Alana, Jessica and I were teamed up, and we felt strongly about going into Soi Tiger (Soi means ‘street’ in Thai) after our prayer walk earlier in the day.
We went down a different street and ended up sitting at a bar with girls who spoke hardly any English at all, and every bit of communicating was exhausting. But, I felt God telling me to speak all kinds of words over the girl I was playing connect four with. I told her how loved she was by God, and how much He’s seeking after her, how much He delights in her taking good care of her children, and I don’t even know what else. All she kept saying was, “I don’t understand…I sorry!”
It felt really hopeless, but I also felt God thanking me for being obedient to Him, even when it felt stupid. I really felt like this was His way of seeing if I really meant I would do ANYTHING.
Welcome to the Aussie Owned Wet Dreams Bar. : -)
There were about 8 girls sitting around with no customers… so we ordered our Pineapple juice and began playing connect four and jackpot with them. We all launched into hearing their stories, and the Holy Spirit was flowing! It would take 5 pages to write out everything about each of their stories, but know that it’s been rough.
led me there by the arrows, and how He loved her, and how much He knows she loves her children, and how He has huge plans for her life very soon, and how He created her as a leader and that He wanted her to keep loving the girls in her community the way that she does. We all felt the Holy Spirit in big ways.
The Arrows: –> –> –> God spoke, we followed the arrows (duh, that’s the obvious).
Butterfly Tattoos: Most of them had tattoos of butterflies, which we had just discussed that morning to represent God’s presence! He’s marked them and they don’t even know it yet!
The Bar Prayer: There was a “Bar Prayer” taped to the side of the fridge at the bar… which was the Lord’s Prayer with a drunken twist. Some would call it blasphemy… but we called it hope. We declared that bar to be marked by “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done.”
Seriously? God obviously had his hand on this. For the girls to invite us to a private get together was a huge open door to really get to love them as the amazing women they are, rather than ‘bar girl to customer.’
This also presented us with a dilemma: Saturday our entire team had planned to do an island tour of James Bond Island, PP Island, Monkey Island, complete with snorkeling and lots of beaches. If we went on the tour, we’d probably miss the chance to go to the BBQ and hang out with the girls. We had to pray really hard about this, because everything in us wanted to go have fun on our “day off.” Jess even arranged the entire trip for the team.
There’s been many times that girls have said they would have lunch with us, but the next day they were too hung over to come, or they were with a customer so they couldn’t come, or they honestly didn’t want to come to lunch, but they said they would to save face in the moment. We might very well be giving up a day of amazing fun with the team, maybe even still having to pay for the tour, for absolutely nothing. Doubts circled in my mind…but they didn’t stay too long.
We prayed, but the answer was pretty obvious: how much did we want to be a part of God’s plan for these girls? Was it worth giving up the trip? When I told the Lord I would do ANYTHING, did I mean it?
Yes.
God’s voice resonated inside of me that night:
“This is what you asked for; this is what I created you for. I knew before you were knit together in your mother’s womb that you would be here in Thailand on January 1st, 2010 for such a time as this. Will you join me? Will you dream big, will you dream MY DREAMS for my people? “
Yes. YES. Whatever it takes, Lord. ANYTHING.
There’s a song that our squad has played over and over the past two months, and it’s one that really helped me remember that I truly was made for big things.
The Anthem
I can hear the footsteps of my King
you were born for such a time as this!
you were born for such a time as this!
