Chiang Mai, Thailand is such an interesting place! It’s not hard to realize why it’s known as a “backpacker’s paradise.” There are coffee shops, massage parlors, hotels, hostels, and 7elevens everywhere. Western food (or the Thai version of Western food anyway) is available everywhere. There is a huge Night Market just a short walk from the hostel where we’re staying. It’s a wonderful and overwhelming palce filled with tons of Thai food and every kind of Thai related souvenir you can imagine (elephants on EVERYTHING!).
Thailand is also known as the “land of smiles.” Being happy and friendly is part of the Thai way of life. It’s easy to be happy here. It would be simple to accept the pleasant face the people here put on everything. But this is not always the reality of things.
A few streets over from our hostel is the redlight district of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is also known for human trafficking. In the short time that we have been here, we have already heard many stories of young women sent from rural areas to work in the bars of Chiang Mai. They are promised a better life with access to higher education and technology but instead end up trapped in prostitution.
We have had an amazing opportunity to work with a ministry called Zion Cafe in offering these women a way out. Zion’s staff has been working for years now to develop relationships with the locals of this area. Zion, and their related ministries, reach out to the women stuck working in the redlight district, provide them with places to stay, alternative job opportunities, and even help them to further their education. They also travel up to the rural villages where many of these girls come from to work on educating people on the truth of what these girls are being asked to do. To be honest, Zion has so many different areas of ministry, it was difficult to keep up with all of them. Each of our 4 teams had the chance to work in a different area for the last 2 weeks.
My team worked with the kids in the Slum area. It’s a very different part of Chiang Mai. There are no signs in English. No brightly colored curtains or other decorations. No one sweeps up the streets every night in this area. Yet it is also the same; same smiling, friendly people. Same genuine hospitality and community that you see everywhere in this beautiful city. The first time we visited this area one family actually invited us to stay for dinner. On the one truly cold day while we were here people constantly invited us into their houses to warm up by their tiny fires. We politely declined but it warmed my heart to think that even here they could show such generosity.
Every day we walk through the area calling all the children to come out and play with us. They follow us through the narrow dirt streets, past chickens scratching in the dirt and mangy dogs, around people sitting and sleeping on the side of the road, across a shaky bridge spanning a dirty smelling river to an empty gravel parking lot. Here we all play together. They wear random, usually dirty, clothes. A lot of their clothes would be pajamas for us. The girls seem fond of those silky Disney princess night gowns. None of them speak more than one or two words of English and our Thai is pretty terrible. I have learned how to say “hello,” “thank you,” “what is your name?” “my name is-” “I love you,” and “Jesus loves you.” I also know the words for “play” and “dance” but I have no idea how to put these into actual sentences haha.
As you can imagine, I felt completely unprepared for going into this situation. But the kids never seemed to care about our breakdown in verbal communication. All they care about is if we are willing to play, or carry them around on our shoulders, or let them sit in our laps when they got tired. They were all so happy and smiling and open. It’s difficult to process that these are the same kids who wander through the bars full of prostitutes at night. A lot of them help earn income for their families by selling flowers to people in the redlight district. They see things on a nightly basis that kids should never have to be exposed to.
It is so humbling to be in this place day after day. I sometimes feel as if we aren’t doing enough. But the Lord is faithful to remind me that His love is bigger than mere words. I have been truly stretched as my daily prayer is, “God, teach me how to show your love without words.” I like words. I’m good at words (as many of you well know lol) but words were not so helpful in this situation. I, and the rest of my team, had to rely on God to show his love through us without words.
