Travel Plans Confirmed.

Just a little update here: All my flights are set up and confirmed. All that is, except my flight home. I still don't know if my mom is trying to tell me something. ;)

To Get to Thailand, Go to Hollywood, then Turn Left

So, this morning I went down to the Thai consulate in LA and dropped off my visa application. They told me it would be ready tomorrow and that I could come back and pick it up! I'm very excited! SO, I'm getting up early again tomorrow to make the trek down to West Hollywood once again and, assuming everything goes to plan, I will be in possession of a Thai visa and will be able to stay in Thailand for the extra 3 weeks and then continue on from there to the Philippines. I am extremely excited about all of this and absolutely exhausted at the same time. Late nights and early mornings don't combine well.

Anyway, on the same note but a different topic altogether, another blessing in the financial department happened today! So, reporting in on that: A lady that attends my church works for a local company and they have paid me, in the past, to help them out around the holidays when they put together gifts for some of their top clients as a little "thank you" type of thing. They needed an extra set of hands to get the job done and I pretty much went in there and took care of the whole thing in half the time it took 6 of us to do it the year before. So, they have a couple of employees out this week and asked if I would be able to come in again and help them with some data entry. So, for today and the next 2 days I have a job! I was sitting there in front of a computer for 4 hours on little sleep and a trip to LA and back already under my belt for the day and I was so thankful for the provision God had brought.

I told you I didn't have to worry about it. ;)

Thailand: The Land of a Thousand Smiles

On June 1st I will be leaving to go to Thailand to teach English. My original plan was to be in Thailand for 4 weeks, but I have been presented with an opportunity to stay on in Thailand an additional three weeks after, to stay for a second session of English classes, and then to travel directly from Thailand to the Philippines. In the Philippines, I would then meet up with a team from my school and work with them there for three weeks. I have been seriously praying about this opportunity, and as the time gets closer and closer for me to leave I have to make important decisions about whether I will be extending my stay. Staying in Thailand longer means I will have to get a visa, and of course going to the Philippines means money. Fundraising is never something I have had difficulty with and in all the mission trips I have been on over the years, I have never once come up short on funds. God has always provided, sometimes in the most surprising and miraculous ways and sometimes in the simplest ways through hard work and effort, so I am not really that concerned about the money issue. It is simply a matter of being in the will of God and knowing what He would have me to do.

As my friends and family, and anyone else who might be reading this, I appreciate your prayers over the next few days as I do my best to complete my fundraising and visa applications. The next two or three days will decide what happens over the rest of my summer.

I have been watching more than one of my friends on Facebook posting "travel blogs" for their planned summer adventures, one to Japan and one to Europe. The idea seemed to make sense to me, as I often blog but never share them with people. I am starting this blog to chronicle my adventures overseas as I have a lot of traveling lined up over the next year that I expect to be doing. I think that I will continue this blog after the summer as I continue my journeying around the world.

I will update as often as I can, even now as I am preparing to go, once I know what changes may be made to my plans, you will know.

Be blessed and please keep me in your prayers. :)