Here’s a little shakedown of my November. There’s just 3 biggies:
a new team
Welcome to team #3 for me on the Race. This is Team Chai. “Chai” means yes in Thai. We are 5 females strong. Coming from Texas, Wisconsin, Colorado, Florida and Virginia, we have a diverse group. I’m the baby of the team at 22 years old, and Erin is the eldest at 34. It’s an adjustment having a smaller team – less souls, more bonding, different expectations.
It has definitely taken a while for “us” to sink in, but as the Lord calls us to love it’s a-comin’. He keeps on bringing up the word love so much so that I think we’re almost starting to get sick of it. Love one another as I have loved you, we get it, we get it, yadda yadda yadda – buuuuut we don’t.
I’m fully convinced that love is the hardest, most intricate, exhaustingly humbling, yet completely fulfilling thing I’ll do in this life. Or, at least attempt to do in this life. It’s a jam-packed word that heals and hurts and makes my head throb but my heart swell. We are learning. Slowly, maybe begrudgingly, but learning.
chiang mai
I LOVE THIS CITY. I do. I love it like I love a warm sleeping bag or a flushing toilet. Apparently my values have slightly changed these past 5 months. Something about the feel of its streets makes me joyful. The culture mixed with what the Lord has the potential to do there bends my heart to love it.
The harvest is ripe here. The Thai people are wonderful. Buddhism is everywhere. Night markets and street food are the anthem of this city. The sex industry is booming. Appearance is important. Culture is rich.
For maybe the first time ever, I feel for this city. I feel for the strongholds the enemy has over it and I feel for what the name of Jesus can do within these city limits.
If you ever want to bless me, just buy me a one-way to Chiang Mai.
zion cafe
This is where Team Chai served in ministry for the month. Along with two other teams, I lived 6 floors above Zion Cafe (get at me, stairs). Ministry time was my favorite time of the day.
You know those things that just make you feel alive? I felt alive working here.
Each day, we’d work either the morning or evening shift. Zion is a fully-functioning cafe run by Lighthouse in Action, our ministry contact in Chiang Mai. LIA has other good things going on, like slum ministry, bar ministry, and reaching out to monks. It’s all relationally driven, so we were asked not to verbally share the Gospel, but to show it. I’m a fan. The staff at the cafe is all Thai women, several coming from the sex trafficking industry. Zion is a place where people, locals and foreigners alike, can sit down and sink in. That’s what it’s there for.
I loved being an unpaid employee; I even had a t-shirt that I got to tuck in. My job/joy was to take orders, serve food and coffee, wash dishes, and build relationships with staff girls.
My favorite part was a toss-up between connecting with the customers and messing around with Gwang, the barista. I was blown away by the heartening conversations the Lord led me to with customers. Regardless of if I said the name “Jesus” or not, there were hallelujahs to be taken away from every table.
The Zion staff is hard-working and fun-loving. It took a week or so for the girls to warm up to friendship, but once we got there it stuck. Whether washing dishes, opening or closing, there were always jokes to be made and laughs to be had.
Welcome to my favorite month of the race.
If you like praying, pray for my future in Thailand.
I’m leaving a bit of my heart here, hoping that I can return to pick it up soon enough.
Cheers to chai, Chiang Mai and coffee,
Darcie
