Month two: Thailand.
I knew we were officially here when I climbed into the back of a songthaew, a pickup truck with seats in the box and a covering with open sides and essentially nothing keeping you from falling out.
And the moment I climbed into the back of that songthaew was the moment I fell in love with Thailand – the moment I felt free in my calling from God.
What better place to finally feel free than in a country where the name literally means “Land of the Free”?
Along with that sense of freedom, however, came an intense awareness of the darkness that also inhabits this country and it’s people, and the lack of freedom that so many of the people possess.
Our apartments, which are also where our ministry site is located, are several blocks away from the red light district of Chiang Mai.
This city, along with many other cities in Thailand, has a reputation for being a tourist spot for the sex industry.
According to statistics, there are about 5,000 male, female, and child prostitutes in Chiang Mai.
Every November until March, the “high season” brings just as many tourists to visit the bars, nightclubs, karaoke bars, and massage parlours.
These statistics shocked me.
And along with that shock came a fiery passion to make a change.
This month my team, Peculiar Treasures, will be working with a ministry in Chiang Mai called Lighthouse in Action.
Guys, this ministry is literally God’s heart.
The woman who started and who runs Lighthouse in Action is named Emmi.
I wish I could explain to you the heart that this woman has for the Lord and for the people of Thailand!
I encourage you to read her story – God is using her life to move mountains in Thailand and the aftershock of that is reverberating all over the world! (http://www.lighthouseinaction.org/our-founder/).
There are 3 different parts of our ministry at Lighthouse in Action: Love Acts Bar Ministry, Love Acts Slums, and Zion Café.
Zion Café is the hub of Lighthouse in Action.
This month there is a team who is working in the café, alongside the Thai girls who already work there.
This team, Team Teleios, is so blessed to have the opportunity to do this, because these women who are working in the café are the beautiful smiling faces we see every day.
Their ministry is to basically love on the girls who work in the café, and build relationships with them.
They have an amazing chance to pour into the people who help keep Zion café running.
The team that is focusing on Love Acts Slums, Team Throne Unveiled, spends time visiting a nearby slum in Chiang Mai to play with the kids and love them.
The sex trafficking in Thailand roots from the poverty of the slums, where many families are so poor that they sell their daughters into slavery.
I’ve heard it said that when a family has a baby girl, they breathe a sigh of relief because they have that reassurance of money coming in if things get really bad.
And lastly, Love Acts Bar Ministry is the ministry that my team is focusing on for the month.
Our job is to go out to the bars in the red light district and build relationships with the girls and ladyboys.
We don’t go to the bars each night with an agenda or with the intent of shoving Jesus down their throats and converting them.
We go with the expectation that God will shine through us and into their hearts so that they can be changed from the inside out.
From the bright smiles to the small bits of vulnerability that the girls are beginning to show as we continue building the relationships with them, it is so clear that the Lord is at work.
I promise another blog post will be coming shortly – I’ll share more of my heart for this ministry and for the people in the bars in Chiang Mai.
Also, I really encourage you to check out the Lighthouse in Action website to find out more about the ministry that we’re working with this month!
http://www.lighthouseinaction.org?
