Hey guys!
I have officially been in Thailand for ONE week and I am loving every second of it. This month my team and I are part of the serve team as well as the ATL (Ask The Lord) ministry. This means for the next month we will be cooking breakfast every morning for our squad of 42 people. After we are done with the cleanup, we sit in a circle and just listen and pray for the Lord to tell us what to do for the day.
As my team is serving our squad, I’ve really seen what it means to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those who are doing all the hard and dirty work. At first, I was a little disappointed when we got our ministry projects. I expected to be out in the streets or doing some type of manual labour, but here I found myself in a kitchen trying to figure out how to cook a bag of oatmeal when all the instructions were in Thai (thank god for Pinterest overnight oatmeal recipes). As I expressed my disappointment to one of my teammates, she told me she felt the same way and told her mom. Her mom reminded us of the story of Mary and Martha and how Jesus doesn’t always want us doing something for him. He wants us at his feet and that is exactly where we are right now. I cannot wait to join my squad next month, but until then I’ll enjoy learning what it means to be at the feet of Jesus and minister through serving the community around me. I really believe God is giving us this time of rest as preparation for something bigger that is coming. My parents reminded me that God gives us small things to handle so that when we get to the big things we know we are equipped for what’s in front of us.
Today, we were the team that taught English at a monastery for refugees from Myanmar. At first, we thought we were going to be assisting a teacher in a classroom, but once we got there we found out that we were teaching the classes. With 20 pairs of eyes staring at you and no curriculum, I was trying not to show that I had no idea what to do. As my partner and I tried to come up with a game plan in the next 20 seconds I remembered that these kids just wanted to have fun. So we decided to play games that would teach them English. As we were playing these games I remembered how important it was to build relationships with these kids rather than just teaching them English. I literally love my kids and I can not wait to see them next week.
So here are some highlights from my week:
1) I live above a coffee shop (this does not help with my caffeine addiction)
2) Lavender Mochas are my favourite thing in the world
3) I watched one of my squadmates get a pretty awesome tattoo
4) One of my students drew an amazing picture of me and my teammate
5) Thai street food is AMAZING
‘Til next time,
Lillian Son
