If you read my June Newsletter, you know I shared three highlights about my time with my brother Justin who visited me for almost 3 weeks and shared an awesome adventure with me in the Philippines and Thailand. The highlights included the Avilon Zoo where I fed a giraffe which has been my favorite animal since kindergarten, Elephant World where we spent all day working for 20 lucky elephants who have been rescued from abuse in Thailand and get to roam free with humans, and finally Taal which is a volcano inside a lake inside a volcano inside in the Philippines. In our travels I used some Tagalog and realized my language lessons are working! You can see pictures on Facebook...
Even though I wish my time with Justin did not have to end, I will have these memories forever and believe the experience was life changing... especially the time we spent at the temples in Thailand. I can’t even start to describe the beauty of the temples. They left me speechless at times. Other times all I could say was wow or that is pretty awesome. The detail is spectacular and all the gold is just beautiful. You find yourself staring for long periods and feeling overwhelmed as there is tons of detail that just blows your mind. At the same time I was studying the art work, I was very aware of all the people who were bowing down and praying to Buddha. If you did not know Thailand is considered 95% Buddhist, which is the total opposite of the Philippines were live.
My mom just sent me this email after looking at some of the photos from our time in Thailand and it relates to my thoughts while at the temples. Mom wrote: “Looking at all the awesome pictures of the special things you and Justin saw and did made me think about the Daily Bread for Tuesday June 9 called Simple Wonders written by a woman from Indonesia. Thought for the day was 'God's love is revealed in the wonders of nature'... She talked about how she was feeling 'depressed and stuck' then looked around and saw all sorts of things in creation that pointed to God's hand at work- like birds singing, sunshine, cool breeze on hot day etc." The temples we saw in Thailand are beyond beautiful but in the end they are earthy things that we won’t always have. They won't last forever. I am not trying to explain the wrongs of Buddhism in anyway in this blog. Trust me while there I was very respectful but it was very hard to wrap my head around what they believe. Instead, I found myself praying in my head for the people. I think the Holy Spirit was reminding me that God is the creator of all things including the people who built those temples. As I enter my second year of service, this is something to remember every day.