I slip on my backpack, grab my 2 small suitcases and after a last check around the hotel room I lock and close the door. Down the stairs I check out handing the key to the Thai lady at the desk. I wave goodbye to a number of the wonderful Thai people who I’ve gotten to know. They want to know where I’m going. I tell them. They wave.

On the streetside I find a taxi and tell him I want to go to the airport.

“500 Baht.” He offers.

“No, too much. By meter?” I counter.

He calls one of his friends who is willing to take me charging by meter. All the taxis have meters on the dash which calculates a price based on time and distance. It really helps to make sure you are getting a good price. Unfortunately many times the drivers want to give a price, which may or may not be too expensive. Some will agree to go by meter.

After loading the luggage we are off down the road speeding through the streets. The sun has gone down and the street lights cast light on the road. A periodical red light stops us.

I think back to earlier in the afternoon. The Thai man I was standing next to in the river taxi. He understood English. He was telling me the name of one of the boat stops. He said it was like the word Satan. He said it differently that I do but after several times I understood. “like in the Bible” He explained. The Bible! What does this guy know about the Bible?!!  I picked up on it right away and asked him what he knew about the Bible. He didn’t know much. It didn’t sound like he had ever actually read it. But someone had told him about the word Satan. When he said he could read some in English I snatched a couple of GLOW tracks out of my waist pack and gave them to him explaining that they talked about the Bible.

In the BTS train station I was standing in the line in front of the counter to get change for the ticket when the family in front of me didn’t seem to understand how to get the tickets. They finally got the right change that they needed. Then over in front of the machines I realized the must have never taken the BTS sky train before. After getting my ticket I showed them how to operate the machine to get the tickets for all of them. Then showing them how to get through the gate we were off up to the train stop area. When I asked where they were from they told me they were from Israel. Interesting meeting them in Bangkok!

At the MBK Center I got a few Tshirts and looked around through the many shops. So many shops and stores you can get lost inside! 5 different stories with small shops can make for quite an experience! After finding the other item I needed to find and looking at some camera gear I headed back to the BTS station to get back to the hotel. Outside on the network of walkways suspended over top of the street I saw the spot where 2 years before the TAM (Thai Adventist Mission) did a Health Expo to reach out to the people of Bangkok with health. Hundreds of people go by there every hour and the event was met with great success with people requesting Bible studies and lessons. Today a weekly boxing show has setup on the area.

The taxi car flies along the tollway above Bangkok. I’m on my way to the airport to fly back the the States. As we go I realize that I’m going to miss Thailand. Even though I know I’ll be coming back, I still have a hard time leaving. There’s so much need here. The people are open. Yet there is hardly a few families working for the Thai! It’s essentially an untouched field, yet there are nearly 70 million people in Thailand! Eighty nine percent of this population are ethnic Thai or Thai-Chinese. That’s over 60 million precious Thai people that live without knowledge of the true God. How will these people hear? God wants to use humanity to reach out to humanity. That means us. Who will He use to reach the Thai people with a knowledge of Him? Who is willing?