This month, Team Beloved Warriors is serving in Pattaya, Thailand. It’s a bustling city lined with beaches, where the only thing more abundant than the 7-11s and the fresh fruit stands on every corner are the bars with their neon signs lighting the streets. Pattaya is the number one city for sex tourism in the entire world, and they don’t try to hide it.
This month has looked different for our team than past months because of one reason: we don’t have a ministry contact. Usually, each team is assigned a ministry to work with all month, and the team spends the month in one place, with lodging, transportation, food, and ministry figured out for them. But the Beloved Warriors entered Pattaya with no idea where we were staying or what we were doing…on purpose. Our plan for the month was simple: follow the Lord, and love on His people.
The program we’re a part of this month is called Unsung Heroes, and it’s a relatively new part of the World Race. Instead of being assigned a contact, we are assigned a city, with the goal of discovering ministries within the city that are not already connected with AIM (our organization). Throughout the month we are meeting with missionaries, going to churches, and serving with ministries in Pattaya, with the purpose of listening to, encouraging, and empowering the Christians here to continue doing the Lord’s work in this city. As we do all that, we are also looking at ministries as potential partners for the World Race in the future, asking “would it be possible for us to send future teams to this place to partner with this ministry?”
So what does this month look like in action? Well, every day looks different. To give you an example, here’s an average schedule from one of our days last week:
7:00am Wake up! Eat some cornflakes (with fresh mango from the lady down the street) for breakfast.
7:45am Meet as a team to break into an hour of personal quiet time with the Lord.
8:45am Come back together as a team to pray over the day, the ministries, and our team.
9:30am Grace and Leah leave for a meeting with Joseph, a missionary from America. We have no idea what to expect. Meanwhile, Julia, Landon, and Kyle prepare for emails and phone calls to set up meetings for later in the week.
1:00pm Grace and Leah return from the meeting, which turned out to be awesome. Joseph’s ministry, Light for Asia, is doing amazing work, and even a 3 hour meeting wasn’t enough to hear all of Joseph’s heart for Asia. We decide to bring the whole team to his ministry later in the week, to help his team hand out Bibles to Chinese tourists (which they do 3 times a week).
2:00pm After a full morning, we spend some time at our hostel, writing blogs and taking some personal time. We have a meeting in the evening!
4:30pm All 5 of us make our way to Pattaya Church, where we meet with Pastor Laa. After we tell her a little bit about us, she invites us to speak at the church on Sunday. And not just to say a few words — Landon agrees to preach, Leah will play guitar for a “special song,” Grace and Kyle will share their testimonies, and Julia will tell the church about who we are and why we’re in Pattaya.
5:30pm We’re at Pattaya Church not just to meet with Pastor Laa, but also to sit in on a meeting of all the pastors and missionaries in Pattaya. We meet and greet a bit beforehand, and get to listen in on all that’s happening in this city. It’s so cool to see how all the ministries are so connected to each other!
7:00pm Free dinner? Don’t mind if we do. We split and eat with different people, and get to learn a bit more about how the Lord led all these different missionaries to Pattaya.
9:00pm Ready to head home after another exhausting few hours. We then have team time, which consists of feedback, debriefing the day, and looking at the schedule for tomorrow.
10:30pm Time for bed! Every day we’re consistently amazed at the doors the Lord has opened for us, and we go to bed expectant for an even better day tomorrow.
There you have it! This month is exhausting, but the Lord is doing some awesome things, and it’s really exciting to be a part of it. Please be praying for our team as we have 7 more days in Pattaya that are quickly filling up with opportunities to serve and encourage the Christians here.
