This blog is dedicated to Sheila and Tina :) SO sorry for my delay.

     Sawadeekha!! First and foremost: I ate a giant grasshopper. To view that video, click here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150293800498405&set=t.1599150005&type=3&theater 

I'm not sure if it will let you view it without having a fb, but there's my best shot. 

     

     What can I say about Bangkok? The people are lovely, the food is colorful and flavorful (although you do get sick of rice) and it's really really green. 

     Interesting fact #1: when parking in public, don't worry about not being able to find a parking stall, just park your car perpendicular to the car parked in the stall, leave it in neutral and if the owner of the car parked in the stall comes back before you get back, they will kindly PUSH your car out of the way. Seriously. 

     #2: You eat with a spoon. At every meal you are given a fork and a spoon, but the fork is there to push the food onto the spoon if you are having any troubles. Actually quite convenient.

      #3: It is common to take your shoes off before entering any building, including small shops, spa's, or salons, and when in a public place that does not require you to take off your shoes, many people slip them off once they are seated inside. LOVE that. 

     #4: Rats the size of cats exist, they live here, and I see them often.

     #5: McDonalds has 24/7 delivery. 

     Here are some pictures to help describe my trip thus far.

The APSAI (Asia Pacific Student Abroad Initiative) students in our common area

Feeding an elephant at the elephant and alligator farm. Everyone likes elephants, but I actually think they are pretty gross.  Their skin feels like pigs skin, they have little hairs all over, AND they have a giant trunk that moves and feels like a snake, except nastier because of the texture. Sorry dumbo.

Dragon Fruit. You don't eat the pink part, (had to put that in there cause my mom asked). It's one of my favorite fruits to get here. I can go to the night market and pick up a whole one of these for 10 baht, which is around 40 cents.

Party on the elephant.

From left to right: Rachael, Caleb, Me, Gao. Squished in a car, returning from teaching English at Ramkamhaeng University. Gao is one of our Thai friends.

I am in the far left with one of the girls from my team Jenna. We are teaching english to our adult class on Sunday afternoon at Seri Church.

This is a really creepy picture of my face, but there is a spirit house in the background that I thought you might like to see.

Our first Sunday at Seri Church. After the service we went to the youth room to eat and play games. Immersion came quickly for us seeing that at this point we had been in Bangkok for roughly 4 days and none of us spoke any Thai. Below is also a picture of us playing the same game. I still don't know what the point of the game is, I have no idea how to even play it, but we laughed with some Thai's that have now become our friends.

The "Wright Team" Under the instruction of John and Barbara Wright, from left to right beginning in back: Jenna, Me, Rachel, Caleb. Every Wednesday the four of us teach English at Ramkamhaeng University and every Sunday we teach two Sunday School/English classes and one adult English class at our church.

Ciara and I on the boat heading toward the floating markets.

Ciara and I on our elephant (Sam) with our guide (Mik)

On a bridge at the Elephant Zoo

This picture was taken by one of the guides. At the beginning of the ride they offer to take your camera and run around and take pictures for you. At this very moment Ciara and I caught glimpse of something very large. An elephant penis. Yes. As soon as our guide, Mik heard us gasp he said, "Elephant has big banana." After that we lost it. We were laughing so hard we thought we were going to fall off!

Drinking coconut milk at the floating market. I love coconut, but coconut milk isn't that great.

Nom Nom's. Eating a piece of dragon fruit.

From left to right beginning at the front: Niki, Jenna, and I. This is our reflection in one of the sky train's windows. We ventured out one night in search of Mexican food and on our way back due to a power outage ended up getting stuck on the sky train. 

About to leave for the floating markets.

From left to right: Me, Jenna, Niki, and Ciara up front. Taking a taxi to the sky train.

Gao and I hanging out at Ramkamhaeng. 

Sam and I

Sam playing in the water, and us..in a waterfall.

Same night we ventured for Mexican food. Went downtown and found this portable bar (out of a van) complete with a DJ AND disco ball...just hanging out on the street.

This is the first time I had Som Tom and sticky rice. Som Tom is a spicy papaya salad,  (very delicious) and the traditional way to eat it is to grab some sticky rice with your fingers, and then use the rice to help you grasp the salad. I like finger food. 

Onew and I. We probably just got done talking about fashion and Lady Gaga.

Our first Sunday in Bangkok. From left to right: Barbara Wright, Niki, me, Jenna H, Jenna D, Ciara, Rachael, Caleb.

Second day in Bangkok. Went to the mall with a friend we decided we wanted ice cream so we stopped to get some. We knew no Thai and the waitress knew no English, (they trick you before you come, not everyone knows English here). A couple minutes after we get our menus the waitress comes to take our order. As we mumble "Un Momento?" in spanish desperately trying to find a way to ask for more time, I figure out we aren't getting anywhere and randomly point to something on the menu. This is what I got...

The cook at one of the rice shops on our soi (street)

Khaw Phat Gai (Cow pot Gie) Chicken Fried Rice, and Red Bull :)

I can't help it, I love Red Bull!

Ramkamhaeng Road, which we live right off of.

One of the seating area's in my suite

Our bathroom on the 3rd floor, shared by 6 girls.

Welcome to Bangkok! Leah and I after 30 hours of travel, plus customs and baggage claim, and finally on our way to our new home.

One of the seating areas in our common area on the 5th floor

Thai tea. It's a strong tea mixed with sweetened condensed milk. One of my favorite things here.

This is the restaurant we ate at our first day here. About a 5 minute walk from our house.

Part of an angry birds mural on the street next to ours.

Found Red Bull on the street!

Some of the garbage on the streets

This is the Bamboo Coffee Shop. It's delightful, the next few pictures to follow are of the inside.

Peach shake.

The view from the corner I nuzzled in that day.

Beauty in the Breakdown.

I can't seem to get over the fact of how not in control I am of my life, (in the bigger scheme of things that is). Sometimes when I would ponder this I would quickly be overcome with the overwhelming awareness of how small I am, in the midst of a huge universe, and at the grace of a very big God. I hate to use this as a learning experience, but for my thought process it was. Yesterday evening I started barfing. I mean barfing my brains out, every 20 minutes, no matter if I had anything in my stomach or not. This went on for 10 hours straight. I've never puked that much in my entire life. I was in pain, I felt disgusting, and I was exhausted. While I was laying on the bathroom floor at 2 a.m. thoughts worked through my mind of how much I am at the mercy of my circumstances. I wanted to stop puking SO badly, but no matter how much I WANTED it to stop, I was going to keep puking until that virus worked it's way through my body. No matter how much I WANT a certain job, sometimes I'm not going to get it, no matter how much I WANT to get better, sometimes it's going to take awhile, and no matter how much I WANT a boy to want me, sometimes...it's just not going to happen. And wanting it more and more won't change anything, because I am at the mercy of my circumstances, and I stand humbled, and in awe of our Almighty Creator.
Tonight I went to Student Led Chapel, it still doesn't feel that great to stand because my stomach and back muscles are still sore, but there is something unexplainably comforting about entering into the presence of God when you are at your weakest. As I let God mush around into my heart tonight, I started laughing at how much I really do want to be in control of my life and how much I'm not. I started wrestling with how much I don't trust Him sometimes. I really think that I need to take things into my own hands a lot of times instead of trusting that as long as I'm following what He's leading me to do, that He has the best intentions for me and He will provide. I give myself too much credit too often. As if I really can control the outcomes to way more circumstances than I can in all reality. I forget that everything really, truly, is Gods. My future, my money, my heart. My HEART. My heart belongs to the King. The one that breathed life into me, that has ordained my steps. The one that is pursuing and SEEKING my heart. It is His. I am His.
I have so much to learn.
"...Pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them." 1 Timothy 2:1
Until after my slumber...

Leo Tolstoi

This is a passage from Anna Karenina. You don't need much background info other than this is about Levin and Kitty, (the girl he will ask to marry him). Oh, and they are ice skating.


     "He walked on a few steps, and the skating-ground lay open before his eyes, and at once, amidst all the skaters, he knew her.
     He knew she was there by the rapture and the terror that seized on his heart. She was standing talking to a lady at the opposite end of the ground. There was apparently nothing striking either in her dress or her attitude. But for Levin she was as easy to find in that crowd, as a rose among nettles. Everything was made bright by her. "Is it possible I can go over there on the ice, go up to her?" he thought. The place where she stood seemed to him a holy shrine, unapproachable, and there was one moment when he was almost retreating, so overwhelmed was he with terror. He had to make an effort to master himself, and to remind himself that people of all sorts were moving about her, and that he too might come there to skate. He walked down, for a long while avoiding looking at her as at the sun, but seeing her, as one does the sun, without looking."

Gold Digger Society

“Reality is not a matter of certainty; it’s a matter of probability.” –The Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics

How do I start this off? This blog is about rewards. It’s about doing what we do to get rewards…and the minute possibility of finding a spot within ourselves that would allow us to love something, someone, an idea or a possibility so much that we would do it in such a way that loving it for a reward would be offensive to our very being. I open with the question, “Is this kind of love possible for a human being?”  After all, do we not love to be loved in return? Then again, aren’t the greatest love stories of those who risk loving someone who doesn’t love them back? Most of the time, all of our actions are based on what we will get out of it. How we feel when we accomplish something, how we feel when someone loves us, how we feel when we do something right, how we feel when we worship God. What if those feelings were nonexistent? What if we finally came to the realization that the last thing our life is about is us?  Because let’s face it: everything we do is very much based on the feelings we will get in return, and nothing more. All of our love is seeking rewards. The reward of heaven, the reward of feeling good when we do something nice to others, the reward of being able to stand firm in Christ when we are stumbling. Who would our Savior be without giving Himself to us in those ways?---but my point stands; what kind of thick, passionate, sloppy  love is the kind where we might try to fathom loving our God NOT because He first loved us but because of who He is. Because of His heart, because of His essence…the kind of love that would risk sacrificing our wants, our own desires, our gifts, our talents, our life (with the possibility that whoever you were offering this to would NEVER receive this love) to follow someone who may not love us back, and to dedicate our life to serving a God who might or might not have a place for us in Heaven, that is assuming God graced us with the existence of Heaven.

This is in no way intended to be blasphemous. I do believe with every fiber inside me that there is a Heaven, that my Jesus loved me first, that He is the Alpha and Omega, that we are granted by grace the rewards that He does offer, (peace, shelter, identity) and thank God that He would do that for us! But what I’m trying to grasp is a love that might exist without the knowledge of those things, and whether or not this is a breakthrough…because after all that is the kind of love He has for us. Here’s my conclusion to the first question. Jesus loves with nothing in return.  And what He does get most of the time is so much less than the smallest amount He has to offer us, and when I start to think about it my mind goes somewhere in the atmosphere and when it comes back I have less than what I started with. Back to the point---Jesus loves with the risk of being rejected and the knowledge of giving more than He will get—and His love changed the world. So if I were to venture out and say that yes, it is possible to love this kind of selfless love it could only be His love and none of ours.  And HELLO we already missed the bandwagon on loving God before He loved us (that would’ve never happened anyway) but if in fact we did get to a place in our souls where we loved Him in this manner, combined with the love that He does have for us, I’m pretty sure that an immediate chemical bond would take place, and that  bond would be so strong that it would forever be imprinted upon your being, so that no matter where you ended up straying you would always be reminded of the event that fused a fire in your bones.