Leaving Thailand: Sunsets, Beaches, and Elephants

The end of my week in Thailand is upon me. What an incredible time of refreshment with the community of God! There are people here from literally all over the world, including non-native English speaking nationals who are a part of the World Outreach Family. We're affectionately known as the WO family here in Thailand (I think that they originally thought we were a Chinese family!)

This week was filled with all kinds of cool activities and lots and lots of fellowship. I've posted some photos here to share with you some of our activities this week, including: proof that starbucks is taking over the world, an elephant safari, dinner cruise (valentine's day), sunset viewing and walks on the beach!
I'm about to head off today for (roughly) 36 hours of travel back to the US! I fly from Phuket to Bangkok to Taipei to LA to Detroit! Yippie!!!! (at least the China Air flight from Taipei to LA (14.5 hours) has personal entertainment options!!!)

Elephant Safari

God's creation is so cool! I've seen so many beautiful things here in Thailand. Today we went on an elephant safari. I got to RIDE on an elephant! How crazy cool is that?! There was also a monkey show where we saw how monkeys are trained to pick coconuts. Did you know that a "professional" monkey can knock 300-600 coconuts from a tree in a day?! It was really cool. There was also a ride behind oxen and we got to see how rice is farmed. I had no idea that rice production took so much WORK!

Following the safari, we had lunch on the beach of an island and then got to swim and see how pearls are harvested. It was really educational and fun. It's been such a blessing to be with people from all over the world who are doing similar work and following the same call.

Tomorrow we're going to Patong beach again - I've someone managed to become a tour group coordinator for people leaving the hotel. What can I say? It's something of a gift! The Tsunami hit very hard in Patong (I was there yesterday too and had a nice tour of the bathrooms of Patong - a little stomach problem guaranteed several visits! - I'm better now thanks for asking)

the Love Boat

Tonight we went on a dinner CRUISE on the Andaman Sea (part of the Indian Ocean). I didn't really realize that Phuket is an island. They call it Ko Phuket here in Thailand and Ko means island - that's how I figured it out. The cruise was really nice. We saw a beautiful sunset over the ocean. The weather was phenominal for being out on the water. There was a Polynesian show for us too with fire twirlers and hula dancers!

one of our hula dancers

note: two dancers one behind the other

I can't express how much I love water. Growing up in Bellaire with a river in the front yard really just seemed normal when I was a kid - but I recognize how fortunate I was to grow up in such a beautiful place. Thailand is beautiful too, but really different. I'll post some photos here so you can see what Thailand looks like. Really cool.

On the other side...

... of the WORLD! 36 hours of travel, 3 plane flights, and many hours of layovers later - I'm in Phuket, Thailand! It's surreal that I'm here. It's the World Outreach triannual conference. I've never been through so many hours of travel, but it was really quite fine. May I recommend and commend to you China Air. 14.5 hours for the flight from LA to Taipei, Taiwan. We had incredible customer service and our own personal entertainment systems. No joke. Choose your own movies with pause features, games, flight information, the works. I even managed a solid uninterrupted 3 HOURS OF SLEEP! If I have to complain, the only thing I can think of is that the lumbar on the seat was too much.

I'm in Thailand and preparing for my first sleep here. It's in the high 70's now and was in the 80's when we arrived. It's dark now and I'm excited to let sleep overtake this man.

Here's the view from my window.

Safely Home!

the splice family

Well, I'm back in Ann Arbor (after a brief visit to Bellaire for the White Pine Stampede) after 5 weeks in Colorado Springs. I feel like I've just left my new family behind (after all the great times we had together at SPLICE training). I think it'll take me quite some time to process all of the things that I've learned and experienced. I think perhaps working for the 3 days that I'm home prior to leaving for Thailand wasn't the smartest for my personal processing, but it'll be great to see all the folks from work!

It was nice to return directly to Bellaire and the White Pine because all my friends were there to greet me. There were so many familiar things to help me re-enter the "real world"

Here's a photo of the gang:

l to r (Heather, Eliot, Rick, me, Charles, Shannon and Jason in front)

The race barely happened because of lack of snow, but with a reduction of 15K to the 50K race, everything went off without a hitch. 21 years of volunteer service to the white pine stampede! woo-hoo.