Caution: This blog post is long and full of detail. I left giant portions of the events out, shaved off multiple paragraphs, reworded dozens of sentences, but it’s still 2780 words. Read at your own risk.

This past weekend Danielle, Melissa and I took a trip to Chiang Mai since we had a few days off from teaching. Melissa actually went up on Wednesday, and Danielle and I planned to fly there on Friday, then meet up with her on Saturday at Doi Inthanon National Park where she would be camping. Aside from that, we had no plans. We had a map of Chiang Mai and google to help us figure out what we would do for the rest of the trip. But even the plans we did make didn’t happen the way we thought they would. Let me explain…

The miracles began from the moment I sat down on the plane. Because we checked in so late, Deedee and I weren’t able to get seats next to each other. “That’s ok,” I thought, “I’ll just read a book and pray I don’t get seated next to someone who snores.” However, once I found my seat, I started feeling like I should pray for those who would fill the seats on either side of me. I’m a friendly person, but I’ve never carried on a real conversation with a stranger on an airplane. That’s just not something I do. I can do small-talk, and that’s about it. But I got the feeling that I would meet someone on this flight who I needed to actually hold conversation with. Either they needed to hear about Jesus, or they had something to offer me. So I prayed for wisdom to say the right things and to know who to talk to. Seconds later, a Thai man, probably in his mid-thirties, stopped at my row and asked in English if I could let him get to his seat. I immediately knew this was someone who talked to people on airplanes, and I braced myself for whatever conversation was to follow. Sure enough, before long we were talking about our lives, our jobs, our hobbies, our favorites, and even our religions. Yes, I did inevitably invite him to church. “If you have nothing else to do on a Saturday morning, feel free to come to our church… There’s great food!” So, yeah. We’ll see if anything happens. When the plane landed, I didn’t really expect anything else from him. We had had a nice conversation that made the hour-long plane ride go even faster, and now I know that if I ever break a bone, I can go to him to get it fixed. (He’s an orthopedic surgeon.) But after we got into the airport, he and I ended up in the same group of people looking for transportation to the city. Having never flagged down a taxi in my life, or used public buses, or asked for a tuk-tuk, I was rather nervous as to how Deedee and I were supposed to find transportation. Actually, I had been praying for days about this issue because I knew I wasn’t experienced in using public transportation, and I didn’t want to get ripped off. This guy asked if we wanted help getting a taxi, and of course I said yes. I had no idea what I was doing, and I couldn’t speak enough Thai to negotiate a good price with a driver. So he led us and one other man that he’d met to a songthaew, basically a mix between a bus and a taxi, which took us to our hostel for only 40 baht. It was a long ride because of other stops the bus had to make, but it was still an answer to prayer. We got to our hostel safely for a cheap price, and it was all thanks to a friendly man from the plane.

Friday night was kind of weird because we didn’t get to our hostel until about 4:30, which gave us a little over an hour before the sun would go down. Being a “good Adventist”, I’ve never really went shopping on the Sabbath, but we had to find somewhere to eat supper and also buy food for the next day as we were planning to meet up with Melissa at the national park and we were told to bring our own food. By the time we found a restaurant it was already close to sundown, and when we finally got our food the sun was fully set. But the people had to be paid, and we still had to buy food for Sabbath. So we did. And it felt unnatural. However, I was in full-on survival mode, trying to figure out all the details of how we would get to the park, what we should bring, whether or not we would camp there or come back, and so on. It was an extremely stressful Friday night, and it didn’t feel at all like Sabbath. To make matters worse, we discovered that somehow Danielle was missing 3000 of the 4000 baht she had brought along. How that happened is still a mystery to me, as we both remember her taking only 1000 out of her purse and leaving the rest there. But it wasn’t there. So between the two of us we had about 5500 baht for the whole weekend, and that was supposed to cover food, transportation, attraction fees, and souvenirs. I began to feel like going to Chiang Mai was a mistake, that we were being punished for using our time and money to be tourists, and on the Sabbath no less! Exhausted and close to tears, I poured out my heart to God. I told Him that I didn’t really want to be in Chiang Mai at all, that I didn’t know what to do about food or money or transportation or anything, and that if He wanted us here, that He would have to take care of our needs.

Our search for transportation to Doi Inthanon had revealed that our cheapest option was to rent motorbikes, but we didn’t feel like we could navigate there safely on bikes with all our luggage in tow, and the most sensible option would be to hire a taxi, which would cost 1800 baht one way. That was not at all in our minimized budget, so I messaged Melissa that we probably wouldn’t be able to meet her at the park. Now we had absolutely no plans. That stressed me out even more. I’m a planner. I need to have at least a skeleton plan in place before I agree to do anything. But we had nothing. Looking again at the map of Chiang Mai, I noticed that not far from our hostel was an SDA church. Immediately a war broke out in my conscience. Part of me wanted nothing more than to spend the Sabbath with fellow believers, even though we didn’t know if the church would have any English-speakers or not. The other part of me pointed out that I hadn’t brought church clothes so I would look out-of-place, and it argued that we would only be in Chiang Mai for 3 days so we had to see as many sights as possible. I also knew that I didn’t want to separate from Danielle, so if she didn’t want to go to church, I wouldn’t go without her.
I went to sleep Friday night without making a decision, so on Sabbath morning I prayed again about it and asked God to guide us to the right decision. We ended up going to church, and I’m so thankful that we did. When we arrived there, we were led to the English Sabbath School where we were greeted by friendly faces and, to my complete and utter surprise, one of my friends/fellow camp staff from two years ago was there. When I saw her face, it’s like the whole world shrunk a few sizes. The Adventist world is seriously so small. Who would have thought that after two years of not seeing each other, we would meet up in Chiang Mai on accident? But I guess with God there are no coincidences. He has a master plan. The church service was very nice, and it was translated into English, which helped a lot. Potluck was amazing, during which we met another missionary family who worked at the Adventist academy further north. We actually met quite a few missionaries there, including several ADRA workers. After potluck was over, a young man named Varun, one of the ADRA workers, asked if we wanted to join him and a few other church members on an afternoon trip to a national park. When I asked which one, I had to laugh at God’s humor. They were planning to go to Doi Inthanon – the very same park we couldn’t go to because we had no money for transportation. I forgot to mention that as soon as I decided to go to church, I prayed that God would convict someone in the church to invite us to go somewhere with them in the afternoon, since Danielle and I didn’t have any plans for the day. However, I was amazed at how He answered that prayer, sending us to the very place we thought we couldn’t go. We arrived at the park around 4:30, so we didn’t have enough time to drive up to the top of the mountain (the tallest one in Thailand), but we did get to see one of the many beautiful waterfalls. We climbed up more stairs and rocks than I was mentally prepared for, and I was heaving and panting by the end of it, but it was worth it. God’s beauty is manifested so perfectly in nature, there’s nothing comparable. On our way to the waterfall it started raining, even though the sun was still shining brightly. That made for perfect rainbow conditions, and sure enough, we spotted the most vibrant rainbow cascading over the mountain landscape. It was an incredible reminder of how God keeps His promises. I was in awe of how He planned our day for us, including so many special details that I would never have been able to plan myself. Lesson learned: always give God control. His plans are way better than ours.

On Sunday morning I decided to do what I did the day before, pray for God to plan our day. We had talked about going to the Chiang Mai Zoo, which was not far from our hostel, so we rented motorbikes that morning, looked up directions on Google Maps, and began our journey. However, after filling up at the gas station, Danielle discovered that she was no longer able to start her bike. Great. Now what? We tried dozens of times, but to no avail. It simply wouldn’t start. I called the bike owner and asked if he would exchange her bike for one that actually worked, and he said he would come to our location to take a look. 10 minutes later he drove up and looked the bike over. Chuckling, he simply flipped up the kickstand and then started the engine. It roared to life as if there was never a problem. I guess we farangs were bound to have a blonde moment at some point… With new knowledge of how to use our bikes properly, we headed up the road again towards the zoo. Now, I should really include this as one of our miracles because neither of us are really good at navigating, especially in an unfamiliar city. But we got there all in one piece, parked the bikes, and headed up to the ticket booth. Every attraction in Chiang Mai has a foreigner price and a Thai resident price. The foreigner price is always much more expensive because, you know, all Americans are filthy rich. (Sarcasm implied.) However, sometimes if you have a Thai driver’s license, they’ll give you the resident’s price. We had tried that at other places and it they never lowered the price for us, so I didn’t think it would work at the zoo… but it did! We paid almost half the price, thanks to our driver’s licenses that we got just days before we left Khon Kaen. The zoo was super fun, but after 4 hours of exploring the exhibits and neglecting to eat lunch, we were both tired and hungry so we headed back to town.

Once back in the city, we got ready to go to the Sunday night market – a huge tourist attraction in Chiang Mai. The market stretches over many blocks and side-streets throughout the city, and so many people go there that there’s barely room to breathe, let alone walk. However, we had to worry about getting there first. We picked up a friend we had met at church the day before and she navigated us to where the market was supposed to begin. When we arrived, we quickly realized that there were absolutely no parking spaces, and there were many police officers to ensure that no one parked illegally. Wanting to get out of the police-infested streets as quickly as possible, I shouted over my shoulder to go straight at the intersection, then I booked it. I soon noticed that the other two weren’t behind me, so I pulled to the side to wait for them. I waited, and waited, and waited, and they never came. I drove around the block to get to the street they might have turned on, but I didn’t see them. Fortunately, my phone wasn’t dead, so I called Deedee and we eventually connected. It was a bit scary though. I don’t like being separated from the group. So anyway, we finally found parking and made our way to the market. We were so excited to get there that we neglected to make note of the location of where we parked. That would be an unfortunate realization for us later. But for the moment, we were content to stroll down the streets and shop to our hearts content. When it was time to head back, I realized that I not only forgot which way we came from (all the streets in the market look the same), I also didn’t have the key for my motorbike. It wasn’t in my purse or my pocket, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else it would be. I sent up a quick prayer that I would find it quickly… before anyone else did. I didn’t really feel like paying huge fees to replace a stolen bike. As soon as I finished praying, I knew where it was. It was in the key-hole that unlocks the storage compartment where I had put my helmet, on the side of the bike. I could see it in my head, and I knew it was safe. I suddenly had an overwhelming sense of peace, even though I knew anyone who saw the key would be able to steal the bike. God had it under control. With that part of my mind eased, I was able to focus on actually getting back to our bikes. Danielle didn’t have a clue of where to go either, so she suggested that we pray. After the “amens” were said, it’s not like a trail of bread crumbs suddenly appeared, but we both felt more at peace. We were guessing as to which way to go, but every guess seemed to be correct because before we knew it, we were right where we needed to be. When we got to the bikes I looked down at the storage key-hole, and there was my key, safe and sound. “You’re SO lucky,” Deedee said. I knew it wasn’t luck, but I did thank God for sending angels to work overtime on my behalf!

That was probably the most eventful day of our trip, but I saw God at work every day in many different ways. I won’t take any more time to write all the details of the rest of our trip, it’s long enough already, but suffice it to say, this weekend I realized how much I need God’s protection and care in my life. It also made me realize how much He wants to be involved in the little details, we only need to ask Him and He’s ready to help. In the end I’m so glad we went to Chiang Mai because it taught me how to rely on God in a way I never have before. Never again will I feel like I need to do everything myself – I’ll just call the heavenly help line and He’ll be there, working miracles both great and small just to show that He cares.

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