Jungle Labor for Jesus - Explore Archived World Race Alumni Blogs

We leave for debrief in Huahin, Thailand with our entire squad in 2 days! While I’m extremely excited to see everyone, my heart is still here in Phuket with our ministry and the women I’ve formed relationships with. Our month has not just been about forming friendships with the bar girls on Bangla Road, however. Every other afternoon our two teams pile into two trucks and head to the other side of the island of Phuket to do manual labor, which is literally my least favorite thing to do on the World Race. I’ve decided I don’t like doing manual labor because to me, it has nothing to do with ministering to people and I’m frankly not that good at it.

This particular job site is the Thai jungle. It reminds me a lot of an episode of “LOST” or “Survivor” every afternoon we go out and do work there. This jungle land was bought by the ministry we’re serving and will eventually be the place short and long term teams will stay and where the women who have come out of prostitution will live, work and take classes. With that said, our contact gives us hatchets and machetes and sends us off to the island in the middle of his jungle property to hack away at vines and branches and put everything in piles to burn. It is one of the more tedious projects we’ve had but as soon as our contact told us what her vision for the island was, it was much easier for my heart to work hard and serve.

The island is going to be a few gazebos and gardens for mission teams and women who’ve come out of Bangla Road who will live on the property. Knowing that every chop of my machete was going to building something missionaries and rescued women would enjoy and relax in made the work a thousand times easier to do. Another project we worked on in the jungle was building a set of stairs and a patio area leading down to the pond that surrounds the island. We set smooth gray rocks in a mosaic pattern around the stairs and all on the patio with concrete we made and planted flowers all along the sides of the stairs and down by the patio. When we found out this was going to be an eating area for teams and the women to come and hang out, I was much more eager to accomplish the task with the end product in my mind. I knew the finished area was going to look so beautiful and the teams, the women and the women’s families were truly going to love coming and spending time in that area. It gave me so much joy knowing we were apart of making this ministry site a reality. I envisioned some of the women sitting on the patio, reading their Bibles and laughing with each other while their children played by the water. I saw teams having worship sessions on the island, filling the music with music pleasing to God. Both these visions made all the difference in my work ethic.

Finally we helped set up a water pump for the first building on the property to be built. The building is going to be a house for one of my favorite women that’s come from Bangla, Joy, and her and her 2 year-old son, Belgium. It was so special seeing the work that had been accomplished in the month we’ve been here and imagining the final product of the ministry site after we are gone. I can’t wait to see pictures of all the women’s houses, the mission team’s house, the classroom, the gazebos, the garden, the patio and the stairs when everything is finished and all that’s left to do is enjoy.

When I told you before that I didn’t like manual labor/construction work because I felt that it had nothing to do with ministering to people, I was dead wrong. Even though we’re not evangelizing or loving on people directly out in the jungle, we are building a center for disciples of Christ to stay and do life on and that is Kingdom work no matter how you look at it. As for thinking I’m not good at manual labor, I have found I work much harder and with more joy when I stop thinking negatively and concentrate on the people that I’m effecting by the project I’m doing. When I meditate on the end result, I lay every brick with more love, place every stone with more care, and chop every vine with more force. It’s been a wonderful concept to grasp, and I am praising God for yet another opportunity to partake in something I at first didn’t like or felt I excelled in, die to my flesh and allow the Holy Spirit to give me supernatural work ethic, joy and wisdom to succeed. That, ladies and gentlemen, is taking anything and everything we do, and making it something worthwhile and glorifying to God.