The men in the bars weren’t all that I wanted to hate but couldn’t. Although I continued to have a lot of amazing experiences in Thailand, I couldn’t break away from the feeling that I didn’t want to be there. I had the mindset that I didn’t like the country and couldn’t wait to leave. But as I have found, I’m pretty sure it is impossible for me to not fall in love with any country that I am in.
I continued to be placed in situations in the bars to love people, specifically one of the girls who worked in a bar. Her name was Pat, and though she spoke zero English, me and a few others continued to go back to play pool with her and show her that some people want to just spend time with her. I don’t believe she is used to people treating her like a friend, not an object to be bought. Toward the end of the month we found that she was never there at night so we asked one of the other workers where she has been and we found out that she had quit! She went home because she wasn’t making any money! Although I felt like it was our fault that she wasn’t making any money, we were the ones taking up the majority of her time, I was so happy that she wasn’t there. Even though we couldn’t minister to her anymore, she no longer had to be in that environment. She didn’t have to grow up consumed with all of that shame and later feel like she is stuck with no way out. She was able to get out while she still could. Praise the Lord!
We spent our days in Thailand either going to the slums and playing with some of the kids, or going to a temple and chatting with some monks. In the slums, we had to walk past all of the shacks and shelters that some of the people called their homes. Past all of these and over a leaning makeshift bridge, there was a small concrete slab about twenty five yards long and seven yards wide. The kids would stand a car tire on its side at either end of the slab and play soccer. The tire acted as the goal so whenever you would hit the tire you scored. None of the kids spoke a bit of English, so the only way to minister to them was to just love on them and bring the kingdom of God whenever you went.
Even after all of the amazing experiences that I had in Thailand, I still couldn’t overcome my negative view towards it. I loved going out to the bars, playing with the kids in the slum, asking and being asked good questions by the monks, I was even baptized in a waterfall; but I still felt like I was just waiting till we got to move on to the next country. I tried to pinpoint where this perspective was coming from. I believe most of it was the strong presence of evil in that country; the other could have possibly been the fact that I am from a small town and I was beginning to get exhausted by the fast paced busy life in a big city. Although I loved china, Thailand was different and it was beginning to wear me out. Fortunately, we had the opportunity to visit a small village where Pi Emmi is from at the end of the month. I was able to see the real side of Thailand, not the obscured view with all of the tourist around. I fell in love with that little village and the people that lived there. With that, I was also able to fall in love with the country and see it for its true beauty. There is great potential in Thailand, please continue to pray that God will break the strongholds of the sex industry and the lies of Buddhism so that those people can be set free of their bondage and will be able to follow Christ and experience His love that He so desperately wants to show them. Thank you God for letting me see Thailand through Your eyes. All month I was playing the game; I hate you, I hate you not. Thankfully, I ended with I hate you not. I can’t hate a place for what goes on there; I hate the enemy for feeding lies to those amazing people.
