How to sum up the best day/night of my life? This is too
difficult.
It started off going into the town of Chiang Mai. Every
year, from the 13-16th there is a Country-wide water festival. It is
the New Year in Thailand, and instead of watching the ball drop, they drench
each other in water. Our goal for going into town was to A) have an amazing
time, and B) to minister to the bar girls involved in Sex trafficking. We
prayed before going out, hoping that God would speak through us.
The day was an absolute blast. Seeing as we are some of the
few white foreigners, we were targets. They seemed to think it was absolutely
hysterical to dump buckets of water on our heads. EVERY single person was
armed, with a super soaker, a hose, or a huge tub supply of ice water that they
would use to dump buckets of water on us. Even the kids had little water guns,
running around with mischievous looks on their faces ready to soak anyone in
sight. Let’s just say it was an awesome day.
Night time rolls around, and Tara, Natalie and I decide to
split up, and go out together hoping to find some girls to minister to. As we
were walking around, searching for bars, we noticed a stage. Fully equipped
with two mics, a guitar, drums , and a bass. No one was on the stage, yet there
were tons of people everywhere, for the festival. So, naturally, Tara, Natalie
and I hopped on stage and started ROCKING OUT! Tara and I stole the mics, and
Natalie was the backup dancer. We started off by singing Jason Mraz, “I’m yours”
when suddenly, out of nowhere an entire band came out and started playing along
with us. It was like a dream. We then sang Bob Marley -“One Love”, and “I Will
Survive”. After jamming for a while, we took it to a more serious note, and
started singing worship songs, and praying over the whole town, and festival as
we worshiped the Lord. People came and went, cheering for us. But our main
crowd was 4 toddlers, probably ages 3-4 that stayed and danced the whole time.
It was priceless. I couldn’t have traded that moment for the world.
After rocking out, we were exhausted, and absolutely
parched. So, we went on our way to get some water, when we noticed a man in a
shop with a younger Thai woman. We began conversing with him and asking him
what he was doing here. He said that he moved here from London, and was dating
this Thai woman. He works in the police department, here in Chiang Mai. We
eventually got into the conversation of Christ, and how we were working with
women, and sex trafficking. This man seemed a little stubborn, but very
interested in what we had to say. I guess you could say we planted a seed.
Moving on, we were still on a mission to find water, we
noticed right outside of the drink shop was a white couple, sitting down
enjoying a meal. So, we ask them where they were from. The girl was from Philadelphia,
and the Guy was from Ireland. The girl had a well-paying job in the US;
everything going for her, but she just wasn’t happy, so she dropped everything
and left to travel the world. The guy, informed us that his best friend
committed suicide a while back, and his other good friend just died in a car
accident. He wasn’t happy where he was, so he left everything to come and
travel the world. The two of them met up randomly on their travels, and decided
to start traveling together. My heart broke for these people, because they were
so desperate. They were both searching for something, but what they didn’t know
was that it was Christ that they were searching for. Natalie began to talk to
the girl, as I witnessed to the Guy. I
told him my testimony, and how God has done amazing things in my life. I told
him that I, also, left my life behind to travel and then explained that there
was a meaning behind my travels. As I went on, talking about God, he told me
about an encounter he had when he was younger. He said that he was fishing one
day when he was about 12. He had been fishing for about two hours, and not
caught a single thing. Not even a bite. He started to pray, and he said “God, if
you are real, let me catch a fish.” Right after he prayed, he caught a fish,
literally seconds later. He said he was in shock, and from that moment on, he
knew that there was a God. He said, however that he doesn’t apply God to his
life anymore. Our conversation lasted for about an hour, and it was so amazing
to hear all the questions he had, and how starving he was for truth. As the
conversation came to a close, the couple invited us to go out with them. We
figured this would be a perfect opportunity to speak to the bar girls.
After it seemed like a 2 hour walk, we get to this bar. The
bar was jam packed with foreigners. Not Thai people. People from all over the
world, but none of them were Thai. We went out that night with a plan of witnessing
to the Thai bar girls, but it just goes to show that our plans are meaningless.
God will guide us to exactly where he wants us to be, and that night, he wanted
us to speak to people of our own kind and language. We ended up dancing at the
bar, and having multiple other great conversations.
Thank you God, for using us to do your work, and allowing us
to have the best night of our lives in the process J
