So… Asia…
You may have noticed my lack of blogs from Asia. Well, it’s been a hard few months and it’s taken me awhile to process through things so that I can put them in a blog and make sense of them.
My new team for the three months of Asia was challenging. We all quickly realized that we were mostly introverts and internal processors, and people that are generally good at following and helping, but not so good at initiating or taking ownership of things. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, unless all of us stayed in that place and refused to step out of our comfort zones. Being on this team has challenged me in whole new ways that my prior team simply could not have done. I was now in a place where no one was routinely asking me what I struggled with. No one was forcing me to step into new things. I was not always being drawn out when I chose not to talk. When I was confused and frustrated inside, no one was pushing to have me process my feelings out loud. I could get away with things and go back to my safety zone on this team. Because of where the Lord has taken me in the first part of this race, I was not content to be like that, but now I had to learn how to be open and vulnerable with my team without waiting for them to ask. If I wanted to do something, I had to take ownership of it.
The last three months were hard. I have had to acknowledge that I still really like my comfort zone, and it’s a lot harder to step out of it on a routine basis than I thought. I’ve had my moments, but they are not the norm. But I am now in this place of being very restless and not satisfied or content with where I am. I know I want more, but something keeps holding me back. I have made strides with my walk with the Lord to the point that I know this is not where I want to stay, but I struggle to keep moving forward. More on that later (watch for part 2), but here is a picture of what we actually did for ministry in Asia.
What did we do in Asia?
Cambodia
Our time in Cambodia was very busy, but also a lot of fun. Working with street kids all day was a special opportunity for us and we all really enjoyed it, despite the exhaustion it provided. The kids were adorable and just wanted to be loved and valued. Cambodia was also the first month where I could really tangibly feel the spiritual warfare going on in Asia. Spiritual warfare is not something that I really understood before coming on the Race. I had heard about it, but had never experienced it, and it was not something that I learned much about growing up. My church didn’t ever deny the existence of the spiritual realm, but we also didn’t really talk about it much. So coming from that place, and then being thrust into Asia where it is a constant presence, was confusing and challenging. Many of us were tired and sluggish, even after dealing with the jet lag. Frustration and confusion that didn’t always have an explanation would bother us. And many of us were having a lot of difficulty sleeping. Nightmares, visions, and insomnia were ongoing problems.
Thailand
We were located in Phuket Thailand, in a little village called ThaThatChai. After you cross the bridge from the mainland, you almost immediately turn off the highway into this sleepy little village. Here, we were told we would be teaching English and helping with activities around the church where we would be staying. Our first few days of ministry involved finding out that one of our teaching opportunities completely fell through for the month, and the elementary school where we would teach 1-2 hours each day was often not having classes due to holidays and soccer tournaments. The only things set in stone involved church on Sunday morning and Wednesday night, and our occasional hours of teaching at the school. So what did we end up doing all month?
Coloring. I have been blessed with a team full of creative minds and artful talent. We spent many hours on the floor with the kids during church coloring-in bible stories. We spent our free time coloring in our new adult coloring books full of intricate designs. We spent devotions and team times doing prophetic art, doodling prayers, and coloring as we did listening prayer for our squadmates. And then partway through the month, out contact gave us hundreds of new testaments in Thai that needed bible verses underlined, and bookmarks colored to be handed out at a later time. So we spent a lot of time exercising our creative talent to bless the children of ThaChatChai. We were also blessed to be able to have our testimonies translated and then shared on the radio and in church, which was a pretty cool experience.
Malaysia
In Malaysia we did something called ATL, or Ask the Lord. Many of our ministry contacts fell through for the month, so we started off in Kuala Lumpur with no contact, no designated place to stay for the month, and no defined ministry. Our goal each day was to make ourselves available for whatever the Lord had in mind each day. Praise God our team leader found us an apartment to stay in that was within budget, so after a few days spending Christmas with the squad we were off. We spent many of our days frequenting the Starbucks in the mall next door and making relationships with the staff, prayer walking in malls/around the city/in a mosque, praying for people in Little India, volunteering at a center for children with special needs, doing street ministry with a local church, and having lady dates to build on team relationships.
Stay tuned for part 2!
