Yeah, last week sucked. I was anticipating travel day to suck, which we will talk about later. But debrief also sucked like sucking on a yellow lollipop that you thought was going to be pineapple flavored but was actually durian flavored. It was supposed to be a nice relaxing time but it wound up sucking.
First we had to go to the immigration place in Thailand multiple days to get our passports extended. That sucked. We wound up having to stay at a different location, where the power turned on and off at interesting times while praying. So that was pretty cool.
Then we had a squad fun day where we thought we had a two hour car ride one way. It wound up being three and a half one way, several people got car sick with all the mountains, and the place we wanted to go was closed. So that sucked. We went to a different waterfall and I got to carry around a large stick. So that was pretty cool. We also went to a food place to cook our own meat but that kinda sucked because it was hard to tell for some of the items if the meat was fully cooked. No one got sick from it though.
There was an earthquake in Thailand. I’ll admit it was interesting to feel an earthquake for the first time, but people went missing and died, so that sucks. Prayers are needed for the victims and their families.
Debrief also ended with some sucking news. No cool prayer or stick consolation prizes. It just sucked.
Travel day didn’t suck like a tuna fish sandwich, but it also sucked. There was a bus scam fallen for, so we had to catch a couple of modes of transportation in rapid succession without eating or going to the bathroom. Our bus was very decorated and it stopped at a very interesting rest area with live music and a bunch of people at 1:00 AM. They had good fried chicken and rice, but the entire scenario was bizarre.
One thing that didn’t suck was a conversation that I had with a Russian immigrant named Dmitry. He was a former atheist who had serious issues with the Russian Orthodox Church. Then he started trying to get his life together by studying a lot of different religions and cultures. A couple of his role models are Dr. Jordan Peterson and St. Michael the Archangel, and his girlfriend had deliverance utilizing Mary. Given my Catholic background and the fact that I’m also a fan of Dr. Peterson, I was absolutely the best person on my team to talk with him about all of that stuff. And it was clear God set me up in perfect position to do so because he sat down next to me and commented on our backpacks. It would’ve been nice to explore Bangkok a bit, but that conversation was more important. One of my teammates also started chiming in after an hour, which was nice, because they were a lot more direct than our philosophizing at each other. We also talked about prayer because I prayed over him and he really enjoyed that. I would say the entire conversation was a very productive two hours.
The best piece of advice I was able to give him that it seemed like he was going to contemplate was Christ should be the final authority that you are aligning yourself to because he is 100% God and 100% man. Everything else, your own values, church officials, and even saints should be compared with Christ, because no one possesses authority that usurps God’s authority. So I suggested he tried to pray more and read the Bible with Christ as the final authority. As you can see, some of my Bible videos will be grounds for excommunication XP.
We received a very warm welcome into Malaysia from our host once we arrived, and were given a couple of days off to rest and get our bearings. So I’ve been resting and reading and blogging and now we’ve reached the present.
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