Thailand.....Day 1-3

October 20-22

I am writing this while sitting on the front steps of the Bangkla Baptist Medical Clinic. It is the best place that I can pick up Internet without having to bother anyone. I am officially on my missions trip!  I am traveling with a group of people from our small group in Phoenix. There are 9 of us. We will be running mobile medical clinics with our host missionaries, Doug and Cheryl Derbyshire. They live near Bangkok and run a medical clinic here. During the mobile clinics we are able to see hundreds of people in remote villages. They come out to see the American doctors and people. Every patient that comes through the clinic gets a prescription- even if it is just for vitamins. When they walk over to the area to get their meds, they are witnessed to one-on-one by a Thai Christian or Doug. They have led thousands of people to the Lord in this nation where 95% of the people are Buddhist.  Our mission here is to open doors for the Thai Christians in the country.

Today was a busy traveling day. We met at Sky Harbor at 5:30pm on Thursday evening and flew into LAX. We sat there for a few hours and then at 12:50am we flew to Taipei, Taiwan. It was a 14 hour flight! Then we caught the next plane to Bangkok, Thailand, another 4 hours.  With a 14 hour time difference, plus the 20+ hours of flights and a few hours of layovers, we arrived around 10 AM Saturday!

We arrived in Bangkok and Doug and Cheryl picked us up in the van that our small group raised a bunch of money to help purchase. We headed to their home in Bangkla.  It took about 2 hours to get there because the traffic was so bad. There has been a lot of flooding here and so a lot of roads are closed.   You can see a little of the flooding in these pictures.  The roads were really good- no water or problems at all.

Once we arrived we got settled in our rooms.  Here is the room I shared with Veronica and Yupin.

We unpacked and then headed into the clinic area for our orientation. We listened while Doug explained what we would be doing and sharing how much these mobile clinics impact the people. He said he will go around and knock on doors all year long and not one person will talk with him about God. But during these mobile clinics, people will come by the hundreds and listen as he shares the gospel with them. It was so amazing to listen to him and hear his stories. I truly feel blessed to be part of this!

Doug with his map of Thailand.  Each flower represents a location where he has lead a mobile medical clinic. Each of these mobile clinics has a church nearby to follow up with the people that are seen in the clinic.  So basically each flower is a church in Thailand that this group has helped to get started.

After our orientation, we headed over and unpacked and sorted all the meds and supplies we brought. Wow! We had a lot of stuff! Thanks to all my supporters who donated!

We sleepily headed out for dinner at a nearby riverside restaurant.

You can see how the water has come over the banks of the river here.

We ate various Thai food including cashew chicken, fried rice with chicken and crab, chicken with vegetables, shrimp soup ( with whole shrimp..legs and beady eyes and all), and the most exciting was the fish! Fully cooked fish with the skin, eyes, tail and all! It was actually really good although hardly anyone at our end of the table ate it!

After dinner we walked around outside the restaurant for a bit. There was a neat playground made from old logs and wood. The water from the river rose about a foot while we were eating! When we went back to the van we had to wade through ankle deep water! I guess when the tide comes in at night the banks of the river overflow from all the flooding here. But everyone just goes about with their lives, like it is no big deal!

Off to bed early tonight! Very very tired!