This is a follow up to A day in the Life: Showers, Bars, and English in Thailand. Click to Check it out :0)
“I’m ready! Let’s go” I exclaimed with a few more strokes of mascara. Closing the cap tightly and tossing it on the bed, I grabbed my purse…hopped down the stairs … and was out the door for my first 1-1 of the month. I love 1-1’s (one on one’s)….. being intentional about spending time with squad mates, team mates, or contacts… getting to know them…. best of all, inviting the Holy Spirit to turn a 1-1 into a divine appointment.
This time… He showed up in a big way :0)
Another team was in town for 2 days before heading to their ministry site, so ‘B’ and I made a date. We knew from the start that we wanted the time to be about so much more than just us. We wanted to be used by the Lord.
Our plans included getting a massage (gloriously inexpensive in Thailand), having dinner, and asking Jesus for divine appointments along the way. After our massage we began praying as we walked. Our prayers turned into a conversation about hearing from God. ‘B’ expressed that she sometimes relied too heavily on others to hear from God instead of trusting that He speaks to her directly. That was an open door we just could not pass up. So, we stopped in the street, she closed her eyes (I kept mine open for safety), and we asked God to speak to her directly. Not to us… not to me…. to her! Not long after, she said she kept seeing a vision of a sign for a bar she passed by the night before. She was so drawn to it that night that she even took a picture of the sign. So we decided to head in that direction and see if we could have dinner there at the bar. After walking less than a block, she stopped in amazement. In front of us was a bar with the same name! It was a 2nd location, but the same bar nonetheless. She felt right away that this was where we were to eat.
We took a seat in what seemed like just another bar along the strip just outside the Red Light District in Chiang Mai Thailand, and asked if they had a dinner menu. The menu they handed us was for a place across the street, but we didn’t care…we were not there for the food anyway. Our waitress ‘L’ spoke very poor english, so making small talk was rather painful. By the time our food came (from across the street), some of the other workers were beginning to arrive.
‘K’ is a friendly, outgoing ladyboy who stole my heart from the start! She talked and laughed with us, and helped us communicate more with ‘L’ and ‘P’ (the bartender). By the end of the night, we had all become friends and I committed to come to the bar to teach English while I was in Thailand.
I will share more of the story in another blog, but I want to jump back to a few relevant details and how a few small changes made a big impact on my heart.
First of all, after about a week, the bar opened their own kitchen and began cooking meals. Customers wishing to eat are now getting delicious meals prepared by ‘P’ the bartender/chef. Please pray that the food portion of this business picks up to the point of sustaining all the staff without any ‘additional income’ typically associated with ‘serving’ customers at the bar.
Toward the end of the month, I stopped confused for a moment while walking down the street toward my bar. The sign was different! They changed the name and the sign looked nothing like the original. After a few hurried steps, I was relieved to find my beloved friends going about their day as usual. Apparently they had been under new management for a few months and only now got around to having the sign changed.
I know the Lord could have brought us to this place in a number of ways….but He chose to use a sign….a sign that remained only to draw us in…. only to be changed after our work there began. A sign that makes me smile as I think of all the many moving pieces God uses and works together to accomplish His purposes. Moving pieces that we often miss or overlook because we don’t realize the role they play in the story. The story of love. The story that Jesus loves the men and women in my bar so much, that He sent me there, as a carrier of His presence, to love them, to pray for them, and to introduce them to you so you too can be a part of their story….the story of Jesus pursuing them in love and drawing them to Himself. Please pray for my bar….the men and women who have my heart in Thailand.
Also read Divine Appointment: Along for the Ride and Divine Appointment: A’s story
