illustration and closing out the night.

This morning I spoke to the high school for an hour on "The Performance Trap"-not letting our significance be based on our success in life. I know that some of them really understood it and it made an impact, but I hope that those who sit there without any expression will be broken and come into a greater relationship with the Lord. Tonight we are talking about Perseverance. I'm doing a skit with some of the kids and am excited to see how it turns out. (If you remember about the broken glass door, hopefully we won't have any accidents this time:)!

Made it to Thailand

I made it! I'm in Chaing Mai, Thailand. In the 28 hours since I've been here, I can say that I love it so far! So let me back up and finish the story of how I finally got here.

I finally flew out of Los Angeles at 1 am on Tuesday morning. It ended up that so many people were frustrated they had to be delayed so long, they booked another flight. We had about 50 people on our huge aircraft! Each person had a row to themselves. We arrived in Bangkok at 12:30 pm and had an airline attendant meet us at the gate. She took us to a holding area to check our tickets and give us vouchers for food since our flight was delayed to Chaing Mai. The airport was very clean and modern. (much nicer the LAX) Our flight to Chaing Mai finally departed at 3:35pm. As we were boarding the plane, an attendant who took our tickets said that we needed a different ticket. I was thinking, you've got to be kidding me. I guess the ticket they issued in LA wasn't the correct type of ticket and they weren't going to let us board. Finally a supervisor said we could board but that she would contact us in Chaing Mai for the correct boarding pass. I almost laughed outloud. How in the world would she contact us, and where in the world would we get the "correct ticket number". I figured that, hey, we got on the plane so that's all that matters.

We arrived in Chaing Mai and our luggage also made it! I was relieved! The Bolands, a couple who teach at Grace International School, picked us up at the airport. We arrived at their home, which is absolutely gorgeous! After we freshened up, 3 teachers from the school took us out to dinner at an amazing restaurant. It was all open with waterfalls and flowers. It was a traditional Thai restaurant. I ordered a soft tofu with sweet and sour sauce. It was interesting because you would think that a tofu dish would be vegetarian. But it came with chicken and a lot of veggies. I loved it! We got back to the Bolands home around 9:30pm and I went straight to bed. I got up at 6:30am and we left for the school at 7:15am. My mom spoke in elementary chapel this morning, we got a tour of the school, and in the evening we met with the student council leaders and chapel leaders. They are a great bunch of kids! They really shared their hearts with us tonight. Tomorrow we do high school chapel and the list goes on.:)

Delayed

I should be on an airplane right now somewhere near Chaing Mai, Thailand, but I'm not. Here's the low down....Arrive at LAX 6:45 pm. Takes 45 minutes to check in. Go eat dinner before we get on the 19 hr. plane ride. Go through security. Find LAX Bradley terminal to be dirty, under construction and very third world. I think I actually had culture shock in the bathrooms. Crazy, I know, but true. I went to look for the duty free shops--alcohol, cigarettes and magazines...that's it! So, that wasn't very entertaining.

We were to board at 8:50 pm. 9:30 departure. 9:30pm rolls around and an announcement is made that the entertainment center isn't working and there will be a 10 minute delay. 10 min. goes by, another announcement-30 more minutes. They bring out sodas and pretzels to ease those in the crowd who are getting axious. 30 minutes go by--another announcement--new departure time at 11:00pm. 10:50 pm comes about and new announcement--flight is cancelled. CANCELLED! Then continues the saga....we ECONOMY class get in one line and give our name. We then sit around for our name to be called to get our hotel voucher. I put headphones in and listed to music. About 30 minutes later, before I knew it, everyone was standing up and leaving. No announcement, nothing! Gathering my things together, shutting down my computer, I hurried to the back of the pack with my parents. We went back through security, outside and waited for the bus to take us to the hotel. Now, here's the funny thing. Our buses were delayed! Since I was in the back of the pack, I was on the fourth bus. When I got to the hotel(which was the Renaissance Hotel..very classy!) I waited in yet another line to check in. All in all..I put my head on the pillow at 2 AM.

Now here's the reason i'm happy all of that happened-I opened up my computer this morning and freaked out. It was acting really weird and nothing I did was working. This computer is the one I'm using for all of my teaching in Thailand. AHHHHHH!!! So since my new flight time is not until 6 pm tonight, I went to the front desk and found an Apple store 6 miles away. I walked in, explained my situation, almost got on my knees since they didn't have any more openings to look at my computer, and the nice apple techie showed mercy. He typed a few things, held a few buttons down and whalah...macbook healed! Thank you Jesus:) Now, i'm sitting outside of the store using their free wifi trying to pass the few hours left before I have to sit in the nasty airport again. If all turns out the way it's replanned, I should arrive in Thailand a day late.