Bangkok: Guest House and Breakfast

Sometime in the 70's (before my birth) my mother lived in a youth hostel while attending the International School in Bangkok. While I grew up hearing stories of sneaking out in the middle of the night to cook food in the kitchen and boys falling through the ceiling, it is the first time in my life I get to see a place where my mother grew up. What she knew as the youth hostel is now the Baptist guesthouse The room is comfortable and the sleep wonderful after multiple long flights. We get up at 7:00and are down for breakfast by 8:00. We are the first guests downstairs, and while my grandfather busies himself speaking to the ladies in the kitchen, coking our food, John Mark and I sit at the table. Soon others begin to come down and we enjoy breakfast and conversation.

Jeff Lipckins and his father, Phillip Lipckins, are on a short-term evangelism trip and will be flying to Beijing. Jeff is a doctor in Foley Alabama, a town known for it's outlet mall. Foley is about thirty minutes from the town I was born in. Jeff's father is a crop duster who trained in Lubbock and now dusts in Alabama. To my left is Paul Bishop and his family. The Bishops are missionaries to Cambodia. The first thing I notice about Paul is his University of Alabama National Championship shirt, we easily get along. We all discuss missions, medicine, and how my grandfather knows many of the same people they do. Jeff makes an interesting point when he says to my grandfather "You know you are kinda the reason I am here and why my brother went into medicine and missions." He tells about John Gibson, a former colleague of my grandfather's in Bangkla, who was very influential in his and his brother’s life. The food is good and the conversation better. Today we will go into Bangkok and see some of the sites.

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