Hey everyone! It has truly been an incredible few days. I left my house early thursday morning and went to the airport. After my mother and I enjoyed a coffee together, I headed off for the gate, eager to board the plane to minneapolis and then on to Singapore! I gor through security just fine without any trouble at all, and things went rather smoothly. My flight left right on time and quickly I made a new friend on the plane by the name of Claire. I was not sure at first, but she seemed like a Christian girl. I askede where she was going, and shesaid, "on I'm going to singapore." whoa. Then I asked what she'd be doing there. "I'm teaching classes to kids actually, its for a missions trip." My mental jaw hit the floor at that point. How incredible that I would meet someone from my team on my FIRST flight! (I thought I'd not meet anyone until I got to asia, so this was a special blessing).
God blessed me with company at the very beginning of my travles, and I am certainly thankful for that. in Minneapolis I made some final phone calls before leaving the States, and soon Claire and I found Priscilla, Toby, Timmy, and Jeremy, other people who are on our SEA (SouthEast Asia) team. On our flight, they announced that a "cute girl" was looking for other people with the missions group "IBLP" and sure enough, a girl from Louisiana by the name of Tiffany found our group! The seven of us got to know each other - it was awesome to have so many people on the same flight, all of us going to the same place with the same mission!!!
Well, we still had not taken off at this point... Then we realized that our flight should already have left... *cough*. Like, a while ago... *cue wide-eyed obvious look*
A voice came over the intercom, "We are having difficulty with a repair to the aircraft, we expect that it will be another 15-20 minutes until things are fixed again. we apologize for the inconvenience."
No big deal! A lesson in patience, right? :-) 3 hours, many revised announcements, and a LOT of patience and growing in Jesus later, we taxied out to the runway and took off for Tokyo, Japan. Thats another thing - I thought I was going to fly by myself the entire way and ended up flying with 6 other people. And, I thought I'd be flying straight to Singapore from Minn. St Paul, but instead I had a layover in Japan. Here's the catch though - since our plane had taken so long to repair, we missed our connection in Japan to Singapore - the final flight of the night!!! After three hours of waiting and 11 hours of flying (14 hrs total in the plane), we arrived in Tokyo and started the ever so tedious process of going through customs, immigration, and finding the people who would give us hotel vouchers. For some reason I was not feeling well and I was actually in the washroom of the airplane when we touched down, simply because I was feeling terribly dizzy and out of sorts. Thankfully, God helped me to feel better later in the evening.
Within a couple crazy hours, we got to our very nice hotel in Tokyo and were able to SHOWER!!!
After sooo long, it was quite nice to get clean. I personally took 3 showers. Hot water never felt so good :-)
I have completely lost my concept of time... Buying a watch is quite high on my list of "things to buy" this week, haha! We all went to bed, but most of us did not sleep well due to the jet lag. Still, the hotel stay was a blessing because it got us away from the airplanes and airport, and supplied a much needed change of pace for everyone.
In the morning, we took the shuttle back to the airport (after 8 hrs of "downtime" from travel). It was quite the experience, searching for the right ticket counter, finding our way back to where we needed to be, wondering if we could make our flight in time! This flight was, by far, my favorite. Japan Airlines, you rock!!! The in-flight meal of rice and beef sauce, sushie (wasn't that bad by the way), cake, then the drinks (OJ, gren tea, etc) and the hot damp wash clothes that they brought around = AWESOME!!! Seriously, it was like flying business class :-) Maybe better. I loveed it! they had little tv's for every seat and it was just wonderful.
Well, we landed in Singapore after another 8 hours, and everyone was definitely starting to experience the fatigue from traveling so long with such little rest. We collected our baggage and met the contact people in Singapore. Then we raced to a food court, inhaaaaaled a quick meal, and raced to the bus station so that we could catch a bus to the budget airline company. Once we arrived there, everyone had to weigh their suitcases and carry-ons. I don't know how I was over, but I left my one pair of dress shoes, my hoodie and my one shirt in Singapore in order to be within the weight limites. So, after just a couple hours on the ground in Singapore, we hurried to the next gate to catch a flight to Malaysia! Wheww!!!
As it turns out, we had some spare time to kill before the flight. MY TEAM IS AWESOME!!! We split up into teams and played Guestures in the terminal while we waited for our 10:25 pm flight. The girels team won, but I must say that the guys did well and the girl's barely won ;-) I pulled out my puppet and we played with him a while. (he needs a name, suggestions anyone?) I carried him in my arms like a little child and some of the security guards thought he was a child! The looks on their faces were totally priceless when they gasped and realized it was a puppet :-)
Sitting on the floor at our gate, we told stories and passed the time as we waited for the plane to arrive. The sound of wheels rolling echoed down the hall, and what do you know, the same lady who weighed our luggage and carry-ons was rolling in the ticket kiosk! This was truly the "budget" with a capital "B" airlines. As it turned out, our plane did not arrive on time. But its ok! We only had a fourty-five minute flight from Singapore to Malaysia, and customs did not take long once we arrived. We drove to the Summit Hotel and everyone said goodnight and I found my room, clear up on the 15th floor. How awesome!!! You can see sooo many city lights from up here, its totally cool! :-)
They told me that my roomate, John, was quite difficult to wake up. I agree. :-) I beat the door and rang the bell for the better part of 15 minutes before I went back downstairs to the front desk and asked for an extra key to get into my room. I got to bed around 1:30 am (1:30 pm according to my body) and sleep was amazing. Kinda like passing out, I didn't even remember getting comfortable really, haha!
This morning (Sunday), we met in the lobby and after meeting our other teamates, we loaded into the bus and went to church. the service was wonderful and the sermon very insightful! The pastor preached from Phil. 3:1-21 and we must have sang 6-7 hymns throughout the course of the service. Afterwards, we got back into the bus and drove to an open air market where we enjoyed "typical cuisine." Wow. I have to mention this, I've been to other countries and tried different foods, but nothing compares to the food I've experienced here in Asia so far. It is just so unique and different from anything I've previously tasted or tried. the eating of shrimp and noodles with chopsticks, drinking from a bowl with floating pieces of coconut-flavored jello and hardboiled eggs (the drink was flavored sweet-like, I can't exactly plave the flavor though), it was all very new to me :-)
A great experience though! You just had to not think about the slight smell of sewage in the air and just have fun eating :-) At some point, another grill started up and the smell from it toned everything down and I was able to more fully focus on enjoying the new and adventurous dishes set before me!
After that we left the open air market, we came back to the hotel and rested/shopped/slept/cleaned up. Later we went to dinner at a cool cafe in the mall (which happened to be about 4 stories high and connected directly to our hotel!).
Now I'm in my room and having already re-organized my suitcase, figured out that half of my shirts do not have a collar (something that we need for dress code here), hung up clothes, looked over some study material, bought internet time from the hotel and generally tried to get things together for tomorrow, I am updating things and doing my best to wind down :-)
I love you all! Thank you for your prayers.
Here are a couple requests that I could especially use your assistance in covering THIS week!
1. That God will give each member of the team a passion to serve selflessly and completely.
2. Each of the team members is given emotional, spiritual, and physical strength for the work ahead.
3. That God will help us to effectively use our time as we prepare for the first session tomorrow night, and that He will guide us as we prepare our lessons.
4. I was made a team leader as of this afternoon and I need God's special guidance as I dig into the material and work on the lesson. I believe we have the kids for a total of 4 hours..
5. For me, that I will be open to what God wants me to learn, and that I will draw closer to Him each moment of the day.
:-) So far its been one epic trip! Thanks again for the prayers! I will do my best to update this blog as often as possible, but please understand that things come up (primary example - taking 3 days to get to Malaysia instead of 30 hours like I originally thought, lol!!!) :-)
See you all later!
Gladly serving,
Lewis
