Okay just kidding, BUT this blog does have to do with monks, so I’m not completely lying.
This blog post is a little late, but there’s grace for that…hopefully 🙂 anyways, so.much.has.happened since my last blog. New team, new country, new ministry, new everything…but it’s been amazing. I am currently in Chiang Mai, Thailand working with Lighthouse in Action ministries.
Here is a little background information on Chiang Mai. It’s home to about 1 million Thai people and countless others who come just looking for a good time. There are roughly 5,000 men, women, and children prostitutes working throughout the city in bars, massage parlors, and other service businesses, as well as more who are trafficked for labor and other things. Since we are currently in a high season for tourists the number of prostitutes could easily be doubled right now. That.is.insane.
The children get trafficked from the nearby slums as well as surrounding villages through deceit, ignorance, and poverty. Sex brokers come in and make deals with families telling them that they are helping their children have a better life, when in reality they are selling them into the sex trade. However, other times, families willingly sell their children to the brokers because they need the money. I literally cannot imagine that. This is where my team comes in. Our ministry this month is working directly in the villages and areas where sex brokers come in and try to buy children. We start by prayer walking through the village- just praying over the kids and families there and after that we spent the remaining time loving on the kids in the communities. We have been so lucky in the fact that there are two interns here who go with us to translate for us…praise God because I don’t know if you know this but Thai is a hard language haha on top of that they place a very high emphasis on their culture and there are many many things you can do to offend them.
Thankfully, we spent the first three days in a culture and ministry orientation with the organization we have partnered with this month: Lighthouse in Action. Lighthouse itself is in the heart of the red light district here and has three main outreaches: (1) Love Acts- this is the bar ministry that shows the Gospel in action. We go out into the bars, first in the morning to pray and then at night to become love to these women and ladyboys. (2) Zion Cafe- this is the coffee shop run by the ministry to provide a safe place for the people we are meeting. There is open mic night, worship, game night, and other nightly events created to draw women here instead of into the bars. This is also where we are sleeping. Above the cafe is a hostel like place where we sleep. Yes, my life is a movie. (3) X-Life- (which is what I am doing) the slum outreach that goes in to educate the communities on what’s really going on as well as playing, spending time, and bringing snacks to the kids. On top of this we are also doing “Monk Chat.” It has such a silly name, but it.is.amazing. Basically you can go to almost any temple here in Chiang Mai and talk to the Monks…who are surprisingly normal. Maybe that’s not as much of a shock to you as it was to me, but I mean they even have Facebook. Seriously. Yesterday was the first time we went and we hung out with one monk, Garron, for about two hours. He explained all about Buddhism to us and why he decided to become a monk…which basically was because his parents are Buddhist and it would bring great honor to their family if he became one. It’s also weird to me that they can stop being a monk at any time. We found that a lot of men do it because you get a free education and no responsibilities, and then you can just stop when you want. I love this because we also have been able to bring the light of Christ into this dark place. A lot of times while some of our team is doing monk chat, others are walking around the temple praying. We also randomly met another Christian who attends a non-monk school in the temple. Crazy divine appointments happening here.
Lastly, all of this is run by the amazing Emmi. I could tell you about her story, but I would seriously not do it justice. Here is a YouTube video that she made that tells you her heart behind everything. Enjoy! http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sQacdkYccRw
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