My squad and I have been in Thailand for about two weeks now. The first week, my team and another team worked in Phang-Nga with an organization called Share the Love. Then we hopped on a bus for a 24 hour ride to Chiang Mai to meet up with the rest of our squad at the AIM base here in Thailand!
At Share the Love, we did yard work, a special song at a church service, helped with a Bible contest for youth, ran an English camp, got to know the staff, saw a GIANT Scorpion (scary.), and saw God do a lot more. The Lord provided encouragement and lift for both us and the staff at Share the Love. We became fast friends and were sad to go at the end of the week. I can’t imagine how attached we would have became if we stayed a whole month! The staff consisted of all woman and one boy who had one goal in mind: to bring the Kingdom down to earth. They taught us how to be respectful in the Thai culture so we would not put off any wrong impressions in ministry. They sang song in Thai that had a direct translation in English so church on Sunday gave us a glimpse of Heaven with multiple languages praising the same God. Granny would give us snacks while doing yard work and make sure we didn’t forget about our laundry. The last day they gave us gifts and wrote us a thank you card and set up a time of fellowship and games for us to all play together (it was SO fun). The people at Share the Love are some of the most intentional and caring people I have ever met – they laughed with us, protected us from the bugs, provided wonderful accommodations, and had created a place of peace. And man, was the peace noticeable. For the past few month my team has had trouble sleeping because of heaviness and spiritual oppression. Every night, there would be this lingering of something that shouldn’t be there preventing us from sleeping or causing nightmares when we did. But here, here was a safe haven. Where for a week, we slept in peace which showed evidence of the Lord’s blessing on this place. The week here was INCREDIBLE and I would go back in a heartbeat! I am thankful for the week the Lord placed us here because it provided encouragement and truly showed the power of short-term missions!
However, also at this point I was still struggling with the logistics change and wondering what the purpose was for the Lord to take us away from the role we loved so much. Still struggling with wanting to be apart of it but knowing I couldn’t be and trying to figure out who I was to people when I didn’t have anything to offer – in the sense of duty. Here, at Share the Love, the Lord was slowly revealing to me what season He was about to walk me into. A season of learning what it means to fully depend on Him without depending on others. A season of walking with the confidence that being created by Him is enough and I don’t need to do anything to prove myself to people. I can see this looking back but at the time, the week was one of confusion and disconnection because I could see these pieces but I couldn’t put them together. So I felt like I was walking on thin ice, not knowing where to place my foot because at any second I might fall and not be able to get back up. But at the same time there was this stability in knowing the Lord wouldn’t let me fall. A confidence in His faithfulness that was largely built and solidified because of logistics and the way I saw His faithfulness there. By looking back – I had hope in what was to come from this season of confusion and discouragement.
Transitioning into Chiang Mai things got a little more confusing and discouraging for me before getting better. Throughout the course of this week, the Lord has taken me through a roller coaster of a time. Since losing logistics, a lot of other things have been revealed that I needed to lose. Like operating on and believing in the lie that I am not a good enough friend or have to have something to offer to be good enough for others. I know these aren’t true but for me this week has been learning to believe they aren’t true. And thankfully I am surrounded by people that want the same thing. The tricky thing with this place though is we are back in a place that isn’t full of the Lord’s peace yet. There’s a dark spiritual presence and heaviness that exists in Thailand because of all the temples here and people giving power to spiritual authorities that are not the Lord. Since being here, our squad has prayed the heck out of where we are staying and slowly it is getting easier and easier to sleep at night and the atmosphere is getting lighter and lighter. But it’s not happening without a fight. However, even with the inward struggle that comes with working sin out of my heart, the Lord has already shown me fruit from it. Teaching me that when I operate off of the Truth that I am created and loved by Him, I can walk confidently and joyfully. I know this but the Lord is really showing me how to actually believe it. And just like it takes a lot of work to get fruit ready to grow and a lot of care to make sure it reaches the time of harvest the same is true for us when maturing spiritually and actively working towards becoming more like Jesus. The hard work comes with disciplining the mind and actively fighting what you know is not true and disobeying the lies so that good fruit like: self-control, patience, and love can grow.
Here in Chiang Mai the squad is all together. One team is working with FBR and the other two are split up between prayer and doing what they feel like the Lord is telling them too, babysitting, and projects. The prayer team has done a lot of cool things from prayer walks to monk chats to playing worship music in coffee shops and in the streets! They have had the opportunity to meet a lot of awesome people here! I am on the projects team and we are helping the new coffeeshop BellaGoose (originally started in Wisconsin) get ready for business. We have helped them by sanding, staining, and polishing their table and chairs and painting the inside of their cafe. From the outside it might not seem like much but it is an honor to be apart of serving them. They have a vision of training and discipling young women that have been sex-trafficked/using it as a preventive measure so women do not even feel like they have to go into that to survive or make money. It is an incredible ministry and vision and I am so excited to be playing a small part in helping them do what the Lord has called them too!
On another note, the parent vision trip will be starting next Thursday for the Racers and the parents come in on Friday!! Please pray for safe travels as parents are flying in and that it will be a fun week of multi-generational ministry. Pray for open hearts and opened eyes. Thailand’s culture is very different from America’s so please pray against too much culture shock and jet lag! I am very excited for the opportunity to serve alongside my parents and get fish pedicure as with them (hopefully)!
Also, praise: our squad is officially fully funded!!!!! Thank you for all who donated to us and especially donated to the two girls who were still fundraising! I am so thankful they get to finish out this race with us! The Lord is going to do a lot of cool things these next 3 months!!!
