My last week in Thailand was spent in the Village. When I got the news that we would be in the Village I was devastated. The year leading up to the Race, I would read blogs and pray about the Redlight District. I dreamt about working in the Bars and befriending the prostitutes. My heart yearns for healing and restoration for those stuck in sexual sin. I chose this route for the fact that Thailand was in there.
So when my team leader, Sara, told me that we would be in the Village and not in the city to do Bar Ministry I had to pray for my heart. I was crushed. It was the first time during the race that I was way more excited about the country coming up than the one I was in. I prayed. Hard. God answered my prayers, he gave me an overwhelming peace and excitement about going to minister to people in the village. I was so happy. It took about 3 or 4 days before I found peace.
The day I finally accepted it was the day Sara told us that we might have the opportunity to actually do Bar Ministry. My heart kind of flopped around in my chest. My team talked it out and we prayed about what we felt God was leading us to. Most of my teammates were still feeling led to the village. After talking with the other team going out to the village and Emmi (our contact) we ended up deciding to still go to the village.
I became physically ill. I felt like someone had taken something from me, all over again. I was 100% sure that this was God teaching me about entitlement and he was sparing me now that I had accepted the ministry we were given. But no, he was just teasing me. Or so I thought.
Surprisingly, It was a blessing. Two of our teammates got sick and ended up in the hospital, so we stayed in the city for TWO WEEKS. We stayed in Chiang Mai for 2 weeks, without a specific ministry. I got to tag along for Bar Ministry. We did hospital ministry and temple Ministry as well. It was incredible. We got to participate in a nation wide water fight, called Songkran. Amazing. When I got to the last couple of days in Chiang Mai things started making sense.
Had we decided to stay, we wouldn’t have been able to do temple ministry, or hospital ministry..maybe not even Bar Ministry. (Because we would have been assigned to a specific ministry) God planned it that way!!! He opened up the possibilities, so that we could follow his leading completely. It was beautiful.
We left for the village feeling a little sad to be leaving the people we had poured into, but excited for what was to come. Upon arriving, we were attacked. We started unloading the truck and within minutes 2 neighborhood dogs started fighting with our translators dog and beat him up pretty bad. It was truly traumatic, Noodle is this cute little tiny dog and these two menacing characters shook him like a Rag Doll. He was bleeding and crying at the end. (NOT TO WORRY, He’s okay now.)
Needless to say, seeing all this fall out in front of my eyes shook me up. Our translator left and took little Noodle to the hospital. So there we were, in this little cottage in the middle of nowhere – Thailand, with no translator. Satan attacked us so hard that night with anxiety and fear and discomfort. We prayed through it. We prayed and worshipped and things got better. The next day we got a call saying that Noodle was okay and Nok would be back that evening.
THINGS GOT BETTER. We found our ministry sight and ate lunch down the road at this tiny little shack/kitchen/restaurant/thing. Things started coming together and feeling more like home. It was a short adjustment period and we began doing pauses. (the 7 Sacred Pauses, look it up) The longer we were there the better things got.
One day while we were working God directed me to a tree. I noticed it before and thought it looked like WAY too much work. He told me that I was that tree. I thought, Alright, whatever you say, God. Trees are Cool. This tree was covered in vines and dead limbs. The ground I was walking on was caving in everywhere I went and just littered with Concrete and trash and weird old t-shirt remnants. God directed my attention to this one part near the center that was clearly new growth. It was being crushed by the dead limbs and choked out by the vines wrapping their way around it.
I pulled the dead limbs away from the tree and God told me that this was all the crap in my life that I was holding onto. I had been broken. Just sitting in it was no longer enough; I had to clear it away. So I removed the vines, the sin holding me back from living out who God created me be. As I peeled the dead limbs off the branches all I could see were all the remnants of the old me that I have been holding onto being tossed away.
As I was clearing all these things away I noticed that with every step I would sink into the ground. Those were my roots. My roots were in this broken childhood. (If you want to know more, read my previous blog) I tried to fix that brokenness with so many things, men, approval of my parents, affirmation from ANYONE, alcohol.. all of those things just added to the problem. My foundation was not in Christ. So I removed all the objects from the soil, with the help of Sara and Karen. I pat down the soil afterwards and placed some rocks at the foot of the tree to symbolize my solid foundation in Christ.
Through all the clearing, ripping, breaking and machete-ing..my eyes would constantly return to the middle of the tree where there was a new sprout. I was reminded that I was still growing. The dead parts were stunting my growth, though. In order to continue growing I needed to let go of the things I was so stubbornly clinching my fists around.
That night, while praying about it and praising God for teaching me things in random places. I thought, God could have just passed me up like I passed up that tree 2 days in a row. But when he looked at me he didn’t see that messy tree, he saw the beautiful finished product. He saw the pain I had endured and wanted to fix it. He took the time to remove the dead parts and make me whole again.
