Myanmar and entry to India :)

I'm finally here! Im in India...seems like it's been a long time trying to get here. Explain that more a little later. For some crazy reason, Myanmar doesn't like blogspot.com and it is restricted so I'm now in India updating you on Myanmar :) And even this is getting you late in the game while I'm in India because the rain messes with the power. Flashlights are a life saver...too bad I didn't bring one!

So it's been quite an adventure since I last wrote on here. I landed in Yangon and saw the cutest reunion ever. A mom was coming home and her two young kids were so excited to see her. They actually ran into customs to hug her and later got kicked out but it was the sweetest thing and made me get excited to see my family. But...there's still so much to do before that :) There was some confusion on that dates that I was going to be arriving in Myanmar and there wasn't anybody there to pick me up at the airport the night I arrived. I waited for about 15 minutes and then asked to borrow someone's phone. This country is probably the country that literally does not know ANY English so it was the hardest to communicate. But where there's a will there's a way :) So I called my contact several times and there was no answer and the man whose phone I was borrowing needed to leave so I handed it back and was stumped again. My phone didn't have any service and everyone I asked to borrow their phone just stared at me in confusion. So I remembered the wise words of Joey Beason, "When there's a moment when you don't know where you're at, you don't know what to do and you can't get ahold of everyone, take a deep breath, pray, be quite and listen for God." So that's what I did, I sat down on my luggage cart, prayed and waited. I wasn't scared or nervous for one second. I had a complete peace that God was working something out, even if I couldn't see it right in front of me. Then a man walked up to me and was trying to get me to go with him and I said no haha. Poor guy, looked so determined and I almost gave in but, I had no proof he was my ride. He looked stumped and he walked out of the airport. I remember feeling like I should have gone with him but I knew that if he WAS supposed to pick me up then he'd be back. (Not to mention I thought of my dad the whole time and how he'd be proud of me for not going without proof haha.) Sure enough, about 5 minutes later he came back with a paper with my name and Cottonwood Church written on it. I was taken to a hotel and when I arrived, there was a woman standing at the entrance with my contact, Peter, on the phone. He told me of the confusion and made sure I was well taken care of. He lives 45mins to an hour away so he knew it would be faster for the hotel to pick me up. Come to find out, someone (who neither of us has a clue who it was even till this day) called Peter, and said, "Peter your friend is at the airport." Then Peter called Joey in California and Joey confirmed that I had arrived. So cool! While I was sitting there praying, God had some random person (maybe an angel!!!!!) to call Peter and tell him I was there and waiting. Praise God!!! And to top if off, my mom woke up praying at around the time that I was in the airport alone. As in she literally was speaking as she woke up. God is so cool. I had no clue he was making phone calls and waking my mom up to pray for me while I was sitting there quietly waiting for direction. So much goes on behind the scenes of our lives that we have no clue about! God is never surprised by our circumstances! Our job is to trust Him and He'll do the rest. I love looking at the scene from God's eyes.....me sitting alone in the airport, carefree, praying and trusting Him as He's shifting things around to take care of me. Our God never fails, that's for sure! Stories like these help my parents sleep at night, well I guess in this case not for my mom haha.

The next morning I was picked up and taken out to Love Children's Home for church and was greeted by many hugs from all ages. When I drove up there was a swarm of children around my car. I couldn't even walked an inch because I was ambushed haha. Cutest thing ever. I finally waded my way through the kids to meet Peter and his amazing family. Peter had asked me the night before to speak for Sunday church so we headed over to church where worship was already starting. One thing I love about missions trips is being able to worship the same God but in different languages. The presence of God never changes, the only difference is that it sounds different coming out of each others mouths. I especially love when you recognize what song they are singing and you can sing along in your own language while they are singing in theirs. Such an amazing experience that I never get used to, no matter how many different trips I go on. The people in Myanmar know how do worship, that's for sure!

So besides speaking on Sunday morning I was asked to speak at the bible college for the two morning classes. I was able to do that three days that week. That's what I love about this trip, you really never know exactly what you will be doing until you get there. I went to Myanmar thinking I was going to be playing with kids all day, not expecting to speak at all. The night I landed I was asked to speak/teach and that ended up being the main thing I did while I was there. The kids had school during the week so besides them welcoming me on Sunday morning, I didn't even see them until my last two days. But that's also what's so awesome about this trip....even though it's not what I expect, it always ALWAYS ends up being awesome! I loved sharing with the college classes. It was quite a stretch to say the least. I have never spoken for more than 20ish minutes straight and I was supposed to speak to two classes a morning or an hour each! And that's without an interpreter so you don't get to pause and think haha. But of course, God never let me down. Once I got in front of the class, I was in the zone. God totally spoke through me and He had me tell stories I didn't plan on telling and He had me share things that were so awesome and I never planned it. I told my mom, "you know God's speaking through you when the words come out of your own lips not only surprise you but they actually minister to you as well." I felt like IIIIIIIIIII needed to hear what was coming out of my mouth. Such a cool experience. Every time I spoke, I took something away from it also. There goes God again, being amazing. :) Each day I left time to interact with the students and let them practice their English on me and ask me questions. Seems like every country I'm in, regardless of the ring I'm wearing on my finger to avoid these questions, the same three questions are always asked first every time: “How old are you, are you single and do you have a sister.” I always made them laugh by telling them that they aren't allowed to know if I'm single or not. On the last day of my teaching in the bible college I taught them how to play charades and pictionary :) We had a great time and we all laughed so hard we cried many times.

One of the days I got to go sight seeing and have some fun with Peter's daughters, Rosemary and Elizabeth. Their friend Judy came along too and we had an awesome time. They took me to see the largest Buddhist temple in the world. It was beautiful and HUGE! Rebekah, Peter's wife, told me that all the diamonds and gold that were put into that building could feed all of Myanmar for 6 years. Pretty sad considering how many people are dying of starvation in Myanmar. We also went to this small amusement park that showed you small replicas of famous buildings that are in Myanmar. It was fun! We rented two tandem bikes and rode all over the place looking at all the buildings and taking silly pictures. There were also huts that showed you the different cultures of the different states of Myanmar. At the Chin hut, (which is the state we were living in) Elizabeth and I dressed up in traditional Chin outfits. (See pictures on facebook album....I've pasted the link below). We saw other places throughout Myanmar, went shopping and I got to do the honors of having Rosemary and Judy try pizza for the first time! It was funny to watch their reactions. Judy hated it :) I told them if they ever come to America I'd take them to a GOOD pizza place (BJ'S!!!! Oh how I miss thee....)

I'm learning on this trip how much our bodies REALLY do need rest haha. Like Joey Beason said, “God really knew what He was doing when He created the sabbath day!” Amen to that. I took a day off while I was in Myanmar and probably slept the whole day straight, woke up and ate dinner and went back to bed and slept the whole night. I'm such a “go big or go home” type of person and I love to do all that I can when I'm on trips across the world. I guess I'm used to going on 1 ½ week trips where I can go all out and then come home and sleep. One of my mottos on missions trips is “sleep is for home” haha. But I guess on 3 month trips, sleep and rest is needed. I learned that quick, fast and in a hurry :)

So far in all the countries I've been to it has been rainy season. There basically is no such thing as winter because it never gets cold but they have “rainy season.” I LOVE it though! In the Philippines, Myanmar and India there have been great rains! I love it! You NEVER see rain like this in California. It's only annoying to me when I'm wearing jeans, I HATE wearing wet jeans....hence the reason I wear skirts in all my pictures haha. Peter plays on a soccer team and we got to go watch one of his games where they played in a crazy storm. They aren't like us wimpy Americans who cancel games because the field is muddy. It was so much fun to watch and Peter scored a goal off of a penalty kick. Elizabeth and I had a great time watching and laughing at them in the rain. I taught Elizabeth the “American way” of eating sunflower seeds and it was hilarious. She would put a bunch of seeds in her mouth all at once and try to crack the shell of one and end up accidentally chewing them all haha. But she finally got the hang of it and by the end of the game she could even talk and de-shell them at the same time :)

Elizabeth gave me a tour of a small fabric making factory they have. Some of the coolest machines. It was amazing to watch them work the machines. They make beautiful blankets scarfs and longees (totally spelt that wrong I'm sure) which are the skirt-type things that all the people in Myanmar wear. Beautiful colors! While I was there the woman who worked there were celebrating their 10th year anniversary of being open :) The orphans also make beautiful jewelry to sale. I bought a bunch to bring home, hopefully will be able to get them connected somehow to a place where they can sale some in America.

One of the days after I taught at the bible college, I decided to walk around the beautiful compound and explore by myself. All the kids that were old enough to be in school were gone but there were some littler ones running around. Most of them were pretty shy. One kid in the city was terrified of me and was saying “TRANSFORMER!” Everyone started laughing because the kid thought I was a transformer because I was so tall. Ahahahaha I was probably a foot taller than everyone in Myanmar! Anyways, as I was walking around the compound I hear the pitter patter of little feet running my way and I turned to see the cutest little kids running towards me. A little boy named Andrew and a little girl named Angel. They are twins and they just ran and smiled. Each one took one of my hands and just kept walking with me like they had known me for years. It was one of the cutest things I'd ever seen. Looked up every once in awhile at me but 90% of the time just held my hands, walked and chatted to each other in their language. Brought complete joy to my heart. My little companions never tried talking to me but boy oh boy did they know what a camera was! I took it out and they were posing and smiling and as soon as I put it away they just held my hands and went back to talking. The cutest and funniest thing ever. They ended up being my little buddies the whole trip, always somehow finding me when I was walking around or even sometimes waiting outside the door of where I was because they could hear my voice. So precious.

On Saturday I got to play with the kids for the first time because they were all out of school and I wasn't teaching at the bible college. It was fun walking out to where one child could see me because as soon as one ran, the whollllle herd of kids would follow. Usually within 10 seconds I had little hands hugging me, and pulling at me. Everywhere I walked my hands were always occupied and there were many more just touching my legs, arms and hips. It actually was quite a hazard trying to walk. All we needed was the transformer to trip and smash some poor little kid! They are all so affectionate and loving. All day on Saturday and Sunday I had a hand on me at all times. Every time I looked down there was a smiling face looking up. Every time I freed up a hand, there were five little hands attached to my fingers. I soaked up every minute of it. These kids were amazing and hilarious too. I don't recall hearing any of them speak English (except when they copied what I was saying) and yet again we all had a great time. Moments like those languages don't matter, it's pure heart to heart contact through simple actions. A smile, reaching a hand out to a little runt who is being pushed to the back of the group of kids, laughing at their silly games, the girls making flower necklaces for me and putting flowers in my bobby pins for my hair. No words necessary, just acts of love. Love breaks all language barriers and goes straight to the heart.

On Sunday I visited the children's church and got to see how their service ran. It was so cute, they did worship with the main church service and then left during the sermon to have their own service. A woman did a great job of telling some sort of bible story. I obviously don't know what it was because it wasn't in English but she had the kids full attention and was very animated the whole time. I even laughed at times and I had no clue what was going on. I took some pictures of the kids faces because they were so memorized by her. So cute! After that they learned a new song and memorized a verse. I asked Elizabeth what verse it was that they were learning and it was the verses in 1 Corinthians 13 talking about love. And of course by the end of service, I had little Angel sitting in my lap and Andrew sitting by my feet watching the teacher :)

After service I took a bunch of pictures with the kids and made some videos with them also. I ate lunch at the house with Peter and his family. On several occasions I got to talk to Rebekah for a while after a meal. On Sunday we talked after lunch and when we walked out of the kitchen I was shocked and laughed because about 50-75 kids were sitting outside the door, in the family room watching Tom and Jerry on TV and there was one empty chair set up for me to join them :) Elizabeth, Rosemary and Joseph were all in attendance and we ended up watching a little of fast and the furious and then we watch an Amanda Bynes movie called Sydney White. I thought of Jamie because we love all her movies. I hadn't seen this one and I laughed so hard at times throughout the movie. At those moments I realized that the orphans probably didn't even know what was going on in the movie because Elizabeth, Rosemary and I were the only ones laughing. Then all the kids would look at us and get the clue and start laughing too which of course made us laugh even harder. So much fun and so cute.

After the movies and relaxing a bit, we all went outside and played of one last time. Some of the kids played UNO, some played marbles on the ground (which reminded me of when my brother and I used to play as kids) and then others just relaxed in chairs. After a little while Elizabeth remembered that we never played volleyball like we wanted because of the rain so we decided rain or shine we were playing :) We gathered some of the bible college guys and played. The court was all muddy from the previous rains which made it challenging but very fun! We had such a blast splashing in the puddles and running in the mud. We took a group photo at the end...my team won! WAHOO! Sorry Elizabeth! Maybe next time! Even today, 6 days later, I still have bruises all over my forearms. I have no clue why but, that game messed me up haha. It didn't really hurt at the time but my arms were swollen that night and bruised later that week. Maybe Myanmar puts rocks in their volleyballs....

When the time came for me to leave I gave lots of hugs and shook and held lots of hands one last time. It was so hard leaving all the kids and all the new family and friends I had met. Right before I left, Rebekah had a seamstress come to the house and take my measurements for an outfit! I got to pick to pick out the fabric and she had it made before I left. Very beautiful! I was so excited and thankful! Such an amazing gift. I'm going to miss my family and friends in Myanmar.

When I landed in Kolkata, India I had to get a taxi and take it to a hotel for the night and catch my connecting flight to Bagdogra in the morning. My hotel was close to the airport and AMAZING! Driving through Kolkata, a very poor city, I was just praying that I'd have a lock on my door and it'd be a bonus if there was a working shower. (Can you tell I've been in 3rd world countries for awhile now...) Little did I know, my hotel was AMAZING! Probably the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. Way beyond having just running water, it was a nice one night escape to relax. I was even blessed with a free hour massage! It pays to be out going and curious haha. I was just wondering around the hotel checking everything out and next thing I knew I was getting a tour of the spa and getting a free massage! WAHOO! I'll take a blessing when it's handed to me :) And beyond that it's like God was putting everything I love into one experience. My free massage and there were Gerber Daisys (my FAV flower) all over the room and then I was served tea and shortbread cookies after I got out of a nice warm shower. (First warm shower I'd had in probably a month.) I was in heaven!

This is where the story gets really awesome again! (Well slightly annoying but, awesome in how God helped me through it.) I took a taxi back to the airport and found out my flight was changed to 2:50pm when it was originally 10am. Dang it...will have to wait 7 hours in a small airport. So the time finally came to board the plane and my flight went up on the board to get ready to get on it and then it disappeared. Okkkk....so I just waited and listened to my ipod but then....are my eyes playing tricks on me?!?! A white man! Haha. I was about to board my plane so I didn't care to say hello but the next thing I know he was walking towards me. I told my mom, in countries like these white people get excited to see each other and we always say hi to each other haha. So I got to talk to him, Paul, for a little and it ends up he's on the same flight as me. After a half hour of waiting for our flight to come up on the board, we asked and found out our flight was delayed bc of weather problems. We got some snacks, sat down and started talking. He's originally from the states but is currently living in Australia and is visiting India on business. It ends up he lives about 5 minutes from where I was staying in Brisbane! Small world :) So we finally get on our flight and we end up having seats right next to each other. At first I thought that this was just a coincidence but I later found out this was a God set up. Once we get to Bagdogra, the pilot gets on the air and says we have to circle because the viability was very bad. After about 30mins-hour he said we were going to make an attempt to land. I remember our plane going under the clouds and then I remember the plane strangely going back up above them. Then the pilot said we were going to make an emergency landing back in Kolkata because we didn't have enough fuel to circle anymore. The pilot said that they are allowing us to try again in about half an hour but Paul and I knew that we weren't leaving Kolkata that night, we'd have to find a hotel.
So, once we landed, we got on the bus to head back to the airport. The whole plane was surrounding an airline worker right outside the plane but they weren't speaking English so we stayed on the bus which ended up taking us to the airport before everyone else. Neither of us really knew what to do but with common sense we figured we'd go back to the ticket counter and get our tickets for the next days flight. As we walked into the terminal we were going to head to the luggage pick-up area but for some strange reason there were 5 bags sitting right next to the terminal entrance, separate from the rest of the plane's luggage. 3 of those bags were mine and Paul's. I didn't realize how amazing this was till later. So we got our bags and walked to the ticket counter. Then the craziness happened. We handed the airline worker our two tickets and then heard a huge commotion. We looked behind us and there was a huge mob of unhappy people headed towards us. We didn't know but they weren't having an extra flight the next day, they were just issuing by first come first serve basis, tickets to the already almost full flight for the next day. That's when it hit us how awesome God had blessed us! We left earlier than the rest of the flight because we didn't understand what the airline worker was saying outside of the plane. Which I'm assuming he was telling them to get on your marks and run to the ticket counter because not everyone was going to get a ticket. THEN, our bags were separate from the others and how amazing is it that out of allllllll the luggage on that flight that our three bags were among the only 5 waiting at the door for us to just grab and go! And without us even knowing the urgency of the situation had handed them our tickets RIGHT before the mob hit the counter! They even had to close the doors to keep the angry passengers out. They only opened them slightly, long enough to hang Paul our two tickets and then slammed the door shut again. We just walked off awestruck by what just happened and walked to get a taxi. It was such a God thing that I met Paul because it would not have been a good thing to be an American girl traveling alone in Kolkata by myself. Plus he was very helpful! He had me sit with the bags and before I knew it we had a taxi and 2 rooms at a hotel, wahoo! The drive was pretty horrible which I was glad he was there for too. Very scary. Paul even said, “It's one of those things that you have to realize it's completely out of your control and you have to trust that God is protecting you.” No joke, spoken right before we saw a motorcyclist go down in front of us. And if it wasn't enough that God did all these things to assure we got tickets on the plane, sending me a guardian Angel (Paul) and keeping us safe, God totally blessed me with something I REALLY wanted to do! I heard the day before that Mother Teresa (one of my biggest romodels) had a house in Kolkata and it was actually where she was buried also. I didn't feel comfortable going alone and bc we had a whole morning to kill before out flight the next day, Paul took me to go see it! Ahhhhh, God is sooooo good! I can't believe all the amazing things that God has done to keep me safe and also to bless me while I've been on this trip. God is good, all the time!

I am not typing in my room, over looking the Himalayan mountains. The most beautiful place EVER! I feel like I'm living in Avatar! I will be adding another blog hopefully shortly about my trip in India :) Because of the rain, the power and internet is very poor and rarely works. So, this may be my only blog while I'm here but I'll keep trying. Love you all and I can seriously feel your prayers. Please pray for my eye. I don't know what the heck is going on but there is either an animal that crawled up there and made it's home in it or I scratched it. Every time I look to the right it acts up and gets irritated. It has gotten better in the past couple days but still acts up every so often.

I'm afraid that when I log onto the internet to post this that it will shut down fast so if you want to look at my updated facebook pictures, check out my last blog at the bottom of it and there's the link. Will add more pics as soon as I can!