Phew! The women of Team Deeper Roots, as well as the women from Team Coram Deo and Team Throve have arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand to work with the YWAM program, Lighthouse in Action!
Coming to Thailand has truly been a culture shock. Imagine going from this:
To this!
And when we saw this:
I truly knew we were in Southeast Asia.
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To be more serious, though, we were truly excited to be in Thailand. Our ministry this month will concern the sex trafficking industry, an issue which is close to all of us women’s hearts.
Lighthouse in Action is a 3-year-old ministry started by an indigenous Thai woman, Emmy. She strongly believes that if Thai people know God, the cycle that perpetuates the sex industry can be broken.
80-90% of sex workers are recruited from villages at a young age (11-12 years old), where families in poverty are offered about 3000 baht for their daughters to work in “restaurants”. The girls, unbeknownst to their families, are sold into the sex trade. The villagers do not know their lifestyle; they only know that the girls send good money home with which they can purchase comforts such as a TV or an iPod. Near the area of Chiang Mai, some girls are even raised with the expectation that they will become prostitutes in order to provide for their families. If only the people knew God, Emmy declares, they would not send their daughters to the city, with the vain hope of earning riches or marrying them to a foreigner husband.
We listen to Emmy as we sit at one of LIA's ministry sites, Wongen Cafe.
There are 4 outreach opportunities with Lighthouse in Action.
The first one is called Love Acts, which is ministry in bars. We will go to bars to form relationships with people, girls, sex workers, ladyboys, and minister to them by just loving on them and spending time with them. We show them the love of Jesus by showing that we are there to love them, and not for the services they provide.
The second is Wongen (read: “One Gen”, as in one generation), a coffee-shop ministry which opens a space for young adults to hang out and be loved by the Christian workers there. It is right across from Chiang Mai University, which has 37,000 students from all over Thailand. Many of these students come from villages. If they can come to know Jesus during their time here, they may be the key to their family, or even a whole village becoming saved. Young adults from LIA intentionally make relationships with students on campus and spend time teaching English and having fun with them.
The third is slum children ministry, in which we teach English and play games with children in a nearby slum area. Prevention is key to fighting the sex trade cycle, and Emmy emphasizes the importance of reaching these street kids at a young age; because what options do they have when they grow up? By forming a relationship with these children, LIA will have a place to speak into their lives and help them when they are faced with an emerging adult life with limited options.
Finally, there is X-Life, the village outreach/prevention ministry. Workers are sent into villages to “do as the villagers do” and live life with them, in order to truly understand what the Thai people face, and also to educate villagers on the risks posed on their children by the commercial sex trade.
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So far, 4 women from our combined team is going to be working with Wongen, and 7 women are going to be working with Love Acts. 3 of those 7 women will also help with the children's slum ministry. It looks like this month will be one of much learning and huge growth for all of us women as we prepare to love on the workers of this dark, infamous trade.
