Wow, I think these are the most blogs I’ve posted in a month! I can’t tell you how much I love the comments, posts and emails that I have been getting. Traveling is not a new thing for me and homesickness was not something I expected to experience, but unfortunately it hit pretty hard months two and three. South East Asia has offered almost complete internet access which has made communicating and blogging much easier. Any contact I get from home makes being away that much easier. I feel your prayers and your support and I thank you all for it so much!
I wanted to fill everyone in on what our month in Thailand has looked like. Those of you that follow me on Facebook may be thinking, “Wow, this girl eats a lot and has a lot of coffee” or “the adventures in Thailand are limitless.” The response to both of these is YES. Thailand has certainly embraced me in my love for coffee with cafes on every corner! We’ve also eaten in more hole in the wall restaurants and street food than I ever have and praise the Lord, this is the healthiest I’ve been since leaving the states. You just kind of close your eyes, pray, and eat it anyway! For those of you who haven’t heard, we were not supposed to be in Bangkok this month. We were originally supposed to be in Chang Mai, but due to air pollution levels, it was unsafe for us to be there for extended time. This was a foreshadowing of how our month would end up going. It is really easy to look back over this month and think that half of our experiences were God saying, “Oops, sorry about that, but here’s the new plan.” Sitting in an Ethiopian airport around midnight trying to find 30+ chairs in order to hear the announcement that instead of Bangkok being our 2nd layover, it would be our final destination. That meant no scheduled ministries, no hosts or housing and really diving in head first and trusting the Lord that He had a plan in the change. I spoke to many people while I was support raising about Ask the Lord months (ATL), and although Thailand was not supposed to be, it turned into our first opportunity to practice what it looked like to live our days with the mindset that “life is ministry and ministry is life”; and we got to be together as a whole squad to do it. Basically, ATL means going through your days with open hands and allowing the Lord to show up in whatever way He sees fit. Coming off three months of as much structure as you can ask for on the mission field, being flexible in what was considered ministry was an interesting adjustment for us on the squad. I am going to share some of the Lord’s “Oops” moments that we walked into this month.
Pier 10….no 11!
One week our team prayed about doing what we called “water taxi ministry.” The water taxi has been one of our primary forms of transportation this month and is used by locals and tourists alike. Several people on our team felt lead to get off the boat at certain stops and see what adventure the Lord would take us on. One day our destination was pier 10, but when we got off we walked into a whole block of street food. So what did we do? Ate lunch of course! All the while praying as we walked. No one felt any particular stirring to do something there so it was suggested we prayer walk to the next pier and head home. As we made our way from pier 10 to 11 all of these buildings popped up in our path that were not on the map. Mazing through, we realized these buildings were labeled Medical Research, School of Medicine, Health Care. Before getting on the boat we all stopped and simultaneously felt lead to pray over this clearly influential area. Paige suggested ducking into what seemed like a cafeteria with tables that we could sit and pray together, but when we went in their was not enough space for all of us to sit. We walked around the whole cafeteria, exited into a hallway and found ourselves in what we would later discover was the oldest hospital in Thailand. There was some crazy spiritual weightiness along these hallways and we had the joy of praying over this hospital on every floor. God said, “Oops! Did I say 10? I meant 11.”
The next day, Paige felt lead to go back to that same hospital and ask if we could actually go into rooms and pray for specific people. This was a stretch because 0.7% of the country are confessed Christians but we were going to follow the call until it led us somewhere else. So this time we headed straight for pier 11. But before we ever even left our stop at 13, we met Leo, a 68 year old man from Italy who wanted to know what it looked like to pray. He headed over to the hospital with us, but the Lord chimed in again…”Oops, actually ministry today will look like sitting in a park with Leo and hearing his story. Paige, you are going to challenge his view of Heaven and Jessie you are going to get to share the gospel, unabridged for the first time and Allyson you are going to pray for his hearing.” Hospital ministry is still on our hearts, but that day, the Lord had an appointment with Leo.
More stories coming soon!
