Well, it’s been a few weeks since my last blog. In that time
we had our last nights in the bars, then went away to an island for 4 days to
debrief, and now we are in Chang Mai (northern Thailand). Before I tell you
what we will be doing here I want you to know how your prayers were answered in
our last nights in Patong.
So many more papers about SHE were passed out in those last nights.
I think all of the time we had spent sometimes just playing connect four and
janga with the girls lead up to us being able to finally give them the
information. Our final night was a mixture of feeling sad and being relieved
that we had done all we could. We handed out bracelets with the beads that
represent the gospel as gifts to the girls. They were very touched by the gift
and all seemed sad that we were leaving. All asked us to come see them if we
ever came back. While we hope we do see them again we pray it’s not in the same
setting! Its hard letting go and moving on from all that we saw there. I wish
we could have seen some of the girls decide to leave and go to SHE. However,
there is still hope! Mark and Sharon have said that many times the girls will
hold on to the information about SHE as a lifeline and maybe months from now
will call. Also we were one of the first teams to go in this area but teams
will be coming in about another week and they plan on sending more people to
our location. Thanks for praying while we were there! We plan to continue to
pray for these women and I hope you will join us.
Chang Mai is our new location. Unfortunately we won’t be
here but 12 days total! Hopefully this will help us to have a sense of urgency,
as it could be now and maybe never again that we will be with these people. We
are partnering with the Wards who are amazing people whom God has called to
minister to both Thai and Burmese people. During our meeting and with them they gave us information about what is
going on with the Burmese people and what they would like to do to help. Rather
then retype the facts I encourage you to go to their website and read it for
yourself.outpourmovement.com
Genocide of the Karen people is happening by the Burmese
military government. This is making it so that these people are being forced to
leave their land and flee to safety in refugee camps in Thailand. With all this
going on Burmese children are easily sold or trafficked. The area we will be
going to is right on a border. We will be working in a center that offers the
children food and a safe place to hang out for the day. Many of these children
are sexually abused and continue to be abused when they aren’t there. Our goal will be to show them God’s
love in everything we do through crafts, songs, games and Bible lessons! Please pray that that we make a
difference for the Kingdom in this dark, dark area!
