Sunday in Thailand

My alarm clock here are hundreds of chirping birds in the morning. I love it! They sound so beautiful. After a lazy morning of oatmeal, blogging, reading books in the sunshine, we walked over a couple blocks to a house church that Casey and Amy attend. There were 14 of us and after introductions our leader Greg took that morning to teach us about Thai culture, Buddisim and Spiritism. Greg asked the 4 Thai's that were there to describe how they came to Jesus and what life looked like before and after they accepted Him. One girl said, "I was a lazy Buddist. I didn't want to get up early to go to the temple and I didn't want to go do merit. Coming to Jesus was an easy decision. My mother hates me and sends me horrible messages and told me I'm no longer her daughter, but it was an easy decision." The Buddism/spiritist religion here believes that when you die you do merit and will give your deceased relatives food, money, and happiness in the afterlife. So it's hard for the family of those who choose Christ because they think they will die because who will take care of them when they die? Alot make the initial decision to live for Jesus but end up going back to Buddism. It is crazy to me that we in America can choose Christ without having your family hate you...it's pretty laid back, do whatever makes you feel good. You have the freedom to choose. Yet, those here have their families shun them and Jesus is enough. I felt so convicted. They will give up everything just for that relationship with Him. It was a beautiful morning of their testimonies and good food. After church, we boogied on the mopeds to the new contraversial mall in town. Chiang Rai takes pride takes pride in the fact that it has not been westernized. This mall changes that, with McDonalds, Starbucks, and many other stores. It just opened last week. Getting there was interesting. It was a VERY hot day (not complaining, loved it), but the the traffic was backed up getting into the place. Waiting on the hot pavement next to cars and mopeds....warm :). The place was packed and we were the only foreiners. We lost eachother a couple times, but it was a fun experience. We got our cold american Starbucks and sat outside in the hot humidity and took a few pictures. For dinner we went to P. Ghomes, a Thai friend of Casey and Amy. Casey practices his Thia and P. Ghome practices her Engligh. She also has taught Casey how to cook her food, so now when we eat there he helps her cook. It's cute. Along with dinner we ran next door for dessert. Something called roti, it's a crepe type pancake fried with banana and chocolate. Yum. Nate got some sort of fried donut thing. Pretty good too. We took our dinner and dessert on moped to the university park but soon left after the attack of the bugs. It was too dark, should have came early. After some laughter, poker games and a few other games, we hit the sack. Excited for a full day which includes: a massage, a boat ride up the river, riding elephants, dinner at the dancing shrimp (where Kyle is going to eat a live shrimp...hmmm), and the night market. Can I say fun?! Don't know if I want to come home :)