This is my beautiful team. From Left to Right we have Sara (Red), Victoria (Yellow), Heather (Green), Me (Blue) and Tori (Pink). Yes we did assign ourselves Power Rangers colors, though I’m not sure we’ll actually do anything with them. Perhaps a photo later on where we’re all wearing the corresponding color. Anyway, this photo was taken outside Art In Paradise (an art museum) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Our Mission: Create a memory. We began here, The LOVE sign a few of us had seen the day before, what a perfect place to get our first team pic. The sign influenced our name in a way, each team needs a name, and to the members of our team, LOVE was standing out. Be that a giant sign, or a passage you read the day before, we all saw it, and decided to run with it. And so the LOVE Rangers were born.
We spent the day completing the ‘memory’ task, not that we were complaining. We actually decided to do an ATL as well, to see if God had anyone he wanted us to talk to on our night out. The ‘clues’ we received after praying together were: flower, a mother who needs to know she is a child of God (we took this as the ailment), the color purple, the letter E (with a focus on the shape more than the letter), a circle with another circle inside of it (like a doughnut shape), and a fish and basket. The last two were actually what I received when I prayed. Which I was really excited about because the first ATL we did I did not receive anything. But we had the clues and there’s only three outcomes from this point. We find who God wants us to find and talk to them, we find who we think God wants us to find but have the wrong person and love on them anyway because we’re all children of God, or we don’t find anyone meeting these descriptions and still have a nice day in the city. The worst thing that can happen with an ATL is you find a wrong person, but you still show them Gods love an offer to pray for them, so really there are no wrong people, God loves us all and we just want to share that with them.
(If you are confused as to what an ATL is, look at my last blog.)
On the way back toward our hostile after taking pictures, Sara stops. She sees purple flowers hanging outside a shop, a hat that looks similar to a sombrero (a bit like a doughnut shape), and after looking into the mini mart the woman is wearing all purple. Two of us decided to buy postcards and while they were paying struck up a conversation with the woman. There was a bit of a language barrier but she really wanted to know what these girls were saying so Sara and Tori left her a note. Basically just saying that she is a beautiful child of God and that he loves her (I didn’t read the note so I don’t know the specifics). The rest of us were praying outside of the small shop so when they came out we continued on our way.
Our next stop was a massage place so we could get full body Thai massages. It was wonderful, we spent the whole time joking with the masseuses and laughing at each other. We bent in ways we never have before and likely never will again.
While we were there we all individually started piecing things together. The fish painting on the wall, the large round mirror shaped similar to a doughnut, the mini baskets lining the walls by every light, the boards on the beds being in the same shape as an E, the woman who owns it wearing a purple shirt, and of course the place we decide to go to is named Flower Massage.
While talking to the woman we found out she used to be married, but were unable to determine if she had kids due to the language barrier, she said ‘yes’ to one of us and ‘no’ to another. Regardless we talked to her some more before we left and told he how important she was and that God loves her, she got most of what we were saying but did not want to miss anything so she handed us her phone so we could translate it, we wrote that Go had given us clues to find someone he cared about and they lead us to her, and that he wanted her to know she is a beautiful daughter of God. Her and he sister read it and were teary eyed, they said we could pray for both of them so we did. Then we hugged and left to go find dinner at the Night Bazaar.
What we ate wasn’t important, I don’t even remember what it was but I can tell you it contained rice. The last thing I want to include is what happened on the way back to the Zion Hostel. To get back we had to pass by Flower Massage and while we were walking by we said Sawatdee ka (Hello) to the sister who was on the steps. The first thing she does after returning the greeting is points to her older sister, who was in the back of the show with her hands together and her head bowed. She appeared to be praying.
I can’t say whether or not this woman and her sister were brought to Christ. She is friends with Emmi, the owner of Zion, who is also a Christian. So it probably isn’t the first time she’s heard about God. And that’s fine. I don’t need to be the one to lead her to Christ. I’m just glad I got to tell two daughters they were loved very much.
