It is already Month 2 & I have made it to Thailand!
After a short flight and a 9 hour layover, my team and I are in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We are staying at a hostel with the whole squad right in the city, surrounded by markets, songthaews, street food, and monks. Our ministry here looks a lot different than last month. November’s ministry for our team is “Ask The Lord” or “ATL”. ATL is a ministry opportunity to completely rely on the Lord and ask Him where He wants you to be. When approached with this ministry, I was pretty hesitant. I don’t know why but it just seems intimidating. As we dived into this month, the Lord has placed so much on my heart and it has been so cool to witness how He just wants us to live with intentionality. Life looks different here because it is. Although life is more comfortable this month, it has almost been harder. We have slowly been exposed to things that make life easier compared to last month, such as air conditioning or WIFI. About half way through our first week here, life was just hitting me hard. I had not been feeling well and just felt far away from the Lord. I felt defeated and sad, I missed the Philippines, my sweet new friends, and the comfortability I felt there. I didn’t even realize it until I took a step back and reflected on the transition that this is what life will look like in 9 months when I am home. I am going to miss the people and places I have met and will meet this year and that life will be ‘easier’ when I am home. The Lord is good and He is exposing me early, preparing me, and reminding me to simply ‘be’, but also showing me how vital and realistic “Asking the Lord” should be.
Shouldn’t we live like this all the time? Asking Him to lead us, walking with intentionality, praying over His people, His creation, His will, but also praising Him for all of it as well? Opening up our hearts to even the smallest moments He has for us, living with intentionailty, and walking close with Him is a reality I want to strive for, a reality I want to bring home.
Along with asking the Lord to lead us this month, we are working with our host in the ‘RLD’ behind our hostel. A ’RLD’ is an area of town that contains b’thels, strip clubs, or other sex businesses. Our role on the strip is to simply walk and pray, pray for the women, the lady boys, and the people taking part in services. This business thrives because of sexual tempation and poverty- hopes of fulfilling empitness with broken contentment. People are desperate and turn to this business because of its profit and the ready market. I have been aware of p’stituti0n, tr’ffick!ng/slavery for a while, but have never physically been on a road that is so spiritually dark. The enemy is totally having his way here and it’s terrifying. We call the Lord to break our hearts for what breaks His- and He is. My heart breaks for all the people on this street. I see brokeness within each individual and I can’t imagine the stories that brought them there. My heart breaks but I am also so grateful for this exposure. As a team, we have discussed how going out and interceding with these people, with hopes of showing them real love, has given us a vantage point of how God pursues us. He is giving us the opportunity to pursue the men and women on this street, an example of His intentionality in using us in this way. He doesn’t need us yet He gives us the opportunity to intercede for these people and gives us a vantage point of how he views the world. My heart breaks for this one street in Thailand, yet He sees the whole world. All the sin, all the waywardness, yet He continues to use His people as vessels to show how much He loves.
He truly pursues relentlessly.
Thanks again for reading my update! If you feel led, please please pray for this city, it is so spiritually dark, but has such potential through the Lord for revival. You have all supported me SO well and I would LOVE to support you- If there are any prayer requests I can help lift up feel free to leave them in the comments or message me personally!
