A freshly planted tree. A car right off of the lot. A coat of paint. All of these we would say have something in common: newness – a beginning of some sort. We experience newness and beginnings quite frequently, but they never fail to have a sweet aroma about them. This month, we are praying for the women we are serving to experience new beginnings in some form.
Women, you say? Yes, women! My team’s ministry actually got mixed up with another team’s, so we are not doing ATL/Serve Team – we are doing women’s ministry this month! Right now, that looks like getting to serve the women who serve us everyday by painting their home and each of their rooms they color they want. These women come from a lot of different situations, and they each either work at the hostel we live at or the coffee shop. The house had some beautiful artwork, but we are painting over it to allow the women to make it their home and to have a fresh start. They tell us everyday how excited they are, and that alone makes it SO worth it!
God made women so unique, yet so alike at the same time. While I am very different from the Thai women in a lot of ways, it’s so neat to see how God created women so much alike. Love and laughter really does not know language or culture.
Before we began painting, we got to go into each room and write words on the walls (yes, mom, I wrote on the walls, but they said I could) that we felt The Lord was speaking over the women and the house. It was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done! The things I wrote that the Holy Spirit Told me correlated directly with a lot of the things my teammates wrote, which was amazing and reassuring of what The Lord was saying about the women! After writing the words on the walls, we began preparation to paint and then began painting. We have already finished one room and are almost done with another!
Another part of our ministry includes prayer walking in the R€d L!gh+ district. We did this for the first time last Thursday night. Movies like Taken have distorted the image that a lot of these places have in America. Here, it‘s very much ingrained in the culture. Most of the women are put into this industry by their families as a source of income or they are tricked into it by being promised a better education, job, life, etc. This industry does bring a lot of tourism, however, 95% of men engaging in the services offered are locals. It’s definitely a culture thing, so it is safe for us to be our prayer walking the area in case you were wondering. While it is sad how a lot of the women got trapped in this vicious cycle, it does become a choice at some point. The culture here is very much a “shame” culture versus the “guilt“ culture we live in. The difference was explained to us as follows: imagine a woman in America got into a cab with a lot of men and began to feel uncomfortable and then saw a friend walking down the street… the woman would begin to wave him or her down or try to alert someone for help out of the situation. Here, the woman would hide her face for fear of shaming her family even though she did nothing wrong.
Reflecting back on Thursday night, the things that go on in that area are real and are hard to look at. Until you see it with your own eyes, it’s kind of a distant idea, but it is real – in fact, it goes on every single night very near where we live. It’s hard to see such oppression and bondage. It’s hard to see the desparation of the women. It’s hard to see men who don’t value them for who they are. It’s hard to see women who don’t value themselves for who they are. Our prayer is for a change in the atmosphere. Our aim is to view these women as actual women who are loved and cherished by The King of Kings – because they are. It’s easy to look at them in that instance and see them for what they are doing, but our constant prayer is to see them how The Father sees them. He sees them as beautiful and adored. They have personalities, they have families, they have things they love to do… they are women just like those of us who are prayer walking and are valued by our Heavenly Father just as much.
Please be praying with us for a change in the atmosphere around that area, for freedom from this vicious cycle that goes on, and for new beginnings!
Love in Christ,
Maeci
