I'm posting this a little late from Thailand, but its been a couple of days of craziness getting to Cambodia and finding WiFi…
Everything about Thailand is beautiful- the scenery, the culture, the food, but what really changed my mind about Thailand were the amazing Thai women I got to share life with during the month. On our last Sunday all six of us found ourselves at a Thai church with Mai and Gwang, two of our favorite cafe women who are closest to me in age, 18 and 20 respectively. It was a completely God-guided day because we started it worshipping him surrounded by other young adult Thai men and women at a service that was called Zion (the name of our cafe!!!) and ended the night lighting lanterns (possibly almost catching all of Chiang Mai on fire). It was a beautiful day that only God could have arranged for us.
One of my favorite memories is on our way to doing lanterns we were in the taxi, or tuk tuk as they are called over here, my teammate Bethany put on the One Direction song, "What Makes You Beautiful" (if you haven't ever heard the song you absolutely need to go YouTube it; it'll change your life). All 6 of us were singing it to Mai and Gwang who were smiling and dancing along with us, and we sang the verse "you don't know you're beautiful". All of the sudden, Gwang turned around and very seriously said to us, "I know!". It was such a sweet and precious moment with them. I absolutely died of overwhelming joy that she really knew what a beautiful precious daughter of God she is; exactly what I had prayed over her that morning at church.
Another moment of absolute perfection was a moment I was gifted with Emmi, our ministry host for the month, along with my teammate Ashlie. We were working in the cafe during the morning shift and I was honestly pretty tired. All of the sudden, Emmi comes in and asks us what we would do if we knew that money was not an issue and we could do whatever we wanted. Now I had no idea what to say, at first I was not even sure she wanted a response, but she kept looking at us and so I scrambled for an answer. It's a hard question! Ashlie and I both looked at each other and I dove in, then Ashlie did too. After hearing our answers, she gave us a nod of approval and told us how she had just gotten that exact news from an organization! We were both stunned. Emmi then went on to tell us how we should always pursue our dreams and not let our fear hold us back. She informed us that God had shown her a vision of how he has our entire squad covered in His two hands. That was so powerful and amazing, especially for a girl who is often more logical in my decision-making than a dreamer. What is to keep me from trusting God completely? He has proven himself over and over that he will take care of me when I have done nothing to deserve it. He knows the plans he has for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me: to give me a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).
One last precious memory of the beautiful women God put in my life is during our last day at the cafe before leaving for Cambodia. The night before, my team made cards for each of the women who work at the cafe, including Emmi. We each wrote a personal message to them and "we love you" in Thai. They each have varying levels of English proficiency, but we wrote our hearts out for them anyways. When we gave them our cards that next night and as my leg massage woman listened to her coworker translate her card for her, I watched tears stream down her face. I knew for sure in that moment that she understood what we had been trying to wordlessly portray during the whole month. We as a team had an opportunity to show the women one last time how important and loved they were and in return we received such genuine joy and thankfulness; it was truly beautiful.
Below is a video that my amazing teammate Emily made and is an opportunity for you to step inside Zion and share a little piece of my last month with me. Enjoy!
http://emilyschwartz.theworldrace.org/?filename=thailand-video
