12/2/23
Goodbye Cambodia, hello Thailand!
After a very long travel day to get from Cambodia to Thailand, we are officially in our ministry locations after 45 ish hours of traveling! The entirety of X Squad stayed at the AIM base, where teams YADA and NSS were staying for our time in Cambodia. It was a very weird adjustment going from only 17 people staying there to have all 50 of us trying to find a place to sleep for the night in the 5 bedroom two bathroom house, there was people sleeping in every single every available floor space that night.
Our travel included a 3 hour bus ride to the border of Cambodia leaving at 05:00, walking to the customs place and waiting 4 hours in line to get through there getting of there at like 11:00, then waiting an additional 2-3 hours before we could get on the next bus to continue going through Thailand not leaving until 15:00, then a 15 hour bus ride to our hostel in Chiang Mai arriving at 04:30 and only getting a few hours of sleep then getting up and leaving at 09:00 to go to the bus that would take us to Chiang Dao and waiting for the 10:30 bus and barely making it to fit on the bus, then a 1 1/2 ish hour bus ride to Chiang Dao then finally arriving at our ministry hosts house! Lots of hurry up and wait but I know that it’s all so worth it.
As we have arrived here at the Fountain of Hope house, you could just feel the excitement, warmth and love of the kids welcoming us into their home. They haven’t had any teams since 2019, so before COVID. So you knew that everything was genuine. The kids and the family was so hospitable in welcoming us to their home, it was so refreshing even though we were all exhausted from traveling. I knew that it was going to be an absolute blessing doing ministry here as soon as we walked on the property, even though I had very little idea of what we were actually doing.
Here is some more information about the Fountain of Hope house that we are working/living with: “fountain of hope works in the villages of northern Thailand. Their vision is to create an environment to which children are cared for and brought up with Christ. Their goal is to educate and love them so they will grow up to be leaders in the tribal communities and teach the live of Jesus while being self sustaining in their lives. Our teams will help educate children and stay with the villagers to become apart of their lives and showing Gods love through action. Fountain of hopes objectives:
- Preach the gospel to children and teach, train, and grow them up to living with Christ and follow Jesus
- Give children the opportunity to go to school and to learn to read, write, and speak Thai.
- For children to experience a warm Christian family through being together at the Fountain of Hopes home that has an atmosphere that shows love for one another.”
It’s so easy to want to ask every question of every aspect that we do not know, but if the Lord has been showing me anything, it’s to be patient and everything will come on it’s own time. I know that I will learn a lot within the next week of what exactly we’re doing in ministry, so I want to just trust in God to give me the peace of mind and heart and know that I don’t need to worry.
Already coming into Thailand, I can tell some pretty significant differences between Cambodia and Thailand. I learned that Thailand is a second world country so there’s a lot more paved roads and less of the hut type of houses that we saw all over in Cambodia, so the country is just more developed. Only being here for less than 2 days, I can already tell a difference in the people. They are not as friendly as Khmer people, they don’t really smile and wave, it doesn’t feel as warm or welcoming as before, when I was expecting it to. I feel that will be a roadblock when it comes to wanting to share the Gospel, it doesn’t seem like they’re approachable so that changes how you would go about preaching to them or sharing the love of Christ. But despite the challenges that I know I’m going to face, I want to be sure to thank God in every situation I am in because I know that I am following His plan for me and I will do whatever ministry will look like. If I am doing manual labor or cleaning toilets, I know I am doing it ultimately all for the glory of God.
Please pray for Israel and YADA as we go into this ministry, as we don’t know what it’s going to be like doing ministry together or living together. Prayers that we will all just continue to rely on the Lord in everything that we are doing and that we are all in His word everyday. 
