The Struggle Bus.

It’s around day 23 of being in Thailand and I am in hell.

I am with a group of people constantly talking about “bringing Heaven to Earth” and it is my personal hell. The irony is not lost on me.

Don’t get me wrong, love the country, having great touristy adventures during the day when I can, eating all the weird fruits and buying all the clothes for $1 but when I have to do the church thing, this is the rude part of my trip.

The thing I need you to understand is this

1. I am a YES person. I once said yes to everything for one month. I love adventure.

2. I don’t really understand what a mission trip is. When I was in high school I went on a mission trip to Mexico. We (kind of) helped build this orphanage and talked about God a little bit but it was really more of a humanitarian effort than anything.

3. I really need to ask more follow up questions in life because my ADD plus being an ENFP and being a STRONG P on the Meyers Briggs scale, gets me into ALL sorts of situations. You could say "My P-ness gets me into trouble.” (yes, I did that pun)

So anyway, let's get on with it.

When Hanna told me about the trip, I remember her saying something about worship and miracles. The concept of miracles sounds awesome! I want to see something! See if that’s real. Because I am interested in God and the supernatural this year because I have heard some stories. But I’m not sure if any of it is actually truth or just urban legends.

She also told me they do things like "Bar Ministry" where they go to bars and love on people… and I was all, UM YES I love bars and I love drinking and I love people. So in Lindsey’s “I say yes and jump in too fast and don’t ask enough follow up questions” world, this sounds perfect for me. I can explore doing this mission trip thing, investigate if there really are such a thing as miracles and still hang out at bars. And be in Thailand! I was SO IN!!!

Here is what ended up happening. Somehow there was this miscommunication between the team I was with and the Thailand coordinators. They thought we were going to be doing more of a church conference type thing rather than us going out into the community.

And so, suddenly, I realize that I am going to be in church, like INSIDE A CHURCH every day.

And it’s going to be sermons and mostly worship. Every. Night.

THIS IS MY NIGHTMARE.

Listen you need to know this other thing about me.

#4 I loathe…I’m talking to the depths of my being, I LOATHE Christian music.

Here is a real thing I had been saying to Jesus in my head. "I’m having a hard time really believing in you and wanting to give you my life because, and don’t take this personally ... your music sucks.”

That is a real convo I would have. I’m 100% serious.

Anyways

So NOW I find myself in this place where people are going to be preaching and worshiping every day. There are not going to be outings and bar ministry. This is basically it.

The reality of what I got myself into comes crashing down. This might not have been my best idea ever. I think …. I've made a huge mistake.

But! I remain hopeful! I did come to see something and I march forward determined to make this worth it. I decide, well if I’m gonna be here and do all this I BETTER SEE A MIRACLE.

Also it should be known that during this time I'm reading books on my kindle app on my iPhone during church and worship.

People are worshiping God and I’m reading The 4 Hour Work Week (shut up, it's all I had downloaded on it!) and I’m really having a good laugh at myself too. I can’t wait to tell my friends what I got myself into.

This is right up there with that time I was blindfolded and put on a bus of which I had no idea of it's destination, only to have it drop me off in Vegas with about 50 strangers to whom I ended up getting "fake married" to in a ceremony done by an Elvis impersonator in a white chapel (but THAT is a story for another time and it is called "The Terry Wedding." BECAUSE, obviously it is called that, my life is RAD)

Anyways back to Turmoil in Thailand. So I'm in Khorat, the first city we hit and this thing started happening where people were falling down. It kind of looked like they were fainting but a little bit different and I am confused by it. Sometimes it looks real. And sometimes it looks fake. And I'm remembering those televangelists from the 80s and how it always seemed SO OBVIOUS that the dude was pushing them. But then right then in front of me, people were dropping like sand bags and nobody was touching them. So I didn't really know what to think or say about that....

And then the leader of the trip, when he got up to speak, he would be talking and suddenly ….something would hit him and he would almost fall over. Like a giant force of energy would hit him and knock him around the stage. Like he was being pushed.

THAT interested me the most. Because when I saw it, I kept trying to catch if I could prove if that really was something coming AT HIM or if he was doing it himself.

And honestly guys, it didn’t look like something he could do on his own. These people weren’t professional actors, I didn’t think he could pull that off. It really didn’t seem like it was his own energy when he was getting pushed around on the stage. Plus he always looked just as startled and surprised by it himself. So I get very interested and intrigued by this. I’ve never seen anything like that before. He would just be talking and then BAM he’d go flying out of nowhere! Like a giant invisible hand just hit him or something. WHAT WAS THAT??

But then I also started to think ... am I drinking the Kool Aid? I start to worry that I might, that I’m seeing things through this filter and it’s not real.

So I pull back. In a big way.

And that was most of my trip for two weeks. Leaning forward in interest and intrigue and then pulling back with rationality and cynicism. I couldn’t decide what I thought about what I was seeing.

Because the thing was, everything I was seeing and hearing was just enough weird to make me wonder but not enough to make me believe.

And then we went to Phuket. (Insert dramatic music here)

The next chapter will be called "Holy Sh!# !" because that was my internal reaction when I witnessed my first miracle up close and personal. It was indeed, some very Holy sh!#.