HELLO from Thailand everyone or Sawatdee ka as they say here! 🙂 We arrived in Bangkok, Thailand after a layover in Malaysia. We have been staying in Pattaya, Thailand all week for a debrief. It is a tourist city known for sex- prostitution, slavery, bars, etc. It is soooo odd to me here because the city is full of old men from mostly Europe and Australia and some Americans. And when you walk down the streets you see tons of old, grandpa men holding hands with young Tai women who they bought for the day/night. The men usually seem around 60-70, but sometimes younger, but one time I saw this man who seriously looked like he was like 90 holding hands with a Tai woman. I realize that I need to extend love and grace to those men too even though what they're doing is horrible. One of my old teammates and I went to the beach one day and talked with two men there- one was from Iran and then moved to Germany and one was from Australia. The Australian man had a prosthetic leg. They both weren't really open to talking about faith or religion at all, but we got to hear a little bit about their lives.
There seems to be a lot of statues of elephants in Thailand. I think that it's a symbol of good luck or wisdom. They also have an elephant god. To show respect here, they put their hands together with their fingers together by their face. There's some Buddhist monks in Thailand, and they're not allow to be touched by women or else they have to do a week long cleansing. It's really rude to have the bottom of your feet showing or to touch the top of someone's head. There's a lot of 7-Eleven convenience stores in Thailand. The king is highly respected here, and you can get in trouble for saying anything bad about him. They have really yummy Thai food and smoothies here in Pattaya and chicken wraps. There's a lot of places to get cheap massages and tattoos and to buy these thin, comfy pants called Thai pants. We've had a lot of time to relax and rejuvenate, and we've had sessions each night with prayer, worship, and speakers and opportunities to meet with our leaders. I got to have a great meeting with one of my squad leaders who has such a real and encouraging and confident relationship with God. Before we talked, we had an interesting talk with this man from Israel that we met. Three of my squadmates got baptized here too at the beach. They have mopeds that you can rent too, and I got to ride on the back of one that my squadmate rented. I thought it was so cool going down the streets of Thailand in a moped! I had never been on a moped or motorcycle before. It was also really sad because one of my old teammates ended up going back to the U.S. this week too.
We also got new teams, squad leaders, and our ministry sites announced. I'm on a new team of all women, and none of them have been on my team before, but I worked all month with 2 of them last month in the ministry in the Philippines. They all seem sweet and Spirit-led, so I'm excited! We got new squad leaders because at the end of this month, our old squad leaders go home. They only come on the Race with us for 5 months. My team along with 2 others are going to a ministry in Chiang Mai that works against labor/sex slavery. I'm really excited to work in this ministry! I've never done that type of ministry before. I'm not sure exactly what we will be doing, but we'll find out when we get there. Sometimes it involves going to the bars every night. It says on Wikipedia that 95% of the people are Buddhists in Thailand, and I've never been to a country where Christianity isn't the main religion. It is going to be a great month!
Goals for this month:
1. I'd like to try to not eat as much snacks and Coke and waste my money.
2. I'd like to listen and rely more on the Holy Spirit
3. I'd like to grow in confidence and boldness in my identity and worth in Christ
4. I'd like to baptize someone this month or sometime on the race
Where in the World is Jacelyn Bendel?
An old European/American man holding hands with a young Thai prostitute
