I spent a lot of my life in big cities, but this one tops them all. Yes, I am talking about Bangkok again.

My experience here in the past has been either going to the bus stations, the airport, or Mission Hospital. I have also had a few wild taxi rides where we got lost, and ended up viewing more of the city than I desired. But, this time, Travis and I had to go to the American Embassy to get more pages put into our passports, which meant a long ride right through the city.

Now, I don’t ever want to look like a tourist, but I must admit to having a hard time keeping my jaw intact. This is a HUGE city, with a lot of amazingly big buildings, and a lot of traffic. Almost everything you can see in every direction is man made, and super sized. One of the most astounding sights I saw was two big cranes perched on top of some new skyscrapers. I don’t want to sound like a country bumpkin, but how in the world did they get them up there? They were at least 20 stories up in the air, and looked as if they could fall off at any moment.

While we were walking down the street, we saw one car slam into another one and shatter the rear window all over the road. I did not see much excitement about the whole thing. Maybe that type of thing happens all the time here or something? The EMT in me wanted to respond really bad, but since nobody else got excited, I decided that the anti-tourist thing to do would be to keep on walking and look unconcerned. (if I really thought that anyone was hurt, I would have done something…except that I have found that if I run to an accident and ask if anyone is hurt, they all look at me with blank looks on their faces…sure wish I could speak Thai)

When Travis and I got to the Embassy, we were put through a real genuine American experience…metal detectors, pat downs, and the works. Then, we were charged $82 for them to add more pages to our passports. That must be really expensive paper.

Now we are holed up on the 4th floor of an apartment building, visiting with Jon and Natalie Wood. They were kind enough to let us crash at their place so that we didn’t have to pay exorbitant hotel fees while we are here.

What I like the most about the city is the fact that it makes me appreciate my little bamboo hut a lot. I want to go home to the peace and quiet of the jungle and the cheerful faces of my kids. I am so glad that God told us not to live in cities. His ways are always best. But, while I was in the sky train today, looking out over miles and miles of city, I couldn’t help but think of the millions of people who live in this city that never even heard of Jesus. They don’t know what He did for them. Praise the Lord for the handful of missionaries who are ministering to them. They have a lot more courage than I do. But what are they among so many? If you could just see it, you would feel the same way I do….so huge of a place,( I heard that there are more than eighteen million people living here) and yet so few people who are willing to sacrifice to try to help the people here.