So month 2 we were in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was All Squad month which meant that all 42 of us were living under the same roof.
The month started with a 20 hour bus ride and a crazy long border crossing on foot. Then we had debrief for the first few days. We got to stay in a hostel and the AC and soft beds were a welcome luxury for those few nights. At debrief we processed with our squad leaders, mentor, and coaches about our first month in Cambodia.
We started ministry after a day of training and a World Race style Amazing Race scavenger hunt around the city.
This month, our ministry was with Lighthouse in Action. The vision of Lighthouse is to bring the Light, Hope, and Love to the people of Chiang Mai. Lighthouse does this in several different ways. There is a cafe, Zion Cafe, with amazing smoothies and brownies, on the first floor of the hostel. Zion Hostel is opening to the public soon, but for the month, our squad took over and called it home. Two teams worked in the cafe this month working alongside women who have left the bars. Two teams, my team was one of these, went to bars everyday and just made friends with the women who worked there. Through the university, there is a program where munks can educated people about Buddhism. Two other teams used munk chats to learn about Buddhism as well as share Jesus, and of course love the munks.
In addition to daily ministry, we had our team time and feedback sessions. We played cards and drank way too many smoothies. On off days, we rode elephants, climbed and swam in waterfalls, petted tigers, and went to a lantern festival.
Like I said, my team was assigned bar ministry for the month. Six days a week we would start the day with a prayer walk all along Bar Street. Three days a week we went to the bars in the afternoon and the other days we went at night. Four of us would go out in pairs while the other three stayed back and did intercession prayer. We switched about every other day. At the bars, we simply made friends. We hung out with women, played pool, drank diet coke, and just talked. Afterwards, we would debrief as a team.
My favorite part of the month was intercession prayers. Not only did I not have to spend 30 minutes getting dressed to go out, but I connected with God in such unique ways. One day it was hours of dancing and praying to worship music getting the best work out of the month. Another night was praying Psalms over my team. We would pray for the women working and our team loving them, and it was always super exciting to get a word from God for one of them only to find out how perfect it was when they got back. Often our prayers aligned with what the team was doing in that moment, and we left debrief sessions everyday in more awe of our Lord, even if it was midnight. Praying for hours was hard and stretching sometimes, but no matter what I always met with my Savior. And I’m stoked to take the discipline around the world and home with me.
As glamorous as bar ministry sounds, it’s far from it. It was simply loving people right where they are. One thing we learned a lot about this month was being Jesus with skin on. We have the power of Christ living inside of us. With that, we can do anything. All we need to do is surrender to him and let him use us however he wants to. Our mission this month wasn’t to rescue anyone. We didn’t try to convince people to believe us or stop selling their bodies. Our mission was to love.
As Christians isn’t that always our mission? After all, they will know us by our love. So that’s what we did. We loved people right where they are at. We were playing pool one day with a couple of lady boys when they asked us, “oh you’re like the others. You’re like Jesus.”
This month was amazing. It was heart breaking and confusing a lot of the time, but it was full of hope. Because somehow God was able to show himself through me. He got to love his children, and I got to be apart of it. Thailand wasn’t short of any adventures, and like always, God was way too good.
