Hello from Thailand! We have been here less than a week and I already feel like there is so much going on.
first of all…new teams! This month I am with a new lovely group of ladies. Steph, our team leader, Courtney, Margaret, Tara, Jinnae, Kelly, Chelsea, and myself are team SKITTLES! We picked our team name during our layover from Malawi to thailand. we decided that we are sweet and sour, hard on the outside and soft on the inside, and slightly sleep deprived from traveling 🙂 I am excited to do life and ministry with these girls
this month our team is working with Lighthouse in Action. It is a ministry run by a woman named Emmi. some of the things we are doing are bar ministry, slum ministry, munk ministry, and helping at Zion Cafe, a coffee shop.
one of our first days we did a scavenger hunt to get to know our way around Chiang Mai. While on the hunt we went into a Buddhist temple. Inside there were hundreds of kids. It looked like it was a field trip. They were all sitting on the floor listening to a monk. I started to almost feel sick. Thailand is 94% Buddhist. I had never in my life seen another religion being practiced on this scale. All these children are being told to worship a big, fat, gold statue. Something that people made. This blew my mind. How can anything man made be deserving of our worship? Thailand stole a piece of my heart in that moment.
earlier tonight, while doing bar ministry, Thailand stole another piece of my heart. We met a ladyboy. We asked if we could buy her a soda and talk with her. We chatted about Thailand, she taught us how to say cheers in Thai. Then, she needed to get up and do something. She looked at us and asked, “may I get up?” Of course we immediately said yes, but that question hit me. Imagine living a life where you don’t even have the freedom to get up on your own accord. Because we had bought her the soda she felt she needed our permission to get up. That is how people treat her. ThismonthI plan to go back and hopefully talk to her again. Develop a friendship with her. And, most importantly, treat and love her the way Jesus does.
