Before I get into the content of this blog I’m going to give a quick update for those who may be wondering. First off if you don’t already know I made it safely to Chiang Mai, Thailand on Jan 3rd. After arriving in Thailand we spent 2 weeks in training. These two weeks were informative, shaping and exhausting, as there was a lot of information to take in. I’m still processing a lot of what I learned during training and plan to post a future blog with some of the lessons I learned.
Here’s a picture of my team a the french bakery down the street from our hostel (From left to right back row: Aubrey, Me, Hakyoung, Front row: Aly, Jessie, Kylee)
Our training officially ended last Friday and after a weekend of much needed rest we jumped into ministry on Monday. That’s where this blog comes in:
On Monday my team was assigned to prayer walk around the bars in Chiang Mai’s red light district in both the morning and the evening so we could see the day and night contrast. Coming to Thailand I knew that a big issue we would be dealing with was sex tourism/sex trafficking. So here we were walking around the very bars where this was going on every night.
As we prayed there were two things constantly on my heart: light and freedom. I prayed for God to bring his light into the darkness, for the light of truth to expel the lies. I prayed for freedom. Thailand literally means: free land. I prayed that there would be freedom from sin and shame, freedom from captivity as our God is a God who breaks every chain.
Now nothing big or wondrous happened, this isn’t some glory story but there is hope. As we walked around Monday morning my teammate Aubrey had a sense of hope. This sense had nothing to do with what we were seeing with our eyes because all we could see were bars that were closed after being open all night. This sense had to do with what God is doing in Chiang Mai through organizations like Lighthouse in Action (www.lighthouseinaction.org) and people like us World Racers, people who are simply willing to go and do whatever God asks of us.
“Real men don’t buy girls” stickers placed by a group fighting Sex Trafficking
This leads me to Tuesday night and the title of my blog. On Tuesday night my team was asked to stay back and pray for two teams who were doing ministry at the Tha Phae gate. The Tha Phae gate is one of four gates around the perimeter of old Chiang Mai. Every night we are sending two teams to the gate, one to worship at the gate and the other to offer prayer to anyone who wants it.
As we got ready to pray our squad mentor Scott shared that the Tha Phae gate is a very spiritually dark place and we needed to be praying against the darkness. While we prayed I imagined each of the team members as a light walking into the darkness. In John 1:5 it says, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.” This light is Christ and for those who believe Christ, “the light of life” (John 1:4), dwells in us.So no matter where we go, no matter how thick the darkness may seem believers carry a light that darkness cannot overcome.
So I don’t know where you are today. Most of you probably aren’t walking through red light districts or praying at gates and that’s ok, we’re all called to different paths, called to follow Christ where we are. However, because of the nature of this world, because of the schemes of the enemy who only comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10a), we all walk into some kind of darkness everyday. This knowledge should not be a cause for alarm but awareness. Awareness that we carry the light of Christ into the dark places. Awareness that we bring the hope of Christ wherever we go.
So as the children’s song goes:
This little light of mine,
I’m going to let it shine,
Let it shine
Let it shine
Let it shine
Go shine the light of Christ this day in whatever you do.
Addendum: I originally meant to post this blog on Wednesday morning but due to internet connectivity issues I was unable to do so until now. Because of this there is now more to the story. On Wednesday night my team was asked to run the Worship at Tha Phea gate. As part of the worship we decided to do an art project simulated little lights lighting up the darkness. Paper lanterns are part of Thai Culture so we decided to draw a city scape and have people dip the thumbs in paint as a way to simulate lanterns lighting up a dark city sky. The finished product is below:
