THAILAND | Patong-Bangla Road
Every other night, my team Jeannie, Heidi, Tara, and I would load up with two other teams in the back of a pick-up and make the 30 min trip to Patong, Bangla Road. Sitting there, we look like we are preparing for war, some singing or praying aloud, others in a corner with their ipod worship music, and others shouting declarations. When we finally arrive, the teams huddle in the middle of the streets while everyone stares and begin to pray over their team and night. After this, we head to the streets. All trying not to lose focus from the extremely loud music that changes with every passed bar, or the countless advertiser/promoters wanting you to come to their bar or show. Amoungst the craziness and with Godly appointed focus, divine moments emerge from the otherwise dark streets. Here are some of those moments:
MICKY: As soon as we met her, we knew we would be close as she ran up to us four strangers with a huge smile, giving us all hugs as if we had known her for years. She had a glow about her that we were all instantly drawn to. Micky, had just started working at the bar, trying to raise money for law school. She already had her undergrad in law, and was previously working at a law firm in Bangkok, but wasn’t making enough money. We found out later that she only worked at the bar, and received no customers which was although a relief was also still sad that she had to be apart of the industry at all. After seeing Micky for two weeks straight and even having lunch, she randomly said that she had problems and had to leave working the bar. I pray that Micky will have more God encounters. That she will see that life is more than knowledge and about making money to get to the next step.
BIM: Since seeing this sweet girl for the first time, I have had a soft spot for her in my heart. She works at the bar as a dancer, and we saw her the first time we went down Lion Street. I was able to ask the lady I was talking to how old she was, which is when I found out that she was only 17. We tried to go back time and time again, only to get a few words from her here and there. She lied and told us she was 19, because under 18 makes you illegal. We found out she dropped out of school to dance here at the bar, and was told by the bar tender that she is strictly a dancer. But, after one of our friends told us that the manager was trying to sell her off to them, we found that she was in alot deeper than we knew. So young, innocence still written all over her face. Her dancing was still of a young girl, flailing her body around. When she danced she turned her body towards the bar next store that had women twice her age dancing in ways that even made me blush. You could tell she was studying their body movements, trying to make her joints move in the way theirs did. You could see the yearning in her eyes to be just like them. Without knowing it, those women became her role models. I pray that she will one day see her worth in a Father that loves her more than anything, that the approval of man can not be compared to the approval of God. I pray that this realization will happen sooner than later, in hopes that her innocence isn’t taken away.
WAN: Sometimes God has different plans than what we expected, which was the case for Wan. Not even working at the bar, this sweet girl sold gum on the streets of Bangla. With severe deformaties, she stood every night in the middle of the streets. After the first week of seeing her, Tara finally stopped us all and told us that God wanted her to pray for this woman. So we did, night after night. Every time we saw her, we hugged her and asked her if we could pray for her. Most times she would say ok, close her eyes and stand perfectly still as we spoke. But on one occasion, as we began to pray, tears began to roll down her face, she soon crumbled to the ground and the four of us bent down to catch her feeble body. I am still not sure what she was thinking or feeling, she spoke little English and would have never known what we were praying. But, God must have been speaking to her. The four of us girls always had a strange string attached to us and Wan, but I never felt it stronger than that night. After leaving the bars and heading towards the meeting place I began to have an aweful pang in my left leg. I ignored it at first, but later as we got some food before heading home I began to complain about how I felt like I was having growing pains. As we headed for the truck, the pains were getting worse, and then my left elbow began to sting and as we reached the truck it had reached my wrist. As the different parts continued to throb, I began to complain to Heidi. She looked at me, her eyes getting wider, and said that it was Wan. I explained to the rest of the truck and later to the rest of the squad my pains and my team was quick to get everyone to pray not over me, but over Wan. At every place where I was acheing those were the places where Wan’s body was deformed. It sounds completely crazy, but imagine how I felt with all of these sudden aches over my entire body. After that night, we went and prayed for Wan several more times, each time one or more of us would have a pain in one of our body parts whether shoulder or wrist. We never saw Wan physically healed during our month in Thailand, but I know that God has huge plans for her life. I pray that she would know our love for her and through that begin to see the Father’s love. I pray that she would not only receive physical healing but also spiritual healing. I know that God has her in his hands and that the strings that attach the four of us to her will always be there.
