Comfort: the word the Lord gave me for Thailand.
& I felt just that, comfortable.
Of course being away from family, friends, and familiarity (in many aspects) was and still is an adjustment. It’s hard finding alone time while living in close quarters with 50 people. It’s hard balancing being present and finding quiet time to recharge. It’s exhausting always pouring in and out emotionally. It was a lot to realize how long (but also how short??) nine months is. But it’s all so good & we were still met with lots of comfort: expats and tourists around, english commonly spoken, coffee shops everywhere, normal toilets, wifi, and boredom barley struck with so much around to explore and do. But most importantly, I got comfortable with who I was around and with whose hands I rest in. I became so close to my teammates (the seven girls I room with and do day to day ministry with). I feel at home with the new family I’ve been given. I’ve been reminded of how compassionate, intentional, and mighty our God is and I can be confident that He’s got me.
Our ministry was comfortable too. Stretching, yes, but also comfortable because we felt at home. For two months my team helped out at a foster home. My team of eight split up and rotated every other weeks being with the “babies” (six two year olds) and with the “big kids” (six kids ages 5-7). We helped out the care takers there by playing with and loving on the kids. Luckily this home was run by people who love these kids extremely well with such intentionality. Every day was a different subject that we would have two different lesson times with. Sundays we would have sunday school lessons, while the rest of the week was core subjects like math, reading, science, etc. The kids know both Thai and English, which made teaching and connecting with them easier with no language barrier. Wednesday mornings we would take all the kids to a nursing home nearby where the kids would sing songs and we would read a book with the elderly retirees there. Two days a week we had half days at the foster home. On these days we would come home to do ATL,“ask the lord”, in the afternoon. We would pray over our afternoon and listen to what the Lord had in store for us that day. This was always a range of things: prayer walking, building relationships at our regular coffee spot, intercessory prayer, “treasure hunting” etc. I feel so blessed to have been able to be a small part of those kids lives. They made Thailand so hard to leave.
In my first two months the Lord taught me so much about myself that I hadn’t learned before. Hard things to learn, but things that allow the Holy Spirit to work so that greater joy and greater intimacy with Him can result on the other end. I left Chiang Mai having learned and experienced so much, feeling ready to enter into months ahead knowing they won’t be as comfortable in my physical environment, but feeling so comfortable with my new family.
We’ve been in Malaysia 48 hours now and I am so ready for month three. I can already tell that this is what I prayed for the race to be: doing life closely with locals & being in a culture that I wouldn’t normally travel to, but experiencing it on a real and intimate level. I’m living in a small city working and living closely with a church and its members. This is seeming to look like slow mornings as a team and late nights at the church with our new friends.
I’ll be pretty off the grid this month, but I’m excited to be present here and disconnected from distractions. Please be praying over my team and our impact and relationships here. I am SO expectant of how the Lord will work this month!
