A whirlwind of a month...

This past month has been full of many good times, but has been challenging... as expected. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again….life here is always an adventure.

Last month I met up with Mallory Dalton(who is currently in Abu Dhabi) in Thailand for my visa run. We had an insane amount of fun. It was such a blessing to reunite with my best friend all the way across the world. We spent about 4 days on the island of Koh Chang. Koh Chang is absolutely unreal. There may be a more beautiful place in the world, but I’m not sure what that place would be. Koh Chang had beach, mountains, and jungle. It was AMAZING. One day we got to ride elephants in the jungle, then go swimming with them. It kind of feels like a dream now. Here are some pictures from the trip! It was raining during the trek with the elephants, so I didn’t get pictures. Sad day.

Love.

At the beginning of March, my parents came to visit, which was so much fun. Watching them become familiar with this culture was so fun for me...especially their first auto rickshaw ride. An auto rickshaw is a bit like Mario Cart. It was very special having them here to meet all my friends and just see life. This was also the first time that I have had the opportunity to do all the touristy things that this city has to offer…which isn’t very much. The most amusing touristy thing we did was visit the museum/national art gallery down the street from my apartment. I think what happened with this museum was someone thought to themselves "hmmm, we are city of 10,000,000-14,000,000 (no one really knows the number), we should probably have a museum like every other big city in the world, but what would be put in it?" Let me tell you what they put it in it...Barbie Dolls. To be fair, this was the children's portion of the museum, but Barbies? Come on. The entire first floor of the museum had windows dedicated to different countries and the Barbie Dolls were dressed in appropriate attire for each country. It was weird...but I loved it. The highlight of the trip for me had to have been the weekend at Ideal Beach. It was just nice to relax on the beach and have an escape from the heat. 

Sorry Dave, another family picture without you :-)

St. Thomas Mount overlooking the city! Apparently, the apostle Thomas died here.

John Wesley visiting Mahabalipuram

The most random thing we did was probably visiting the crocodile bank. There were hundreds upon hundreds of crocodiles. Don't worry, I bought a t-shirt.

And they had big scary snakes. I hate them...I see enough of them in the village.

I love when my worlds collide. Some of my favorite people in the world. It was absolutely priceless having my parents meet all these people that I love so much.

I am sad to say that my roommate Kyleigh is leaving me on Sunday to go back to the states. I hate that that's going to happen. We have been doing as many fun things as possible before she leaves,  so the weekend after my parents left we headed to Mumbai. Mumbai is amazing. I forgot to take pictures, except for one night. Unfortunately, the only picture I took was of a couple of ginormous pigs eating out of a dumpster. I was thoroughly amused, but I have a feeling the general population won't laugh as hard, therefore I won't take the time to post it. 

This past week we had Freedom Training with 58 of our clients who have been rescued this year. I don't even know how to convey this week to you through blogging. It was intense, yet God's grace and goodness was so evident to me throughout this week. We had a pretty rough group of kids. They took part of my heart by the end of the week, but they have been through way too many tough situations for their young age. Their were a few younger girls that I connected with and I was shocked by how hardened they were for being 8-10 years old. I guess I shouldn't be shocked just based on the fact that they have been raised in slavery, but they are children! These girls didn't have that childlike innocence or playfulness that so many children have and this completely tore at my heart. It's funny though, because just when I thought they are hardened to most things in life, one of the young girls cried throughout the entirety of Finding Nemo, because she was so sad that Nemo couldn't find his dad. Precious. She still does have a childlike heart! I have to be vague due to confidentiality, but God's favor has been overwhelmingly evident with this group. There were some serious disclosures and healing that went on last week and I am absolutely humbled to have witnessed it. Have I mentioned that I still can't believe God is letting me work for IJM? Bah! He's so good! The highlight of last week (besides being overwhelmed by God's goodness) was the dance party that Alex, Neesha (the other Aftercare Fellows) and I had with all the kids. We did not have air conditioning and it's been in the mid 90's, but we danced our faces off. I just love thinking about the fact that they had been in slavery a month before and here we were we were laughing and dancing like crazy in a sauna-like room. SO FUN! I have some pretty awesome dance moves to show off when i get home.

I will end the blog with a few things I don't understand about this country:

1.) Isn't there a better way to save power than to have 2 hour power outages every single day in the middle of the afternoon? And then once a month we have the opportunity to go 8 hours without power? I'm not exactly complaining, but am more baffled that so many big cities DON'T have to have these planned power outages.

2.) How is it possible that I have been chased by a rabid pack of dogs on two different occasions and been able to escape? The oddest thing about it is there are people sleeping on the sidewalk and they don't mess with them. I think they see my white skin from afar. Not fair. 

3.) How are their cockroaches the size of small dogs and rats the size of small children? Seriously, I don't get it. I'm almost to the point where I don't freak out when I see these creatures, because it's completely bizarre that these beasts can become so unnaturally large.

Thank you so much for following me on this journey. I love you all. If there is anything specific you would like to see me blog about, let me know and I will see what I can do :-).