This month my team, along with team Teleios and Throne Unveiled are working in Chiang Mai, Thailand at a ministry called Lighthouse in Action. The founder, Emmi, is an amazing Thai woman full of life and love, who has a truly incredible story.
Lighthouse in Action has 3 branches of ministry:
1) Love Acts – bar ministry
2) Zion Café – coffee shop ministry
3) X Life – village ministry
Each team has a focus for the month, but the great thing is we have the freedom to help out in each branch of ministry. After a 3 day orientation, my team was chosen to serve in the Love Acts branch doing bar ministry.
In Chiang Mai, the Red Light District is a big tourist attraction. Sex trafficking and prostitution of women, ladyboys (transgender), and children runs rampant. Although this is a beautiful city filled with beautiful people, the brokenness found in the bars is evident.
Our goal this month: To Love.
We do this through prayer, building relationships and loving the people as Jesus does. Every morning we spend time walking through the Red Light District praying for the workers and customers who will who inevitably arrive later in the day.
After this we spend a few hours helping out Emmi with whatever she needs. All 3 teams are living in rooms above Zion Café, which recently moved locations, so we help out with things like painting and refurbishing furniture for the building.
In the afternoon we go back out to the bars, but by this time many workers are there getting things set up. This allows us to talk with them without distractions, help them clean and build friendships. Often times we see children of the employees, so we’re able to play with them too!
After dinner, all the teams spend some time in prayer and worship, and then another group will go out to the bars again. Usually we take turns going out, while the others stay back to pray and intercede.
Being at the bars and seeing everything that goes on can be really difficult. It’s heartbreaking to know that the smiles you see from the women and their customers are just a façade to the brokenness that lies beneath.
The majority of the women working in the bars are from hill tribes and small villages and come to the city looking for a way to earn money to support their families. They sometimes don’t realize what they’re getting into when they take a job at the bar, but then get caught in the toxic cycle and feel like they don’t have a choice. Others are tricked into coming to the city for an education or well-paying job, and then have no way out.
It’s easy to spot a “transaction” while out at night. Sometimes the women themselves make the deal, other times the owner of the bar will find a customer for them. It’s sickening to watch customers look at women like merchandise and try to bargain a price depending on what they feel the woman is worth.
I pray that this month we can build friendships founded in the love of Jesus. That we can show love through our actions, and treat the workers and customers alike with respect and compassion. Because these are daughters and sons of our Father and are worthy of being loved.
But when we look past the darkness, it is even more obvious that God is already at work in this city, and I feel so blessed to be a part of the story he is writing here. Please keep our ministry in your prayers this month as we plant seeds of hope in Chiang Mai.
I’ve been so blessed by the overwhelming amount of support I have received. I am now over 60% funded, but still have several thousand dollars (with insurance included) left to raise. I ask that you will please prayerfully consider supporting me financially so I don’t have to come home from this amazing journey prematurely.
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