Thailand, a month where I expected to be working with the many women who are in prostitution turned out to be something completely different. I questioned why God would not have me in a ministry that is so heavy in my heart. Why I wouldn’t be in the large city of Bangkok? God is funny in the way He works though, because Thailand ending up being a month that has changed my life.
The memory of pulling up to Sending Hope International is still such a strong memory in my mind. As the girls of Team Adelphi and I sat in the back of the yellow truck that runs between Chaing Mai and Wiang Pa Pao . There stood 40 smiling faces of the girls who by the end of the month I would be calling my sisters. We all got out of the truck and quickly had 40 hands helping us get ours bags out of the truck. For a visual picture imagine the cutest 5 year old little girl carrying a bag of groceries inside that are the size of her with a smile on her face.
What became a tradition of worship with the girls each night at 7 began the first evening there. I felt the difference in the air, the Holy Spirit was there, working and moving in the hearts of each girl, ages from 5-15. All 6 of the youngest girls (ages 5 and 6) lined up with 6 beautiful boutiques of roses and for the first boutique I have ever received I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Tears of joy flowed from the eyes of my teammates and I as each one of us was handed a boutique individually by each one of the youngest girls. The love that was automatically given by each one of the girls blew me away and I had no idea how girls of this age could be so full of the Lord.
Over the matter of days I soon began to realize why these girls were the way they were. The reason being, Peace, not the noun, but sure enough resembling the noun, but the person. The kind hearted person, who by the end of the month would become a dear friend and sister in Christ to me. Only 27 years old and is leading 40 girls each day by example of what it looks like to walk with the Lord.
There are a lot of people behind Sending Hope and what it stands for, but the main stronghold behind it is truly, Peace. Each day Peace would bless me in some way and I would always respond with a ‘Thank you’, but she would always quickly respond with ‘No, thank you Jesus.’ In everything she does it is not for her glory, but for the glory of the Lord. It spoke true testaments to who we should be giving our thanks to. It’s never thanks to us as humans, but to the one above who blesses us.
By the end of the month I looked around at each individual person living on the property of Sending Hope and I knew the reason for their passion and joy. Peace taught me so much in one month that I never knew was even possible to learn in such a short amount of time, but the Lord’s presence truly overflows from her. She deeply loves each girl living at Sending Hope as her own. She has taken each one under her wing and shows them how to walk with Jesus each new day. Peace lives out what it looks like to “not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think,” (Romans 12:3) in the fact that she lays down her life each new day in an act of faith that is so evident for the girls amongst her.
I wouldn’t change a moment of my month 8 in Thailand if I had the chance to. Even though I didn’t have many opportunities to work with women in prostitution I had an opportunity to walk along side a woman of Christ who showed me so much. My thanks will forever be to the Lord for giving me the month He knew I needed in Thailand, but I also want to say thank you to you, Peace, for showing me Jesus each day I woke up at Sending Hope. My heart will forever hold on to the moments spent at Sending Hope and knowing that the Lord always knows better than I.
