I would like to preface this blog series in saying that this is an extremely hard month for me to write about. This month in Thailand has been amazing and I am having trouble putting my thoughts, emotions, and experiences into words. Bear with me; this is going to be raw.
About a year and a half ago I heard of this thing called human trafficking. Basically human slavery. Basically selling women, men, and children for sex. While sitting at my friend Erin’s kitchen counter my mouth hit the floor. What? This is a real thing? This happens today? No, surely not. Since then I have struggled with the thought of this being true. I tried to convince myself that it’s not as bad as it seems, protecting myself from reality. I can now stand here and say
Yes, it IS true.
Yes, it IS reality.
Yes, I’ve SEEN it with my own eyes.
This month we are working with a ministry called Lighthouse In Action that sends teams into the bars of Chiang Mai to make friends with the people who work there and show them what real love looks like; God’s love. We don’t preach the gospel, we don’t scold them for what their doing, we just love on them. We shine a light into the darkness in their lives.
Our daily schedule looks something like this.
9-11 am: Prayer walk around the city of Chiang Mai. For 2 hours we get in small groups and we pray all over the city. This can sometimes include praying for people, praying for different areas (ex: temples, slums, red light district, etc), and praying for Chiang Mai and Thailand as a whole. I personally like to use this time to prayer run.
4-6 pm: Slum visits. Teams of 4-6 people will go to the slums and hang out with the people there. This mostly includes playing with the children and helping the older women make beaded key-chains or hair-ties for their families to sell at the night markets. We also are able to pray with the families if they allow us to.
7-8 pm: Worship with all the teams. Every Saturday our teams get together to worship in the café, underneath where we live. This is a great opportunity for people to receive prayer and for us to collectively come together to praise and worship our Lord.
8-11 pm: Bar Outing. Each night 2 of our teams will send people out into the bars to minister to the people who are working there. This includes playing Connect Four, Jenga, and pool with the girls, buying flowers from the children, and having numberous conversations with an array of different people. The other members of our teams stay back and pray for 3 hours straight for the people at the bars, for Chiang Mai and Thailand as a whole, and for anything that God places on their hearts.
11-11:30 pm: Debriefing of the night. Our 2 teams get together and talk about the nights event (the people we interacted with, what we saw, and how we were affected by it.)
The next few blogs I am going to write are real life experiences with people I have come in personal contact with this month who are victims of human trafficking. Each of their stories is priceless and beautiful, just like they are, and they have touched my heart so deeply. The difficulty in writing this comes from the amount of compassion and love I have for these individuals and how much heartache that comes from loving them. They are truly special and so valued in my life. I hope that through this blog series your hearts will be touched as much as mine has been.
Check them out: www.lighthouseinaction.org
This is Emmi, the founder of Lighthouse In Action… the heart behind it all. I hope her story touches you as much as it did our teams.
