First Day in Chiang Mai

We arrived safely in Chiang Mai at 1:15 a.m. and went through Customs without a hitch. We found a taxi driver who agreed to take us to our hotel and then hoped he could actually find it at 2 a.m.! We got checked into our room easily enough and then quickly tried to regain some of our lost sleep. We had been traveling for a little over 30 hours with about 21 of them actually in the air. Wow! After we got up about 9:15, we took showers and then had breakfast on the roof. It was beautiful up there! Then we went to the bank and exchanged our currency and looked around the town a little bit. The picture is from a wat we visited. It's one of many Buddhist temples in Chiang Mai. We'll see many more. We ate lunch at a quaint Thai restaurant near our hotel and then got our ride with Deezi out to the Kalnin Training Center. It was so great to see him again, and several other people Jon knew from his 2008 trip to Thailand. One guy even told him he looked younger than the last time. Bless him!
The Bible teacher we are working with this week, Simon Percy, and Beverley Kalnin were talking to the students when we arrived. Beverley was giving a history of the school and how it began over 15 years ago after they had encountered several situations where people in the villages could not get the care they needed. The program has continued developing year after year. This year we are glad to welcome three more tribes to the Barefoot Doctors, first as the students going through the training and then as tribes that will receive their medical care and the Gospel of Jesus Christ! There are seven different tribes represented in the Class of 2012.
Tomorrow Jon goes back to the Training Center to do more orientation activities and a Bible class, and Clark goes to the Beulah Church building here in Chiang Mai where some construction help is needed on a new room where sewing classes are going to be taught.
Thanks for continuing to pray for us and the students.