We have been in Thailand for over a month now and it is everything and nothing that I thought it would be. God has been showing me a lot and teaching me though small lessons of faith and trust.
Since we have been here, my hearts has been breaking daily. As I learn more about the culture and religion here in Thailand, I can’t help but feel sad for this place. The people are some of the sweetest, always smiling and being positive but there’s something missing. In a country where less than 2% are followers of God and many have never heard any of the gospel you can tell that true joy is missing. A majority of the people here are Buddhist, a religion that focuses on working to get closer to “enlightenment”/nirvana which is their idea of the “perfect state”, when met it means they have become a Buddha. However this is not an easy thing to achieve and they believe it takes hundreds of reincarnations to reach such level. This means people spend their lives working towards a state that they will most likely never feel they have reached. A life of constantly trying to be better, work harder, and not mess up…
Knowing that we have a God that loves us so much He sent His son to die for us so we could be with Him even though we are sinners is something so beautiful and something I wish so bad all these people knew. It’s something that gives us such hope knowing that we don’t have to work for anything or try to be good enough because He will love us regardless, and there is hope after this life. But these people don’t have that; these people don’t have the hope of something better than this life… They live life always trying to make it to the next level.
God has been putting this on my heart a lot lately and I have been able to experience my heartbreak for the same things that break His heart. He loves these people so much and yearns to see them turn to Him even as they worship huge golden idols and leave offerings for other gods. I find myself heartbroken for these people, seeing the emptiness in the temporary happiness and I crave to share about this joy and hope I have been given.
Our ministry the past week has been passing out flyers about a medical team coming with booklets attached about the gospel. It was neat to finally be able to go out into the community and really share the gospel however sometimes it can be hard to not get discouraged when you don’t see the fruit of it necessarily. But these past two days we got the privilege to help with the medical clinic we had been telling people about. We saw people come from all over that we had handed out flyers and booklets too. During this clinic over 300 patients were seen and through that over 10 people accepted Christ. It was such a blessing to be a part of and to know that our team had the opportunity to open the door for these people to come get physical healing and then hear more about the gospel for spiritual healing.
God knew that our team needed this encouragement at this exact moment in time. A reminder that we may not always see the fruit of our work if we are the ones planting the seed but God is sovereign and will bring others to water it. He is always working. How beautiful it is to get the opportunity to be a small part of the big things God is doing, He doesn’t need our help but He desires to use us still!
On a different note, I have a UPDATE on my trip! We were just informed that due to some unexpected visa troubles, instead of spending our third month here in Thailand we will be traveling as a squad to CAMBODIA 
for a month of ministry there!!! Who would have thought God was going to bless us with the opportunity to reach out to another country! This is big news for us racers and unexpected so keep us in your prayers as we prepare to go at the beginning of November, its exciting to be able to go but hard to cut our time here short and leave these friendships that we have built.
Can’t wait to see the big plans God has for us there! Thank you to all my supports for your help to allow me to be here and also for all the prayer support that helps me get through my days! God bless you!!
“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” -1 Corinthians 3:6
