Back in May when I was applying for the race, I was actually looking for the route with the least number of countries in Asia. When I found out my route included Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia, I thought, “Ok, I think I can do three months. Praise the Lord it’s only three months.”
But now that I am in Thailand, I absolutely LOVE it!
Here’s why…
*Chicken Pad Thai
*Cheap super cute clothes
*Songkran Festival-a huge water fight that lasts 4-5 days. People line up on the streets with water guns and buckets of water just waiting to soak you. Down by the bars it was like one big spring break party.
*Fruit smoothies for less than $1
*Riding elephants
*Being able to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner for less than $4 a day
But what I LOVE the most is our ministry this month, Lighthouse in Action. Lighthouse in Action ministers to children living in the slums, college students, people in local villages, and prostitutes in the bars. Our team is working with the bar ministry called Love Acts.
Their vision is to eradicate the commercial sex trade in Chiang Mai, and see Thai people choose abundant life through Jesus by seeing His truth and love through our actions.
What do we do?
We walk around the red light district praying and asking the Holy Spirit to lead us into specific bars and to have conversations with specific women or ladyboys.
Since the women and ladyboys always have their eyes out for customers, we have to buy them a drink to be able to spend time with them. We learned from our contact that it really means more to the girls to buy them a coke rather than alcohol. They are used to men buying them alcohol, so buying them a coke shows them we are different. A 30 baht ($1) coke costs us 80 baht ($2.67) when buying it for one of the girls. We spend more money during a night at the bar than our entire days food budget, which is $4. But when you go out there you just don’t care. You want to talk to the women so badly that you don’t think about how you may have to skimp on food the next day.
We love on the girls with our actions. We don’t preach the gospel at them. We invite them to the movies, shopping, or to have lunch. We love them without judgment and fight for them in prayer against the spiritual darkness. We form real relationships. Love Acts offers a way out of the bar scene when girls are ready and willing to take that step.
Working with Love Acts entails so much more than going to the bars to talk with women. We spend much more time in prayer and intercession, which I love, love, love. It’s very much a spiritual battle here.
Here is what our schedule looks like for this week:
Monday and Wednesday
2:30-5:30 PM – day ministry in the bars
7:00-8:00PM- prayer and worship as a group
8:30-10:30PM- prayer and intercession for the group out in the bars
11:00-Midnight- debrief as a group
Tuesday and Thursday
2:30-5:30PM- pray and intercede for the group out in the bars
7:00-8:00PM- prayer and worship as a group
8:30-10:30PM- night ministry in the bars
11:00-Midnight- debrief as a group
Saturday from 6:30-9:00PM we pray and intercede as a group
Friday and Sundays are our days off!
If you are up on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 8:30-10:30AM please pray for us because we will be in the bars at that time asking the Holy Spirit to lead us!
