Let me tell you about September 21st, and all that we did on just ONE day of the The World Race.
My day, like most before this one, started at around 6:30 am.
Drew and I were to go across town to where the team that we have been working with this month are staying and help Megan paint a mural.
We wanted to be there around 8, and we still had to try and get a taxi and have breakfast and all that, so we got up at a completely unreasonable hour.
After getting ready, we sat and waited for a taxi until about 9:30.
We didn’t even get to the youth center until 10.
Relying on expensive taxi’s that never show up when you need them, and always try and over charge you is frustrating.
I so very much miss the Tuck Tucks of India, and the motorcycles of Nepal.
We spent the next couple of hours painting trees and grass on the wall of a soon to be coffee shop that one of the YWAM staff is about to open.
The coffee shop’s main purpose is to show love and acceptance to the college aged kids that live in this area.
After painting for a couple hours, we have a quick lunch, caught another taxi, and rushed home so that we could start our own ministry with the rest of our team.
Getting home, we changed into nicer clothes, and headed over to the nearby school that we had been working with for the last couple of days.
We were teaching a group of about 20 kids between the ages of 7 and 11 English.
Friday was the last day we were teaching English.
We were playing review games all day, seeing how well the children remembered the colors, numbers, family members, and clothes that we had taught them all week.
After teaching English we headed home so that we could have a couple hours rest before we started our nights activities.
God (like he very often does) had a better plan in mind for our team.
As we were heading home, we came across an older homeless man who said that he hadn’t eaten anything (except for what he had gotten out of the trash cans) for almost three weeks.
Hearing this, two of the girls on my team headed off to find him food, and the rest of us remained back to talk to him, and find out more of his story.
He said that he was alone, all his family had all died, and that he had no one.
There was such sadness in his eyes.
I have been working a lot on trying to see people.
Like really see them, feel what they feel, understand the world the way that they do.
When I was looking into the eyes of this man, I could just feel his hurt, and loneliness.
It was heartbreaking.
We got an opportunity to tell this man about the amazing God that we serve, and tell him about how much God cared about him, loved him, and had not forgotten about him.
We then prayed over him, and fed him.
This man brought joy to my heart, and reminded me of why we were here in Thailand in the first place.
We then got home, and low and behold we had hardly any time to get ready anymore.
We had to be at the other teams house at 6 so that we could start our 24 hour prayer day that we had planned, and we still wanted to eat before hand.
we called a cab, and rushed over to the store where we eat lunch almost every day.
After shoving down some awesome Thai food, we raced over to the youth center and made it just at 6.
Over the next 24 hours (it actually turned into 25 1/2 hours) God kicked my butt.
The details of what he taught me are a story for a different time.
The gist of it however is that over the 26ish hours God asked me to say yes to Him in anything that He asked of me, and once I did, he took no time in asking me to do some of the hardest things of my life.
But in doing so he showed me the misconception of my value that I had, and how I needed to learn to humble myself before Him in all things.
I also learned a lot about the way that God loves me, and the way that I perceive his love.
In those 26 hours God had me be more vulnerable, honest and open then I had ever been in my life.
But He also gave me the strength to do so, and the faith to know that now that i have overcome those obstacles He has made me stronger to face challenges when the come up in my feature.
In those 26 hours we blanked Ubon, Thailad, Asia, and a good part of the World in prayer.
We prayed over education, politics, the American church, and finding our own voice.
We spent hours upon hours setting such and amazingly strong foundation of prayer over the town we are in now, and the coffee shop that we had spent the entire 26 hours in.
We spoke life into each other, and we spoke life over all the struggles plaguing Thailand right as we speak.
I worshiped harder then I have ever worshiped, Prayed harder then I have ever prayed and changed more in one night then I ever thought possible.
I did enough things in those two days to last me about a week in American life, if not more.
(ok ok, I know at the beginning I said that I was only going to tell you about one day of The World Race, but hey, you got two for the price of one! yay you!)
The World Race is crazy.
No joke.
As we say all the time here:
Mind = Blown.
That's how I feel about the last couple of days.
