Bangkok, Thailand Day 3

The view from our apartment window.  The elephant building!

Busy city at night.

It’s probably past time for us to introduce Rick and Lisa Caynor.  They are missionaries living in Bangkok.  Shelley was a friend with Lisa dating back to high school, but lost touch over the years.  When we moved to Hong Kong, Shelley learned that Lisa was now a “neighbor”.  Rick and Lisa were gracious enough to spend time with us sharing Christmas, showing us around Bangkok and generally befriending us.  Since Shelley had not spoken with Lisa for years, they were taking a big risk hosting the Hale Storm.  They had no way of knowing if we were crazies or not.  (We didn’t actually ask them if they thought we were crazies after all…figured that was better left to our ambiguous interpretation.)  It was great to catch up with them and hear their miraculous story.  (Perhaps Lisa has a blog that tells her story.  We cannot do it justice here).  They were so kind with their friendship, they instantly felt like long-time friends.

Headed in to church.

The kids program, we could not understand what they said but they were sure funny to watch!

JP and Emma watching the kids program at church.

Sunday morning, we went to the Thai church Rick and Lisa work with.  This Thai church was the real deal.  None of the service was in English.  About half of the songs were Christmas carols that we could sing along in English.  The kids did a Christmas number complete with the kid in the middle hamming it up – some things are universal.  The preacher was Thai, but we could follow the Christmas story sermon from the scripture references – Matthew 2.  The people were incredibly warm and friendly.  It was a small church – maybe a little over 100 people attend each week.  They meet in a space they are outgrowing in an apartment building.  We’ve been in Hong Kong for over three months, but we’ve never been to a foreign church service (only international churches).  Even though we couldn’t understand what was said, we loved the experience of church in a different culture.  It was simple.  It was genuine.  It was encouraging.

After church we went to a mall for lunch.  The signs on the bathroom doors their were so funny!