Thai Journal ‘24 - #10

“Come ye apart and rest a while!” That’s what Jesus said and that’s what we do every year during this trip.

After a week of hard labor in the cornfields and with a bunch of very energetic kids, we took a true vacation. We are spending a full 24 hours on Koh Samed Island. It is an 8-hour round trip by car to the pier on the mainland, and then a 15-minutes speedboat ride to the island. As always, we were greeted at the pier by the famous Phra Aphai Mani seaorgress statue. It is a character in the epic, 48,700-line Thai poem, which took 20 years to compose (https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Phra_Aphai_Mani). The team had a blast in the ocean; on the beach; in the lovely rooms at the Sawasdee Coco resort; eating great food by the ocean; and taking in a spectacular fire show; and just hanging loose!