So today is my last day in Thailand. Its been filled with new friendships, encouraging words, small disasters, struggles, stressful times, laughter, corruption, and beauty. I have mixed feelings returning, which makes me think about the word "home", and what it really means. Jon, jokingly, said "Home is where the heart is", but in fact, spoke for the first time truth. Home is where our passion is, it is what we live for, a life hopefully worthy dying for, and vice versa. My heart is in the love of Christ, so my home is there also, and what an amazing place to rest my head. So all in all, my home is where God will place me next, the passion that he places on my heart and location I eventually am sent to go, whether thats back in Norman, Thailand, Uganda, or even Switzerland. I dont know just yet. So here I am, sitting at a computer at a pastor friend of Jon's house sipping some coffee, awaiting another 4 hours till we take a taxi to the airport, get through long lines for international flights, get my seat number with Jon and fly back to LA, the city of Angels, hopping, of course, in-between in Taipei, Taiwan. So here is a rundown of the last 10 days.
Day 13 and 14 were spent heading to the village, and that sunday Jon preached a short sermon using 2 translators from English to Thai to the local dialect on the difference between a Christian and a Disciple of Christ. It was very interesting. we got back to Scott's house in Chiang Mai that evening after some bumpy rides in the mountains and rested with some dinner on the side.
Day 15 was our last day in Shiang Mai, and it was actually kinda sad and boring. We loved our stay here. While Jon made some final arrangements with Sangla and some others, I stayed home and read, watched a few movies, and got packed for our bus ride. Sangla and her nieces came and we said goodbye to Scott and Ike, thanking them for letting us stay for the last week with them, then had a last meal with the ladies, which turned out to be the same place we ate at when we got to Shiang Mai a few weeks ago. Kinda circular. Anyways, we got on an overnight bus to head to the border of Thailand and Cambodia.
Day 16 was Cambodia day, which turned from excitement to discouragement due to the corruption at the border. In legitimate exchange places, they give you less than they say, and steal half your money. Then the whole getting a visa thing and booking a taxi ride through a "service" (ironic word in this case), and booking a hotel tainted the whole experience for me. We had spent nearly $100 before we even crossed the border. Anyways, we finally got a taxi with a Holland guy, and made our way to Siam Reap with very little air conditioning and room to move. Siam Reap is a highly traveled tourist area that people go to see the ancient city/temples of Angkor Wat, a place that was made completely out of hand carved stone carried from about 30 miles away, taking 200 ish years to carve. Crazy. It was magnificent! I remembered seeing at least one of the temples in Indiana Jones. Anyways, we went back to our "mirage hotel" (we thought it didn't exist at first, due to the untrustworthiness of the people at the border, so we nicknamed it this) completely exhausted and booked our ticket out for tomorrow. We were going to stay another day, but the above mentioned tainted-ness I got from the border made me want to leave asap. Jon just told me to laugh about it, its all we could do. I didn't, but we would switch places in this laughing activity soon.
Day 17 was another travel day, this time out of the hot hell-hole of a country Cambodia (I nearly kissed the ground after going again over the border to Thailand) and we took a "bus" (this is what they told us, but it was actually a full sized van that carried way too many people without any A/C) with some strangers, and headed to Koh Chang, which holds the resort island of Trat. We couldn't wait. Literally. Every dumb stop that we stopped at was agitating to me, a waste of time, but we became good friends with a couple of Swiss girls we sat next to in the bus, whom were awesome and also were great to keep our minds off how slow it was to get to our destination and how hot it was in the van. We got on the ferry around 7pm and headed to our "amazing" resort hotel, which we immediately planned to look for something better the next day.
Day 18 was fun in the sun, Jon rented a bike, taught one of the girls how to drive it in the mountainous island, while I read and went out into the nice blue ocean. It was pretty hot, so sunscreen was a great idea. We found another place to stay, got a taxi over, and had dinner later that evening. We basically did everything with these girls, and it was fun learning some German/Swiss-German and hearing stories back home and imagining how good the chocolate tastes.
Day 19 was the "small disaster" as I mentioned before, Haha! Which is also the day I switched places with Jon in laughing about bad things because its all we can do. It was a rainy day, which kept us from snorkeling, and so we chilled out and read a lot. Random - oh how cheap and amazing those fruit shakes were... mmm. Okay so we thought hey, lets go on a joy ride to the villages on the south side of the island. Sounded good. About a half mile down the road, going about 30 down a hill our motorbike decided it didn't like people riding on it anymore, and so tapping the hand break to slow down sent all sliding (even the bike) about 20 yards from our side of the road into the ditch on the other side, mostly on our backs, in front of a truck that thankfully stopped, otherwise we probably wouldn't be alive to tell our story. We got cut up a bit, but a lot less than we should have, and got back to our resort to clean up... pictures soon to follow our our beaten bodies. Thank God we were alive and no broken bones. All I could do was laugh about how this really did JUST happen, how it felt like it was slow motion, not a thought of "Im gonna die" going through my head, but mostly "now, should I stay on my stomach? No, I should flip on my back" and "I wonder when and how Im going to stop sliding..." We got cleaned up, hydrogen peroxided up, bandaged up, and showed up to show the girls. They were pretty surprised, and thankful we weren't any worse than we were. Good stuff.
Well Day 20 was a bit of a sad day to see the girl's go, even on a sunny day which was supposed to be rain. Due to our injuries, we wouldn't dare touch the salty water of that ocean, so all we could do was lay around in a bit of pain and read, maybe get a bit of sun too. It was a long day of relaxing, happy we didn't feel like we were actually lazy, but that we didn't have anything to actually get done that day. A day of beginning to heal.
Day 21 was our day to head back to Bangkok, which we got a taxi out of the resort, met another girl-to-be-friend named Kari and headed back to the mainland. Got an actual bus, and took our 6 hour ride to Bangkok, our last stop before heading back "home". It was on that bus we met two more girls, English teachers in Korea, one from England and the other from Canada, and we hung out with them till we left to Jon's pastor friend's, Mai, house to stay the night. It was great fun hanging out with them.
As you may have noticed, this last week was focused more on a vacation-like time after completing what we had set out to accomplish. So Day 22 we got up early to go golfing with Mai, and then filmed Jon later in the afternoon for his voiceover in the video Im making for him. Lastly, we went at night to the huge prostitution area of Bangkok, made up mostly "massage parlors" and bars. We were sneaky to get a few video shots, being told to be very careful because we could get it taken away, but I wished we got more. But we got enough, I think and we are finished with filming for the trip. Yay.
Today, Day 23, we leave here at 5pm on a jetplane, don't know when I'll be back again. But I sure do want to. We actually get a taxi ride out around 1:30pm. We leave March 30th, and due to time change, we get to LA on the 30th, just 3 hours later! Its crazy how a 16 hour of flying turns into 3 due to flying against the sun. Going back... to the future. Haha. Technically Day 24 will be me flying to Denver in the morning and then to OKC, arriving at 4pm-ish, if all goes according to schedule.
So I will miss Thailand for all its beauty and the relationships we have formed, but I'm excited to get back to the States for the same reason. I miss all you guys, and know that I love you and hope to see you all very soon.
Over and out,
Matt
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thailand, Day 13 - March 20, 2010
Wow what a great week. Well I keep getting behind on this, but lets rundown the days, shall we?
So Day 6 ended with us all going to this beautiful lake and eating picnic style with the girls, getting all the shots for the supporters and group shots of all the girls together. It was a fun night, I learned a bit more Thai from some of the girls.
So the next 3 days are a bit of a blur, due to some sort of stomach bug that made my stomach shrink in size due to diarrhea. Which is in fact, not fun. It was hard to keep anything down, and given the food is spicy didn't help at all. Church was Day 7, which was interesting in its own little way, a bit prosperity gospel-ish (ugh!). We did go up to the mountain on Day 8 and filmed a Buddhist temple, which was quite beautiful. Got some good shots for the video there. After endless nights of getting up and 'emptying' my already empty stomach, Day 9 I finally went and got some meds, which didn't help so much that day, but did help the next day. Day 9 also consisted of filming the girls, interviewing them and making sure Hannah House is what they truly want to do.
Day 10 and 11 kinda squash together because Im a bit behind on journaling, and so I will give the basics... we went into town, fished (I caught a 55-60 pounder.)hung out with the girls a bit more, went to a movie theater and watched Dear John (eh), and had dinner at Sangla's place again. It was yummy fish. Oh yeah, we kinda road elephants. Yeah thats right, the big things with long trunks and dumbo ears. It was fun.
Day 12, Me and John went into town to prepare for the evening, in which we would have the girls and their parents over for dinner, worship, bible teaching, prayer, and an introduction of Hannah House to the parents. It was a good night, having everyone over and just having a great time of community. After the girls left, we watched a movie, then hit the hay.
Today, Day 13, we are leaving at 10am to get Sangla and head to two of the girl's village and stay there the night, then preach tomorrow morning, and head back to town after that. Im not sure what to expect, but I do expect to get some awesome shots.
Cambodia next week.
Well thats all I got for now, till next time. This trip is almost over.
-Matt
So Day 6 ended with us all going to this beautiful lake and eating picnic style with the girls, getting all the shots for the supporters and group shots of all the girls together. It was a fun night, I learned a bit more Thai from some of the girls.
So the next 3 days are a bit of a blur, due to some sort of stomach bug that made my stomach shrink in size due to diarrhea. Which is in fact, not fun. It was hard to keep anything down, and given the food is spicy didn't help at all. Church was Day 7, which was interesting in its own little way, a bit prosperity gospel-ish (ugh!). We did go up to the mountain on Day 8 and filmed a Buddhist temple, which was quite beautiful. Got some good shots for the video there. After endless nights of getting up and 'emptying' my already empty stomach, Day 9 I finally went and got some meds, which didn't help so much that day, but did help the next day. Day 9 also consisted of filming the girls, interviewing them and making sure Hannah House is what they truly want to do.
Day 10 and 11 kinda squash together because Im a bit behind on journaling, and so I will give the basics... we went into town, fished (I caught a 55-60 pounder.)hung out with the girls a bit more, went to a movie theater and watched Dear John (eh), and had dinner at Sangla's place again. It was yummy fish. Oh yeah, we kinda road elephants. Yeah thats right, the big things with long trunks and dumbo ears. It was fun.
Day 12, Me and John went into town to prepare for the evening, in which we would have the girls and their parents over for dinner, worship, bible teaching, prayer, and an introduction of Hannah House to the parents. It was a good night, having everyone over and just having a great time of community. After the girls left, we watched a movie, then hit the hay.
Today, Day 13, we are leaving at 10am to get Sangla and head to two of the girl's village and stay there the night, then preach tomorrow morning, and head back to town after that. Im not sure what to expect, but I do expect to get some awesome shots.
Cambodia next week.
Well thats all I got for now, till next time. This trip is almost over.
-Matt
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thailand, Day 6 - March 13, 2010
Swah De Cup. (Thai - Hello.) (Im sure my spelling is wrong on that, but thats how I spell it to say it...)
So this is my first blog for my time in Thailand. Here's a quick rundown of what Im doing over here...
First and foremost, I'm here because God told me to, and followed through by providing EVERYTHING I needed to go. I'm here with a missionary named Jonathan Hawk, and he is starting a house for college aged girls to get out of poverty (and before they get into the sex trade or prostitution) and putting them through either Bible school or college (whichever they choose) and giving room and board while his co-leader in the ministry, Sangla, whom is Thai, will look over the girls and disciple them. Its really amazing what they are doing.
For Jonathan, this is one of the last trips he will be taking to Thailand in about a year or so. Given that, he is here with me for 3 weeks to do a lot of relational and business stuff for the ministry. We are also meeting up with the girls (actually tonight) and learning their stories (for the first time for me, most of them he already knows really well). Which also means we will be doing a lot of fun things that he wants to do or take me to do.
For me, I will be filming and photographing the girls (interview style) and taking several other shots for a short film/movie for him to take to several churches and whatnot to raise funds for the building as well as supporting the girls. Its really something I love to do (the filming and photographing aspect in general) and Im excited for the next few days when we start it all up.
So anyways, a rundown of what the last 6 days have been like...
I left America on the 8th around 6:45 am and got to California around 10am, met up with Jonathan and Sangla (she was in the states to visit and talk and several places about Hannah House, this ministry they are starting) there, then flew for around 14 hours to finally get into Bangkok. Yes, we were only flying for about 20 hours total, but due to time changes, I left on a monday and arrived early early wednesday morning in Thailand (I wonder where Tuesday went... haha!). So we slept at a pastor's house in Bangkok, and the next day we took a 10 hour bus ride from Bankok (Southern Thailand) to Shiang Mai (Northern Thailand). It was long, but got some sleep and watched some insanely colorful (literally and figuratively) Thai movies and some Thai music videos. All I gotta say is... yeaaaaaaah. Anyways. So we got to another missionaries house, which is where we are staying most of the time to sleep. So that covers about 3 days.
So day 4, we got up still jetlagged, and we had breakfast and went to meet up with Sangla's family, where we are going with them to the jungle to have a sort of family vacation; camping, fishing, hunting, hanging out. It was a lot of fun and Jonathan is slowly teaching me Thai and helping me translate the rest. I sure do wish I knew more Thai. Anyways, so we traveled for about 2 hours and set up camp across the river (yes we had to cross the river to get to our "campsite", and we went fishing and ate dinner. The Thai guys shot some birds, a few squirrels and some other stuff. It was bad fishing, not a whole lot of catches other than some small ones. Soooo we went to bed in under the stars... and the bug net in our sleeping bags.
Day 5 consisted of us going to another part of the river downstream and trying to find some fish. Me and Jonathan tried to do so too, and floated a bit too far downstream into some really light rapids, but trying to get to shore was a struggle; that river was pushing really strong. I got cut up a bit by the rocks but its all good. I also found out that Thai people love white skin, especially the ladies... haha. Not kidding actually. They do joke about that a bit, due to my blinding white skin (hey, its cold in oklahoma right now, and I don't fake bake, baby!). They want to trade skin, is what they say. Haha. Okay that was a bit off subject... so we didn't find much fish out there either, so we headed back to camp and ate lunch, then packed up everything and headed back to town. Me and Jonathan went to Sangla's cousins house after picking up some groceries at a Cosco/Sam's type of store (it was suprising for me too when I went in the first time) and had showers there after the girls did and went to have dinner with her fam again. By the way, all the food? Deliteful! Sooo good, and its pretty spicy too. We traveled back afterwards in the dark on the motorcyle carrying groceries and our bags for the day (we got creative fitting it all on, including two 1 gallon containers of orange juice and milk on my lap, which got painful when going over the humps) for a 30 minute trip home. We got in and basically fell right asleep from exhaustion.
So Day 6 (today, Im writing at 2:30 pm here), We got up and had a few hours to spend with Jesus and read and pray, good stuff, then left to go fishing at a lake in town. I caught two fish (basically because Jonathan wanted me to reel them in, so it was a group effort really) that were about 20 to 30 pounds each. AWESOME! After that we headed home at about 1pm and have been having a little while of downtime before picking up a few of the girls from school and then meeting the rest to go to dinner for tonight. They are about to be on break from school so its one of the last time to do this sort of thing before a few of them go back home to their villages. Then... the night bizaar to pick up some clothes that I didn't pack to last me for this trip and see all the really cheap merch. Yeah baby! Who said being a missionary wasn't fun?! Haha. Anyways, so I have internet access here at the house, so Ill try to update a lot more often. Thanks for all the prayer back home and I hope all is well. Love you all!
In Him,
Matt Murnan
So this is my first blog for my time in Thailand. Here's a quick rundown of what Im doing over here...
First and foremost, I'm here because God told me to, and followed through by providing EVERYTHING I needed to go. I'm here with a missionary named Jonathan Hawk, and he is starting a house for college aged girls to get out of poverty (and before they get into the sex trade or prostitution) and putting them through either Bible school or college (whichever they choose) and giving room and board while his co-leader in the ministry, Sangla, whom is Thai, will look over the girls and disciple them. Its really amazing what they are doing.
For Jonathan, this is one of the last trips he will be taking to Thailand in about a year or so. Given that, he is here with me for 3 weeks to do a lot of relational and business stuff for the ministry. We are also meeting up with the girls (actually tonight) and learning their stories (for the first time for me, most of them he already knows really well). Which also means we will be doing a lot of fun things that he wants to do or take me to do.
For me, I will be filming and photographing the girls (interview style) and taking several other shots for a short film/movie for him to take to several churches and whatnot to raise funds for the building as well as supporting the girls. Its really something I love to do (the filming and photographing aspect in general) and Im excited for the next few days when we start it all up.
So anyways, a rundown of what the last 6 days have been like...
I left America on the 8th around 6:45 am and got to California around 10am, met up with Jonathan and Sangla (she was in the states to visit and talk and several places about Hannah House, this ministry they are starting) there, then flew for around 14 hours to finally get into Bangkok. Yes, we were only flying for about 20 hours total, but due to time changes, I left on a monday and arrived early early wednesday morning in Thailand (I wonder where Tuesday went... haha!). So we slept at a pastor's house in Bangkok, and the next day we took a 10 hour bus ride from Bankok (Southern Thailand) to Shiang Mai (Northern Thailand). It was long, but got some sleep and watched some insanely colorful (literally and figuratively) Thai movies and some Thai music videos. All I gotta say is... yeaaaaaaah. Anyways. So we got to another missionaries house, which is where we are staying most of the time to sleep. So that covers about 3 days.
So day 4, we got up still jetlagged, and we had breakfast and went to meet up with Sangla's family, where we are going with them to the jungle to have a sort of family vacation; camping, fishing, hunting, hanging out. It was a lot of fun and Jonathan is slowly teaching me Thai and helping me translate the rest. I sure do wish I knew more Thai. Anyways, so we traveled for about 2 hours and set up camp across the river (yes we had to cross the river to get to our "campsite", and we went fishing and ate dinner. The Thai guys shot some birds, a few squirrels and some other stuff. It was bad fishing, not a whole lot of catches other than some small ones. Soooo we went to bed in under the stars... and the bug net in our sleeping bags.
Day 5 consisted of us going to another part of the river downstream and trying to find some fish. Me and Jonathan tried to do so too, and floated a bit too far downstream into some really light rapids, but trying to get to shore was a struggle; that river was pushing really strong. I got cut up a bit by the rocks but its all good. I also found out that Thai people love white skin, especially the ladies... haha. Not kidding actually. They do joke about that a bit, due to my blinding white skin (hey, its cold in oklahoma right now, and I don't fake bake, baby!). They want to trade skin, is what they say. Haha. Okay that was a bit off subject... so we didn't find much fish out there either, so we headed back to camp and ate lunch, then packed up everything and headed back to town. Me and Jonathan went to Sangla's cousins house after picking up some groceries at a Cosco/Sam's type of store (it was suprising for me too when I went in the first time) and had showers there after the girls did and went to have dinner with her fam again. By the way, all the food? Deliteful! Sooo good, and its pretty spicy too. We traveled back afterwards in the dark on the motorcyle carrying groceries and our bags for the day (we got creative fitting it all on, including two 1 gallon containers of orange juice and milk on my lap, which got painful when going over the humps) for a 30 minute trip home. We got in and basically fell right asleep from exhaustion.
So Day 6 (today, Im writing at 2:30 pm here), We got up and had a few hours to spend with Jesus and read and pray, good stuff, then left to go fishing at a lake in town. I caught two fish (basically because Jonathan wanted me to reel them in, so it was a group effort really) that were about 20 to 30 pounds each. AWESOME! After that we headed home at about 1pm and have been having a little while of downtime before picking up a few of the girls from school and then meeting the rest to go to dinner for tonight. They are about to be on break from school so its one of the last time to do this sort of thing before a few of them go back home to their villages. Then... the night bizaar to pick up some clothes that I didn't pack to last me for this trip and see all the really cheap merch. Yeah baby! Who said being a missionary wasn't fun?! Haha. Anyways, so I have internet access here at the house, so Ill try to update a lot more often. Thanks for all the prayer back home and I hope all is well. Love you all!
In Him,
Matt Murnan
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