So before reading this everyone must PROMISE me to read the whole thing before freaking out. I'm totally okay and everyone here is fine!!!!!! (Mom I'm looking at you....haha)
Yesterday night we had a bomb scare here in Bangkok. I was out shopping for video gear with Andrew, John Wood and Pastor Doug. We were at the MBK mall getting ready to head home when Pastor Doug gets a phone call from the mission president. Apparently there was a bomb rumored to be found in a 7-11 in Bangkok so we should stay put and not go anywhere. This wasn't a laughing matter but we kind of chuckled to ourselves anyway because 7-11's here are as common as stop signs or bus stops. A bit later we hear back from the mission president and find out it was the 7-11 attached to my apartment building. WHOA!
So my first thought was "GOI!" while we weren't near any blast radius (I didn't think) we live on the top of the building, 6th story, she had been home sick all day with a bad cold. We got ahold of her and told her not to go out (I was more for Plan B of taking a bus to Chang Mai and getting out of the city as fast as possible, but apparently she was supposed to stay put). We had a nervous dinner together and headed back to the apartment.
We took the BTS (train) to our neighborhood and in the Song Tao (its a truck with benches in the back that you pay 6b for, very common) Pastor Doug questioned some of the other Thai's that were riding with us.
One of the girls said, "Oh! I heard about that, its actually 2 blocks down, its not the 7-11 on Soi 42 (my street) its on Soi 45!" We get off the Song Tao at my street and it looked like she was right at first, no one looked any different than usual…street vendors were out, 7-11 was open, nothing had changed. So the video guys decided they wanted to see some of the footage and action actually happening at the site. We got to Soi 45 but nothing looked different there either. So confusing! Doug asked a old man standing on the street corner about it and he said, "Oh! Not this 7-11, different street!" No one knew! Apparently it was all rumor.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and started back to the mission. The guys decided to drop me off at the apartment for good measure and just to make sure we asked a fish sales-lady in front of 7-11 about the bomb scare. She said,"UGH, yea that was here! I didn't sell anything all day! Bomb squad wasn't hungry! It was at the bank next-door." Relieving? I think not, still next to my apartment building! She continued to give us more details though and we found out that the bomb wasn't 'a bomb' EXACTLY… it was a bottle of oil that someone had left at the bank. While purposes could have seemed sinister, more than likely it was just a street-vendors cook fire.
SO everything is fine. Kind of anti-climatic actually, it's kind of ironic that it had to be THIS street of all places, next door in fact, haha. Out of the BILLIONS of streets, people, 7-11's in the city it was THIS one. I'm so thankful for the friendly turn of last nights events, we are WITHOUT A DOUBT being watched over.
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