I have not posted a blog in quite a while. I always have ideas but when it comes to writing them down, nothing comes out. I have not fully explained what we did in Thailand so here it goes.
The original plan for Thailand was to work with another team at a coffee shop called WonGen run by a program called Lighthouse in Action. We found out at debrief though that we would be going into the village to work with the people there.
We got to Chiang Mai and spent about a week there doing cultural briefing and hanging out a little bit before the village. Chiang Mai is an amazing city. You could walk around for a month and still not do everything. We went to two temples in the mountains, got to ride elephants, and went bamboo rafting.
When we got to the village I fell in love. I was a little disappointed at first when I found out we would not be in the city anymore, but all that changed the second we got to the village. We were working with Emmie's (the woman who runs WonGen) dad helping him with little construction projects and working in the rice fields.
It was amazing how the villagers took us in. Me, Ken, and our translator lived with a woman who said she thought of us as her own children. I felt bad because we didn’t have to lift a finger when we were there. I would wake up and my clothes would be washed and breakfast would be ready. It is amazing how grateful and giving the people are when they have so little. And the food was incredible. If you go to Thailand, try to go to a village and eat, the food in the city is not real Thai food. (Except for crickets and snails, they are delicious.)
We went to village to see where human trafficking starts. The first thing I noticed when we got there is that there were really no children of teenagers anywhere, especially girls. Everyone there is so close and nice that you would never expect them to sell their own children. That’s why the village needs Jesus so much. We talked a lot about how the people there were Jesus and did not even know it. All they wanted to do is serve us. It brought them true joy. If they could only realize that they only need the love of the Father, that village would be transformed and be an example for other villages and there would be a revolution in Thailand.
I have a lot of pictures. They can be found on my Facebook www.facebook.com/joeymarasek.
