Thailand Flyland

What a country this place is! We started our month out in Pattaya for month 5 debrief. It was a really awesome time of rest, air conditioned rooms, and recuperation. Our squad prayer times were awesome. Pattaya is a big tourist city and since Thailand’s number one tourist attraction is their red light districts, we were surrounded by sex. It was hard because it’s really easy to let yourself get in judgement mode in those places. Judge the women. Judge the men. Every white male was automatically a perv. Every tourist there all I could wonder was why they were there.
But, our second day there we met a guy we call Sailor Moon. He was pretty interesting. He lived in Pattaya because of work and because “the night life makes America boring”. We spent a few hours talking with him, and he ended up showing us around Pattaya and helping us get a great deal on some mopeds. It was just good for us to meet someone who had a genuine heart. He was generous and caring. He participated in all the nighttime festivities, but he just didn’t grasp the gravity of what that meant- what it did to his hearts, the hearts of the people around him- it had an effect! The bar girls are often working to support their families. Their families send them to work as prostitutes, their moms, dads, brothers, sisters, send them out to do heartbreaking work. Some are working under traffickers. Some aren’t old enough. Some look like they are waaaayyy too old. Some just need more money. The ones that come from the villages are often shunned by their village because of their profession, even if they were forced by family to do it. A smile isn’t just a smile, a hello isn’t just a hello, and a caring touch of the shoulder is definitely not that simple for these girls and women. It was hardest to watch girls younger than me with a man as old as my grandfather walking around holding hands, pretending to have something real for the time that they were together. In this all, God reminded me that I had absolutely no place to judge. I was sent to love and so I have to do just that. Loving people when it’s hard is a choice. It felt like a prep week for me. I was so ready to get into ministry and was praying I would be working in the trafficking industry.
Our last night in Pattaya we got new teams. I’m now surrounded by a new set of incredible women that I am confident have so much to show and teach me. Our ministry isn’t in the trafficking industry. But, God knew where he was sending us and I couldn’t be more thankful.
We worked with OutPour Ministries in Mae Sot and Mae Sariang. This past week we were in Mae Sot. I loved that place like I loved Honduras. It just was a deep, refreshing love. Mae sot is on the border of Thailand and Burma (Myanmar). Most of our time was spent with the kids staying at New Jerusalem, a children’s home filled with mostly Burmese refugee children. Starting in the 1960s up until last year, Burma has been riddled with genocide. The Burmese army decided they wanted the Karin tribe of people extinct by 2012. Thankfully many Karin fled before they could be killed. At New Jerusalem we did church, Bible studies, and English classes. Each child has a unique story that is usually heartbreaking. But, they are the most loving and inviting kids. They want more. They want education, they want to know English (some already know Burmese, their own tribes dialect, and Thai). They wake up every morning at 5 am on their own just so they can start their day off with Jesus. They are just so incredible to me. They are funny and so fun to be with. It felt like we were with them for so much more than a week.
We lived in a room above a restaurant called Famous Ray’s which they started to fund another children’s home they started called The Refuge, also for Burmese refugee children. The kids at The Refuge go to school all day though so we only got to spend the weekend with them. We got to do fellowship with them and we played a mad game of volleyball for a while the other day.
We spent one day down at the border of Thailand and Burma. There is a strip of land along the river that separates the two countries that is called no man’s land because it isn’t owned by Thailand or Burma. The chief of the area told us it wasn’t safe for us to go in to their land so we stayed along the edges. They have no government and no laws. The people with the weapons have the power to control everyone else. The area is lined with stands selling sex toys because it is a place that is popular for human trafficking. The Thai government will come in when the trafficking gets too bad on occasion. Walking around there you could just feel the darkness that surrounds it. We prayed and talked to a couple people. It was really eye opening. What’s more was to think that there are places that are just the same in America. It may not be as obvious but it’s there. I’m thankful for getting to experience that. Tonight is the Festival of Lights in Thailand and so leading up to it there is a lot of celebration. So as we were walking around me and Dani were praying and this firework went off but we didn’t see it and I’m not going to pretend I didn’t jump because I was pretty sure I was being shot at. It’s fine. After a few more times I got used to it and didn’t feel so worried.
Overall, life in Mae Sot was stellar and God is doing big things.

Hebrews 12:1-3
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.