BangSaen Beach

This past Saturday I got to leave the city on a day trip to BangSaen Beach! I met up with the Lifepoint team at the bus station and we departed on a two hour ride full of good conversation and the game of Life on someone's iPhone.
A group of nine interns from Lifepoint's Smyrna campus arrived this week so the trip was designed to be a respite from all the chaos of the city and exhaustion from flying halfway around the world. It was such a pleasure to get to hang out with them and hear them share what led them to come to Bangkok for six weeks. I never get tired of hearing what God is doing in other people's lives :)
As far as the beach goes, I was told to have no expectations. That said, the beach met my expectations! I really hope that sometime this year, I will get to travel to some other beaches that Thailand offers...Other than that, there was lots of shade to enjoy (see the above picture for an example of the umbrella fortress we sat under). I got to take a nap, walk around the shops with the interns, and play Apples to Apples--those were some of my high points of the day.
Another high point was watching one of my new sisters in Christ get baptized in the ocean:

[Photo Credit: Brittany Kaminh]

It was really awesome to get to witness this moment. The new pastor of Lifepoint's Bangkok campus, David McCaman, is the one baptizing Nisa. The water at this particular beach may not have been a tank full of chlorinated, crystal-clear water but neither was the Jordan River in Jesus' time (I imagine). The Spirit of God was definitely there and He was pleased by this profession of faith.
This one-day retreat was such a blessing to me and I am so glad I got to do something with my new church (while I'm here in Bangkok) outside of the normal Sunday morning worship.

If you look closely, you'll see that I got a little sunburned...so worth it though. :)