Taking to the streets of Ubon

First of all, let me apologize for any delay you might have had in being able to view our most recent entries. That was the fault of Blogspot, not our diligence in updating! Updates were posting but not displaying last night (yesterday morning for you), now they are there for all to see.

Anyhow, we've completed our second full day in Ubon. Yesterday, after meeting with our friends Lynn and Amy for breakfast and lunch, we started off our time with a little prayer walking under rather intense sun. We started in a vacant space around some other businesses where Lynn has had a vision to one day setup a healing center. We hope to have some video of that to show you later, if the internet cooperates. We then made our way to the Assumption School, where all of the children of our Ubon friends are enrolled in school, with of course the exception of baby Aden. Afterwards we hoofed it back to our hotel for some rest prior to dinner out. During dinner we encountered the full wrath of the Thai rainy season. We were shielded from the storm by the building, but the tin roof of the building made dinner conversation something of a challenge.

Today we hit the streets again, this time (thankfully) aided by cloud cover that didn't yield rain throughout the day. We prayed blessings over a local church in Ubon, and then made our way to visit our friend Micah for lunch, and some prayer at the school (Benchema) where he teaches in the English program. The "highlight" of the day, at least from a memorable moment standpoint, was our unplanned detour into the outskirts of Ubon via "song thiew", Ubon's method of public transportation. Our fearless leader (that's me) got a little overconfident in his understanding of the routes of these vehicles, and the end result was about an extra 45 minutes of riding that was the result of an attempt to avoid about 20 yards of walking. In terms of defining travel moments, however, I'll take that over the defining moment of my last time in Thailand, which was an (at least) 45 minute one way walk in Bangkok to the Baiyoke Tower, which I've since learned was totally unnecessary. (Mr. Brubaker, if you're reading this, we to have a chat when I get back.)

After we (finally) got back to the hotel and has some time to rest, we went out for dinner, which was the first time we got to be with all of our Ubon friends, and the first time we connected with Randy and Jodi at all. It was a great meal, highlighted by our surprise for Amy - a suitcase full of baby shower gifts that we brought from friends and family back in the States. A big "thank you" for those who contributed goes out to you from Amy and family!

Well, that's about it for now. You should see some reflections from other team members show up sometime in the next 24 hours, along with a regular update about tomorrow. Thank you for your continued prayers and support, they are felt here!