Hello everyone! The non-graduating members of our team arrived in Thailand today. We all were on different flights but met up at the Bangkok airport with a few members of the other PUC Thailand team as well as Pastor Mike, Pastor Dar, and Khem from our partner NGO, the New Life Church. They drove us in vans to the central mall in Bangkok for some lunch and shopping. We were able to get our first taste of authentic Thai food at the "Food Palace" at the mall. The food was a more unique type of Thai food than any of us had experienced but was delicious nonetheless. After eating, we explored the mall and some of its stores.
After the mall, we drove the rest of the way to the New Life Church in the Suphan Buri province. Overall, the church is about 2 and a half hours northwest from the Bangkok international airport that we flew into. Upon arriving at the church, we were introduced to the new guest house that the church had built for our PUC team. They intend the guest house to be a place where PUC teams can come for future projects as well as have reunions for past teams. The house is both spacious and comfortable and we are extremely grateful for it and the church's hospitality. Our team is already amazed by the beauty of Thailand and the friendliness of everyone.
We then ate dinner, which will be provided to us by local cooks at the church throughout our stay. We are planning on going to bed early today as we are all exhausted and jet-lagged from travel. Our plan tomorrow is to visit the Ban Thap Ta Thaen school site for the first time so stay tuned for that! We will be evaluating the pre-work construction done by the contractors as well as taking measurements of the kitchen for when we go shopping Sunday to buy materials.
Lastly, on a lighter note, we had our first encounter with the swarm of insects that come out during the Thailand monsoon season. We had some scary at the time but funny later moments where we had to sprint out of the guest house to avoid the insect swarms. I may have almost swallowed a bug.
Overall, it was a fantastic first day for our team and we are excited to get started on the project!
Thanks for reading,
PUC Thailand 1