As Christians we have been called to live radically for the Lord and this month has been exactly that. We got new teams this month and one of the first things that has to be done is to come up with a new team name. When we found out our team was the one chosen to pioneer Burma (the first team to ever get to do this) we started looking up the definition of pioneer and we came up with our team name. We decided to go with Team Radical because we were going to be on an out of the box adventure with Jesus. We had no clue what was coming our way, but everyone of us was excited to embark on this journey.
Day one, our team was separated from the rest of the squad. Our team stayed in Bangkok because we needed to get visas for Burma while everyone else headed to Chaing Mai. We were able to explore Bangkok and pray in Buddhist temples. 2 days later we met up with our host for the month. None of us knew what was ahead of us, even our ministry contact had never been where we were going. God was leading us the entire way. We decided to take a little detour to hike 7 waterfalls in Thailand. Then come to find out it was a holiday and the borders were closed so we stayed in Thailand for another night. God wanted us to stay another night so we took advantage and prayed as a team on the streets for the ladies trapped in the stripper bars. I never felt God’s love praying in the street as I did that night. The next morning we get up and had a little devotional and prayer time before heading off to Burma. We make it to the border and drive 7 hours to Dawei where we had 1 contact waiting for us. Like I said no racers have been there before so we were on the hunt to find somewhere to stay (normally it’s already set up for us). We find a really nice hotel with wifi, western toilets, air conditioning, and hot showers. Surprisingly it was the cheapest we could find, even the more rundown ones were more expensive (thank you Jesus for the find). Our team heads out to find dinner and when we come back our contact (Ray) gets surrounded by immigration and they said we had to leave that night. Come to find out we were in country illegally, no one ever stamped our passports. We all noticed it but weren’t sure, I mean we had the visa and we had stopped at like 5 check points but no one said anything. It had crossed our mind that our driver did it on purpose so he could get more money out of us, but no one really knows what happened. Ray gets immigration to let us stay the night because it was already 11pm. We had to be checked out of the hotel by 6am the next morning. Not one complaint came out of our mouths, we just hopped in the van and headed 7 hours back to the border to get a stamp. We get there and pull up to this little rinky dink building behind a gas station with a small sign that says immigration. Now who’s brilliant idea was that to hide the immigration building…we all get stamped and jump back in the car to head 7 hours back. A plus to all this was that we got to pray all throughout Burma again. Satan tried to get us discouraged, but Team Radical wasn’t having it.
The next week and a half was filled with one divine appointment after another. We were able to find 2 boarding schools, 2 churches, and an orphanage for future teams to work with. The manager at the hotel set up all of our transportation and we were able to share the love of Jesus with him. I was able to buy food for a man and pray for him. Several tracts were handed out at the different places we went. We went to remote beaches and were able to pray over the yet developed areas. It comes time to leave Burma but we can only leave certain days because this route we were taking only goes to thailand every other day. We hop on a bus and head to the border over night and get dropped off in the middle of the night in the rain. A man approaches us and doesn’t speak English. The only word he knew was hotel. I think He was an angel because he was there to take us somewhere so we weren’t on the street in the rain at midnight. He dropped us off at a janky hotel with rats and roaches and we find out we had to stay another day because the road into Thailand was going in on Tuesday rather than Monday. Still no complaints, we all had “go get ’em” attitudes. Monday we got to explore another area of Burma.
The first half of the month was totally and completely led by God and it was full of adventure. We had our little road blocks and our positive attitudes kept the excitement coming. We were able to lay the foundation on a future country for World Race teams. God’s provision is all over Burma and I’m excited to follow the future teams. The Burmese people are so welcoming and hospitable and I loved every minute with them. They hold a special place in my heart and I’m praying to see what possibilities may arise in the future. Trusting that everything was God’s plan made it all worth while and I would do it all again.
