A sound, a thin silence
The time has come, it seems.
Lorien and I begin our grand six-week overseas jaunt tomorrow. We will get up at about 4:00am tomorrow morning and will be chauffered to the airport (by the megasuperfantastic Frank and the lovely Rach). From there, we catch several planes, spend lots of time waiting around in airport transit lounges, and land in South Asia sometime at about 10:00pm their time. It’s a holiday with a missional edge – part of the purpose of the trip is for Lorien to show me all the places where she grew up, part of it is to have some much-needed downtime, and part of it is to see what God’s got going on over there, and how we might be a part of that in a long-term sense.
We’re hoping to have a pretty smashing time! It hasn’t been that long since we last visited that parted of the world, but I’ve been craving it for a while, and it will be awesome to visit as marrieds (rather than part of a team), so we can use our time without having to worry about a team of others.
Some random facts so far:
- Airlines do not appear to issue paper tickets anymore. We went down to our friendly travel agent and all she gave us was a printed itinerary with an e-ticket number on it. Allegedly, this is all we need to travel, as the airlines have some secret database or website where our details are stored. I feel slightly unprepared, nay, naked without paper tickets.
- Visas for all three countries we are visiting cost ~$650. Ouch.
- We thought we would be leaving behind the summer heat in Sydney and enjoying the cooler climes of the northern hemisphere. Turns out we were wrong: tomorrow will be about 33°C in Sydney, and 28°C in our first destination.
- Our primary mode of transport will be train or autorickshaw.
- We have heard good things about Changi Airport in Singapore, including rumours of a free cinema and free X-Box (I think, “Awesome!”; wife thinks, “Er…no.”). In God’s provision, we are going there instead of Suvarnabhumi in Thailand.
- This will be the longest time I have been away from my home, family, and country. It will also be the first Christmas away from both of my families. I’m not sure if that bothers me, though.
Anticipating: airports!, seeing new places, meeting new people, cheap and awesome food, spicy tea in clay cups, bazaars, flexing my flabby Bangla muscles, catching trains, wearing salwar qamiz and lungi, riding in the back of rickshaws, time to reflect and write, taking lots of photos and video, getting my head shaved with a razor blade, catching up with old friends and making new ones, grand architecture and beautiful ruins, fellowship, time with Lorien.
Anxious about: many long plane flights and weird time-zone crossings, heat and humidity, sharing my personal space, missing transport connections, getting lost, epic language fail(s), epic culture fail(s), bags getting lost/stolen, various tummy bugs, strikes, explosions, exhaustion, not resting.
Talk to you in six weeks.
And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire a sound, a thin silence. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
(1 Kings 19:11-13, ESV)
/Karen/ said,
Hope you guys have a safe and fruitful trip!
Phone said,
I hope you both have a great time.
Singapore airport is great – plenty to do, and the bar had a cool jazzy band when i was there (for 5 hours)
Rachael said,
How was it? Do you have pics?