of the hardest, yet also one of the most rewarding months for me this
Race.
month; I am physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually
exhausted; and we have crazy hours for our work-days. We work six
days a week at WonGen Kafe from 9:30am to 2pm and then pray together
from 8:30pm to 9:30pm for protection and for the girls we’ll be
talking to and then we head out to the bars until 11:30ish when we
come back, pray together again for a little while, and then fall into
bed around 12:30am. Hard because the students at the universities
that we visit every day aren’t very interested in conversation most
days. Hard because the girls in the bars are skeptical, guarded, and
mostly not interested in anything other than their next drink or game
of pool. (I have loved the chance to play pool nearly every night,
though!) Hard because when you think you’ve made progress in a
relationship the girl decides that she no longer wants to talk to
you. Hard because it seems that some days we’re just on “autopilot”
when we know we need to be really engaged.
Rewarding: There is a
YWAM team here living/working with us (they work the afternoon shift
at the cafe) and in talking to one of the girls the other night she
really got us fired up about the crazy ways God answers prayer. After
our conversation Priscilla and I started talking about the things we
still want to see God do in our last few days here. The next morning
Team Redeemed and Emmi, our contact, made a list of 16 prayer
requests – some outrageous and some not so much – that we are
expecting God to answer, separated into three categories: before we
leave Chiang Mai, before we leave Thailand, and before we actually
arrive home. This is a practical, tangible way that we can keep our
focus here and on God’s work, and we look forward to the daily
praises this prayer list brings as some of these prayers are already
being answered!
one of the girls will choose to leave the bars and seek employment
elsewhere and also seek discipleship and to know more about Christ. Chelsea has a crazy story about how God led her to Pai, and the other
day Pai asked Chelsea if there was a way she could help her find work
somewhere else!!! Emmi and Pai had a long conversation and Emmi came
to us today to ask if we would pray about sponsoring Pai to work at
WonGen for a year! Praise God who answers prayer!! Some of the other
requests are beginning to be answered as well, and some don’t seem to
be being answered yet, but God is faithful and it is so fun to see
Him work!
Thank you for your continued prayers as
we serve God here in Thailand.
