This month has been all sorts of crazy, starting with our crazy awesome host, to our crazy busy days.
The first day of ministry when we met our host Pat, he said to us, “I hope you ladies aren’t here to be safe, because serving the Lord comes with risk and I don’t live a safe life, so if that scares you, find someone else to work with.” And of course the natural reaction is to second guess who we may be working with for the month, but I immediately reacted out of excitement and was ready for the crazy. Pat lives his life as if each day is like opening gifts on Christmas morning. He asks the Lord what he wants him to do that day, and goes out and does it. So for the month, we got to be a part of the way he lives his life. We never knew what we were doing or where we were going, we just knew that Pat was living by the feet of the Spirit and we got to be along for the ride.
Pat has an incredible story of brokenness, destruction, addiction, healing, redemption, and freedom. When he came to know the Lord, he began living this radical life of serving God and His people. He touches every corner of Chiang Mai with the love of Jesus. Pat is currently starting a half-way home for young boys in prison who need a little help transitioning back into reality once they leave jail. He disciples them, gives them a home, a job, and a safe place to go before they begin to live on their own. In order for him to do this, he sold his home and is using that money to build a half-way home for his boys.
(The one, the only, Pat.) (The family: The boys from the half-way home)
Pat likes to go where Christians are not. So we spent the majority of our time at a Buddhist school, loving the people there and creating another classroom for them so they could start teaching the students science. Our main project for the month was cleaning out a junk/storage room, painting it, and transforming it into a classroom!
(Part 1 of Classroom Transformation) (Part 4: The Final Product)
Pat also taught us how to farm on his land, where we got to be a part of the construction process of his half-way home and plant banana trees and other crops that are going to feed the people that come to stay and live with him.
(Construction team) (Watering Banana Trees)
There were a lot of things at the beginning that were hard for me to see purpose in. Things such as scraping tape off the classrooms walls when they were already completely engraved into the wall, not going anywhere. Or teaching English to kids when they knew absolutely no English and there wasn’t a translator to help. However, the Lord quickly turned this frustration into perspective. He reminded me that there is purpose in every little thing that we do when it comes to serving Him. He reminded me that He gave his ultimate best in creating everything on this earth, and that he doesn’t want mediocre, he wants our best. He revealed to me that scraping tape off of classroom walls may not be fun, but it’s preparing a clean environment for more students to learn and be educated that don’t yet have that opportunity. He showed me that He is much, much bigger than a language barrier. There is purpose in it all. There is great joy in the discovery of His purpose when we trust in Him rather than our own flesh.
