My first night and morning

Greetings friends and family!

I am so sorry that it has taken me this long to start my blog actually in Thailand…But to be fair, it has not been for lack of trying! The amount of time I have access to WiFi is quite limited, as the network does not make it to my room towards the back of Wildflower property. So I am currently typing this as a Microsoft document that I will copy and paste to the blog early tomorrow morning J

Well, I am here safe and sound! I want to share with yall my journal-esque thoughts that I have been jotting down to share with everyone—they begin on the morning that I woke up in a world completely unfamiliar to me, with no one but God to comfort me…

It is early morning and a rooster crows loudly outside my window. To arrive in Thailand at night is not something I would recommend—it was pitch black with unfamiliar, scary noises. I was lonely, tired, and so homesick that I thought I would be sick. As I lay in bed, my stomach in a knot, I felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life. The hardest thing for me to imagine at this point was staying here for the next six weeks. I could not stop the tears, I couldn’t concentrate on my rosary, all I could do was repeat over and over again a desperate prayer “help me Lord, help me Lord, help me Lord”. I forced it to take over every thought—because to think of home and family meant I’d be racing to the toilet to throw up the little bit I was able to stomach before landing in Chaing Mai—as I tossed and turned on the unfamiliar mattress. There was no peace for me—I’d feel it for a precious moment, but then gnawing homesickness would take over. I’ve never experienced such a feeling before—it was the most intense ache in a place where I could not sooth the pain away. I willed myself to stop crying, but thoughts of my family would surface and how worried they’d be since I hadn’t  been able to contact them. It ate at me from the inside out. The Benadryl had yet to kick in—there were constant nighttime noises—it sounded as if someone put a sound machine outside my window with the “rainforest” mode on full volume. Everything was unfamiliar and I was utterly alone with my God that I couldn’t feel as the darkness and noise pressed down on me. Why hasn’t the medicine kicked in yet?!

Finally, thankfully, the medicine knocked me out at about 1 a.m…for about 2 and a half hours (curse you Benadryl!)…Then all the anxiety and homesickness came back and I did not sleep again that night.

Meredith was to come and check on me at 7, breakfast time at Wildflower. So when 6:30 rolled around I decided to get out of the bed, since it wasn’t doing its job anyway.

As I moved around and began to unpack, peace began to seep into me. It is strange how different the world seems when you do something as simple as putting the items in your suitcase into what will be there home for the next month and a half. It became my room, no longer the strange, unwelcoming space of the nighttime. The sky gradually lightened and as I looked out my window I saw such a beautiful sight. A ricefield extended half a mile to a row of trees with houses interspersed. I’d only seen such a view in movies, and now it was right outside my window...