Thailand - Third Wave [Day 6: Cultural Immersion]

I know that my experience in Thailand and at Third Wave is taking a long time to appear here on my blog, but bear with me! We are nearly done!!! And I can't wait for you to see some pictures and hear about these last few days :-)

Friday January 6 was ouir "cultural immersion" day. As the day went on, I realized that "cultural immersion" was just a fancy term for "sight-seeing" ;-)

We had an early Plenary Session that morning (8:00am start), titled "In Our World".
Then we headed out for a long day of seeing the sights and spending time with each other.

I was not feeling good all day. After a few days in Thailand, the food really began to affect me. The worst began on Friday - I was feeling VERY light-headed, slightly dizzy, and couldn't really focus on much at all. I later found out that Thai food has a lot of MSG, so I think that would have been the major reason why I felt the way I did - especially since I had been on my Whole Food Detox. Going from very healthy, non-processed, non-fatty [etc] foods, to eating everything that was served [including this food loaded with MSG]... Well, I can understand why my body reacted that way!

Anyway, so even though I felt terrible all day, I faithfully took photos so that I could go back and look at the day with fresh eyes!

First, we went to this temple:

So many statues inside the complex...

Just in case you missed them - see the little people in the bottom left-hand corner? Now you can see the real size of this thing!

And so many people there to pay their respects.

It was crazy.
It was crowded.
It was hot.
And with my light-headedness, I got out of there as quickly as I possibly could.

I spent the day with my new friend Jamie. Loved getting to know her a little! We were seat-mates (is that even a word?!) on all of our travels throughout the day.

With one gorgeous young lady!! So blessed to have met Jamie

After sitting down outside the temple waiting for the others to come out, we wandered down a small strip of markets just across the carpark. There were some pretty weird, wacky and wonderful things there!!

And I met a lovely gentleman who just happens to be the pastor of a church in South Africa, that my pastor planted years ago! It was so cool to meet him!

Me and Uncle Kenneth. He just loved being called "uncle" ;-)

Next, we drove to a Thai village, that the Queen of Thailand set up, basically as a place for disabled and disadvantaged people to work at. They do handicrafts and many other things, and people (aka, tourists, like myself) can go there, watch the work being done, and purchase the products.

Jamie and I wandered through the Bird Park...

Andre, this one is for you :-) His name is Joe ;-)

...the Aquarium...

...the streets...

...the workshops...

This man is glass-sculpting...

...they HAND-MAKE figures like this! Amazing! (sorry, the photo quality isn't terrific)

Making beautiful wall hangings, tables, and more, with coloured glass - mosaic style. This man has one finger on his left hand, and you can see his fake right arm. Blows me away.

These are tiems when I wish I was an artist! How cute are these?!

...and when we went to the cafe to rest (I was feeling even worse by this point), we got interrupted by this little cutie:

He flew right inbetween Jamie and I [scared the living daylights out of us!] and calmly sat on the table and looked at us!

Ohhh, and Jamie tried to kill me:

hehehe... Good times!!!

At around 5pm, all of the Third Wavers joined up again, and had our official group photo:

The entire Third Wave group!!! Almost 200 people, from 55 different countries!!

Chilled out for a little while, and played a game, similar to duck-duck-goose, believe it or not ;-) Pretty funny! And more dangerous than you would think!!!

Thai-style duck-duck-goose

Then, we piled in buses and took the short ride to have our buffet dinner.
We were welcomed by these gorgeous people!

The tables were set on a cement "decking" type area, set right on water! The chairs had chaircovers; there was music playing; tables of food (although, I heard some people didn't get any food :'( Maccas run for them that night!)...

See the lights strung up? They looked beautiful when it got dark!

Our welcome drink! Exotic!

For me, it was nice to just sit down and [try to] not think. I was thankful that the sun was disappearing - the day had been SO hot! - although night-time = mosquitoes.

Terence, Bradley and Jamie

We had some beautiful girls dance for us...

...and some beautiful boys as well ;-)

And some crazy-amazing-out-there-scary sword fights!

These fights were so real. Some girls actually screamed because they thought heads were going to be chopped off. I would have as well, only I was filming the fights, and didn't want my loud voice to be blasted into the microphone. You're welcome.

It was such a beautiful evening! Although I wasn't feeling well, I made sure I took everything in. I tried not to miss a moment. Because I knew that I probably won't get the chance again to be with 200 brothers and sisters in Christ, all from different family, race, culture, nation and language, fellowshipping under the starry sky, living for the same God. This was such a rare and beautiful experience. I breathed deeply. I drank in the laughter. I fixed my eyes on everything, etching it all into my brain.
Oh, what a mighty God we serve!!!

Jethro

And finally, the night was finished by sending off these beautiful lanterns.

I'd never experienced that before, and it was so fun; so breath-taking. It was the kind of thing that made me want to just sit down and stare up at the stars and at the dozens of lanterns floating in the sky. I was in awe of the Lord's greatness, and the huge privilege it was to go on this trip.
Thank You, Jesus!!!

~Rachel

Thailand - Third Wave 2012 [Day 2: Asia-Pacific Tourists]

On my first full day in Thailand, I woke up at 6:30am, to this view out of my window:

That day (Monday January 2), we went sight-seeing with all of the Asia-Pacific people. There are around 70 of us! It was a great way to tour Bangkok – with new friends, and meeting new people all throughout the day!

I will interrupt myself, and quickly explain why I was only with “Asia-Pacific people”.

Because we don’t get many (if any!) chances to meet and spent time with people from this region, our leaders decided to get everyone to come a few days before Third Wave officially started. They organized a program for us, and so from when I arrived in Thailand, I’ve been with people from the Asia-Pacific region – some of the countries are the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand (of course!), Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia.

It has been SO wonderful getting to know these amazing people over the last couple of days! And now, more people from all around the world are here as well! More names to remember!

So on our tour day, I was on the Tata Bus – Tata was my tour guide. She was really lovely – and SO funny!! I am finding out that the Asian people are absolutely hilarious! Love the sense of humour!

Tata

Me and Marie, who is from New Zealand. We were in the same tour group, and are in the same prayer group

These are some of the sights we saw along the way:

Markets

One of the MANY temples

This is a kind of "royal highway

We visited the Grand Palace:

The palace complex is surrounded by a HUGE wall, and we were also greeted by armed guards!

Ato, Juniper, me and Marie

There were SO many buildings in this complex. The designs and details were so, so intricate – it was really unbelieveable. The effort that they put into making these temples and buildings is just astonishing.

Amazing paintings on the wall

Replica of Angkor Wat, from Cambodia

The central temple, where the green Buddha is held

No pictures are allowed inside, so zoom must be used from outside!

Just one of the lovely houses within the palace walls

Next, we went on a River Boat Cruise. This was a lovely way to see more of Bangkok. The houses are build on stilts, on the water’s edge and right into the water. The area is really quite run-down, yet apparently the“property” along the canals is one of the most expensive places to buy!

This is what our boat looked like

Wow.

Feeding the fish! How crazy is that?!

We stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant – buffet-style. We have had SO many buffet-style meals here, it’s really ridiculous! Breakfast is buffet every morning, and we have had lunches and dinners that are buffet as well. I think I’m going to put on about 10 kilos while I’m here :-/

After lunch, we went to the Gem Gallery (I think this is what it is called). We were welcomed by beautiful ladies dressed in traditional Thai clothes, and were given a “welcome drink” – a glass of soft drink! We watched a 4-minute video (made only with pictures – pretty funny!) that told us that Thailand is one of the world’s leading producers of fine jewellery.

Then we walked through the jewellery workshop and saw people making jewellery, and then on into the HUGE jewellery display sales room and the souvenir shop. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of these areas.

To finish the day, we ate dinner together...

My table-mates ;-)

Rice and prawns with egg. SO GOOD!

...followed by a meeting, with a group prayer-time...

...and then we finished by an icebreaker game. A number is called, and everyone has to get in groups of that number – anyone who doesn’t have a group is knocked out of the game… And so it continues! Guess who was in the winning team???

I’ll give you one guess!

Me!

=D

I never win games like these, so I truly basked in the glory ;-)

I am having such an amazing time here! It is truly a blessed and privileged experience. My notebook has many more pages FULL!!!

This is what I look like most of the time!

:-)

Thinking of you every.single.day.
You are loved!!!
~Rachel