Change of Locations :)

I moved guys! Blogger was getting so difficult so I am now at:

http://equipekj.wordpress.com/

Thank you for following!

30 second blurb about 3 months

Sarah and I leave today. After embarking on nonstop adventure for three months, getting on a plane seems like a normal next step. Diving back into American culture does not, but it does spark excitement in me. Matt asked today how our trip was. We love Matt for the depth of these questions. Kidding, but in all seriousness, being asked "How the trip was" is more than a difficult question. Giving one sentence or five minutes to describe three months is not adequate and does not give justice to what we have experienced. The trip was exciting, difficult, powerful, eye-opening, uncomfortable, fun and adventure packed. I experienced an incredible community, a fulfilling taste of the Lord that left me hungry for more, and a foreign country that I have grown to love. Matt also asked if the trip was what we thought it would be. I told him not at all. When I pictured this trip I saw it in a light that is similar to the way that I watch movies. Everything was comfortable and within control, with the bathroom down the hall and pizza just one call away. Any duration in Thailand longer than a layover will not be like the pleasant-vill I just described. However, it will be moving. It moved me known Jesus in a deeper way. It moved me to value people in a higher fashion. It moved me to know myself. It moved me to look beyond circumstance and trust the God that I have dedicated my life to. I have sighed deeply in Thailand from pure joy and from extreme frustration. I will treasure those very sighs for the rest of my life, along with the memories and friendships that have been made here. I have been deeply changed and touched by my time here. What an incredible experience.

Finally a post! :)

Hi readers! First off, I wanted to apologize for not writing in a while. I have been in an out of Internet service, but I am excited to share now!

In the last few weeks, my team and I have seemingly been all around Thailand. We said goodbye to our angels at BHJ on the 5^th of November. As you could imagine, it was sad saying goodbye to our girls. We have looked at pictures and missed them a lot already, but we are thankful more than anything for the months we spent with them. I don’t think I could ever forget them, even if I tried. I completely fell in love with those girls.

After we left the orphanage, we went on a five-day spiritual retreat. I had been excited for a long time about the retreat for a number of reasons. First being that we would be spending large amounts of time dissecting the Bible and our own faith and doctrines, and I love that. Secondly, we were going to have an entire day of silence, and that turned out to be glorious and refreshing. And lastly, I was feeling the cabin fever after being out at the orphanage for a while. The retreat, as a whole, felt like jumping into a cool pool on a hot day. My heart felt filled and my spirit was ready to jump back into exploring and our coming adventures. Reading the Bible does something to my spirit that nothing else can imitate. It draws me closer to the love of my life, and fills me up. Spending five days feasting on that love and filling was like spending an afternoon at a golden corral buffet, leaving me full and happy. As simple as a day of silence sounds, it was a treasure to me.

On the final day of our retreat, we ate some breakfast and packed our bags. Our next destination was Bangkok. We boarded an overnight train to Bangkok at about 5:00 PM on the 10^th and started one of the sweetest experiences yet. I have never been on a train like that before, the kind where you have a sleepover on it. We made a friend with one of the attendants and she ate a large portion of Matt’s dinner, which kept us laughing for a while. We played cards on the mini-tables until we were bored. We told jokes about pranks and made it clear to all of our surrounding train friends that we were American; loud and giggly. We called it a night after a very odd bathroom experience and of course, me ”proactiving” in the train sink. When it came to sleeping, they made it near impossible to actually get sleep. Between the slamming doors, overactive aircon and bright and shiny lights, I’m pretty sure one of us was up the entire night. Rereading that last sentence makes it sound like a real drag, but it was the kind of annoying details that just make you laugh because they are so far out of control, and laughing becomes the best option. The train was full of those laughs, and other laughs, and I loved it. Not to overuse the word, but again, that memory is a treasure. Overnight trains are a riot.

Bangkok as a city was a rough visit for me. I am not going to share too much, because I’m sure that you can hear complaining from any other person in your life, but as a whole, Bangkok is not my favorite place in the world. In a nutshell, Bangkok is a city that is known for prostitution, the very problem I came to Thailand to fight. I saw the girls, saw the faces, saw the men. More than anything I wanted to do something to help, and besides prayer, I had no way of contributing. I have known that prostitution is a huge and overwhelming problem the whole time, but my visit to Bangkok put an illustration to the facts. But enough about that. We all know what happens in Bangkok.

When we got up at 6AM on Sunday to leave the city, I was ready. I’m far from a morning person, but I was up and ready to head on out. We arrived at the airport around 7:15 and I learned quickly that we were not checking bags. Matt had mentioned that detail to all of us, but somehow I missed it. Usually I do fairly well preparing my 3oz liquids, but because I acquired the knowledge that we were “carrying on” at the airport, I was the psycho girl running around the airport with all of my liquids falling out of my hands. I switched my proactive into smaller containers, laughed at my outrageous loyalty to the system, and walked through security a half hour later without problems. We had a great flight down to Phuket. We flew in staring out the window at the water and the shoreline. As soon as we got off the plane and to where we were staying, we threw our bags into our bungalow’s and we were out on the beach.

Today we head to an island outside of Phuket to spend the next six days. I am actually writing on the ferry ride, which is fun. We are winding down this week, preparing to re-enter our culture. The infamous “debrief.” It is weird for me to think that in a week and a half I will be re-entering the relationships and life that I cried about leaving. I have literally dreamed about hugging my Momma and best friends. It’s an odd reality to accept that this trip is coming to an end. I have learned so much, loved so much, seen so much. I have loved this trip from the first day that Matt invited me a year ago. It has been nothing like what I thought it would be, but it has been just what God planned. I’m so thankful that we are taking time to unpack a little here, where oddly; things seem normal, before we head home. What I can say, pre-preparation, is that I have been touched and changed from this trip and that I am excited to hug my parents. J

For my prayer warriors- thank you for your incredible support for the last three months. Will you continue to pray for my team and I’s refinement and passion for the Lord. Will you pray for my buddy Court, as she has an odd Thai stomach issue, and myself- I have a nasty cold that is distracting me from where I am and making me want my Momma. Also, that the eight of us would be present for the last week and a half, and that we would walk off of the plane into America with as much preparation as possible. Thank you for reading, as always. J Can’t wait to tell stories in person.