I'm back from Chiang Rai! Man, it was an awesome trip.. Everything was better than I expected, although I was kinda plesantly suprised that the outskirts that we were in was a Christian village. So it was more of a time of encouraging people to continue giving their hearts to God rather than sharing the Gospel with people who have never heard of Jesus. Thought that it would be a 'wasted' trip initially cuz we visited many Christians, but on hindsight, I think it was a trip of lessons learnt. From day 1 to our final day (even just before we boarded the plane)

I've just been back like for 2days and I'm already missing the people there. They're always ever so cheerful, polite and gentle. How nice. Oh and the kids are sooo lovely! Bundles of energy. There's this girl who likes people to piggy back her. I still can't get her name, but we think that she's either an orphan or a farmer girl. Then there's our little darling Nong Ai. Very cute and a smart chick. We taught her stuff and she taught us simple Thai (cuz we usually had to rely on Rach to translate what she was rattling on abt) Hope she's got her holidays soon and comes to church with Pi Ben.

My prayers go out to Pastor Sutin (Ahzan-Boi), Pastor Pradit (Ahzan-Ken) and Pastor John (Ahzan-John) as they gather continually to pray for revival through out Chiang Rai. When I first heard about their desire to revive the place, I was so shocked. This same thing will probably not occur in SG, or at least not that I've heard of. Three men relying on nothing but pure faith for God to work a miracle in the land. To revive the church and stir up many hearts for God. Amazing eh!

If not for the pending Europe trip next yr, I think I'll definitely go back to Chiang Rai. Even if Pastor John welcomes us to join him in church planting elsewhere in Thailand, I think I really don't mind at all. We'll see about it. I may just squeeze both plans during the June holidays.

:::

Don't ever take budget airlines unless you're really ok with waiting. Air Asia is totally horrible. We had problems everytime we took their flights from day1. Yikes! And the price we paid was equivalent to that of regular airlines. It was kind of a blessing in disguise that our internal flight was cancelled and so we were given Thai Airways to reach BKK. And for that, we paid a price by not having time to meet Pi Arun at BKK to shop at Mabukong. Shopping at BKK was at a shopping complex, those considerably higher end ones in BKK. Bottomline was I didn't buy anything! Argh! I sound so loserish, going all the way to Thailand and not bringing back anything.

Anyway I guess I prefer Chiang Rai over BKK cuz the air is so much cleaner. BKK is dirty and hot. There's this layer of slime when you're there for too long. But it doesn't happen in Chiang Rai. Well, BKK is definitely more interesting cuz there are more places to shop and more modern.