57 days left! (ignore the date above, i started this on the 22nd & just finished it, but the days left are from today)

Wow, that number seems very small! When i first decided to go on this trip there was a little over 100 days til the trip... it seemed like it was SOO far away & now it feels like it's quickly approaching.

Last Wednesday I spent all day with a Burmese family... William & Bawi Len. Bawi Len had a doctors appointment in the morning so we went to that, then after went to this AMAZING grocery store full of asian food (needless to say I know where i'll be shopping from now on!) & after that we just hung out at their house. There were times when they were talking to me that I just couldn't help but tear up, i can't even describe it... it's a love that I didn't know existed. I had no idea it was possible to love a group of people so much, people that I don't even know that are still in Burma & Thailand... how can i just have this endless love for them? 

William is a VERY smart man, he is a pastor & is currently back at school... he is a pastor at a Burmese church here & he's just one of those people you know KNOWS God. He has stood up against the Burmese government for God, he has proclaimed his religion in times when most of us would run... he is just an amazing man. William has a plan... his plan is to get all the names & addresses of all the Buddhist Burmese people in San Diego & he wants to share his religion with them. He has plans of building a huge Burmese church. The first part of his plan is aid... giving aid to the new families, giving them love so that when they ask why we help we can share God's love with them. It's just amazing that he has this plan & he's so passionate about it.. he's an amazing man.

This weekend we had some pretty intensive Thailand training... 3-10 on Friday night, 7-5 on Saturday... needless to say there were a lot of emotions all weekend. Saturday night I literally broke down in tears... why is God blessing me with this opportunity? I fall so short of His glory EVERY DAY & yet He still pours blessings out upon me constantly. It amazes me & it's so overwhelming. I can't wait to go over there & pour God's love out on these little Karen villagers.

I have decided to stay in Thailand for 4 weeks now instead of the original 2 weeks. I will be leaving December 25th & coming home January 22nd. Once again another blessing from God, giving me 4 weeks with them instead of 2... 2 more weeks to just show these villagers love. So the first 2 weeks we will be doing the construction of the medical clinic, then most of the team leaves on January 9th & 3 of us girls stay with the rest of the full time missionaries. For the remainder of the trip we will be traveling from the city to the village a few times... doing VBS in the village school & working on the student sponsorship program in the ITDP office in the city. 

There is SOO much to do to prepare! I really need to start getting my shots! & there are a lot of things that I need to get.. things like rip stop pants & a hiking backpack... the list goes on & on...ive also been getting very good at the Karen language. :)

Thank you all for your constant love & support... you'll never know how much it means to me!