This month was amazing! Team Ignite has witnessed incredible growth through living in community with each other. This is a brief summary of our ministry:
On Saturdays, we worked with Compassion Kids in the morning. We would put on a one-hour program of songs, scripture memory, Bible lessons, games, and crafts. They loved it! Then, we taught english for a few hours after that.
We had the opportunity to lead the church service every Sunday that we were in Sikhoraphum. Molly, Seth, and Jeanette all gave messages on three different Sundays, I led worship with their band, and Megan, Traci and Krystle all shared testimonies.
Monday was our day off. We visited the elephant village one day, but the other Monday we used as a much-needed rest day.
Tuesdays through Fridays we spent at primary and high schools. We again did a one-hour program to start. It included skits, drimes (dramas/pantomimes = drimes), a message, and songs. The kids love it and we have some cool video footage that I’ll put up sometime within the next week or so. After the program, we taught english for 3-4 hours and spent time learning from the kids as well as teaching them. Their english was very limited so it was quite difficult at times.
Ok, so that was the structured ministry. However, God worked in a huge way through the unstructured ministry to our teammates but also to the community that surrounded our house! If you read one of Molly Garner’s blogs, you will read about Suwat, an older lady who sold us Chai Yen Tea every day. She is a sweet buddhist woman who finally came to church on the last Sunday that we were there.
We also spent two days prayer-walking the community. We passed by a monk village that was right down the street from us along with some ruins that used to be a “castle”. One of our contacts James informed me and Seth that they used to sacrifice babies at these ruins many centuries ago. The darkness around that area was very prevalent.
We also had the opportunity to pray for an 80-year-old blind woman. The Lord apparently had bigger plans for this woman. She was so thankful that we even came to her house. She was glad to hear about Jesus and his power and love for her. Please pray that this truth takes root in her life. Please pray for healing of her sight. We found this lady when we did something called ATL (Ask the Lord). We pressed into the Lord to see where he wanted to lead us and he led some of our team to a man who asked us to come visit his mother. Its awesome to see the Lord at work!
So this was just a quick summary of what we did in Thailand. Thank you for your prayers and support in getting me on The World Race. God is using your resources more than you know! If you ever want to just send me an email, contact me at [email protected]. I will get some video blogs up of Suwat and our ministry in Thailand very soon. Until then, please keep our entire September team bathed in prayer as we head to Cambodia in the morning! I love you all…blessings!