I think Thailand threw us all for a loop this month. We were originally supposed to be in Chiang Mai but apparently the air pollution level was far too high to live in, so we ended up staying in Bangkok. Since we last minute had our plans changed (by last minute I mean an hour before we boarded our flight to Thailand) we no longer had organizations to partner with this month. Hello ATL. What is ATL you ask? It stands for Ask The Lord. Basically we pray and ask God what he wants us to do and who to speak to each day, and then we do it. It’s as simple as that.
Needless to say “ministry” has looked different this month. Something my team has been saying a lot is that this month has been “redefining ministry” for us. It doesn’t always look like preaching, teaching, playing with children, or all of the other things we have done already. This month has looked like us meeting strangers and sometimes sharing what we believe and other times just encouraging them. Sometimes ministry has looked like talking about our tattoos and sharing why they matter to us. It’s looked like worshipping in a park, worshipping on abandoned airplanes, asking people if we could pray for them, or even filling needs within our own team. We also prayed daily for a local organization and brought them flowers just to say thank you for all you do in this country.
There’s a saying AIM uses often and it’s “ministry is life and life is ministry”. It’s true. Ministry is living life as you normally would and seeing people right where they are. It’s walking through life like Jesus did as best we can. ATL is a way to teach us how to listen to what God is doing every day and join in on it! God invites us into every day adventures-how cool is that!? The world race isn’t “just a mission trip”, its everyday life. It is what you make it.
We spent three weeks in Bangkok doing all of the above. I’ll write more about some of the people we got to meet! We went to Chiang Mai for our two days “off” to go hiking and visit elephants. Now my Team and I are in Phuket Thailand. There are beaches and Mountains and boats! No, we’re not on vacation (I keep getting asked). It’s where God has us this last week in Thailand and he definitely has some cool things ahead. He’s already done some exciting things in the two days we’ve been here. So, here we are.
