.: F A V O R :.
A friendly regard shown toward another especially by a superior
– Merriam Webster dictionary
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We were scheduled to leave for Thailand on Sunday and it was Thursday and we still couldn’t find a place to stay. It was not because we had not been actively looking. One of our squad leaders Lace and our logistics leader Whit were making it their mission to find us the perfect home for this month. Unfortunately, they kept coming up short in their research: the places were either too far, not private enough (i.e. we would be sharing it with other people), didn’t have availability for our dates, too expensive or they were taking forever to get back to us.
So when Lace stumbled on this beautiful 4 story home that was way out of our price range (almost 5 times our budget), she still decided to reach out with an offer.
1. She loved it and believed that it would the perfect house to live out the vision God had given Essie (our other squad leader) and her for what ministry should look like for us girls this month. Both Essie and she wanted to find a place of safety and peace away from the red light district where we would be doing ministry that was private enough for us to dig into soul care and worship together. And,
2. She thought she had nothing to lose.
To her surprise, she heard back. The owner informed her that the house was available for us to rent this month. Plus, he was willing to let us rent it at a hugely discounted price because the person who originally booked it for the month cancelled on him last minute. And just like that, roughly 1 1/2 days before we left Malaysia, we found a home.
We moved in for the month and the house was really the perfect fit for all the things that God had in store for us this month in every way possible. Two ways I do want to highlight because I found them interesting: the house had exactly 11 beds and 11 plates and there were 11 of us girls. Crazy coincidence?!?! I think not. Also, the original asking price was around $5k. His discounted price was $1.6k. #FAVOR
Entrance to our Thailand Home
Our Thailand Home. We named it “The Princess Castle”
The Princess Castle
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Overland travel is one of the many characteristics that distinguishes the Expedition routes from the normal World Race routes. Why?!? It allows us to truly immerse ourselves in the culture of the countries and it gives us a better opportunity to connect and share the Gospel with the locals we meet on the way. So we left Malaysia on Sunday morning. After a beautiful 8 hour train ride, we made it to the border. Upon arrival, we patiently waited as Whit worked on getting us our visas to enter Thailand and buying us our train tickets to Bangkok. As soon as she was done with the latter, she came back and shared with us that she not only paid a significantly discounted price for our tickets but we also got upgraded from third to second class. This meant that we got to ride to Thailand in style: with comfy beds in a nice car of the train. #FAVOR
Second Class Train Car
Whit
Elva and Marie
Britt
Ace, Dyer and me 🙂
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One Tuesday afternoon, we decided to do a “treasure hunt.” A treasure hunt is a faith activity where we come together to pray and listen for the Lord to give us words or pictures of where He wants us to go and/or who He wants us to talk to; and then we go out together in teams of 2’s or 3’s to find the “treasures” He gave us “clues” during prayer to find. My team (Lace, Britt and I) felt led like the Lord was asking us to stay in our neighborhood and we asked the Lord to “lead us to the seekers,” those who are already thinking of Him and want to know more. So we left our house and made a quick stop at the 7 eleven. As soon as we stepped outside, we stumbled upon this man who asked us if we knew of a place where he could go exchange money. We told him that we knew of one or two places, but we believed that they were probably closed at this time. We then started talking to him and soon enough all 3 of us realized this man was the person God wanted us to spend time with this afternoon.
We found out that he was a teacher from Iran. He loves to travel and was here in Thailand on vacation. He loves the English language and was very frustrated that many Thai people did not know English. He shared that His wife was back in Iran because she does not share his love for traveling. I could tell that the fact that she does not hurt his feelings and was a source of conflict in his marriage. We also learned that he had a strenuous relationship with his daughter.
After sharing about his family, he randomly mentioned that he prayed to God the day before meeting us that He would send him people that he could speak English with! And the fact that he found us meant God answered his prayer. That statement just opened the door for us to talk all things Jesus with him. We got to discuss with how God existed from the very beginning and did not need to be created like we were. We were extremely pleased to hear that He not only believed in God but also knew about Jesus. He surprised us a bit when he added that he does own a Bible. He explained that during one of his trips a little while back, he met a man who gifted him a Bible in Farsi (his native language). He smuggled it back into His country and he has been reading it regularly ever since then. He shared with us that if the government of his country knew that He wanted to convert and become a Christian, they would throw him in jail. Thus, his papers currently lists him as a Muslim and that is something he is not too thrilled about. We reassured him that a paper is not what ultimately will make him a Christian. All he needed to do was to accept Jesus in His heart as His Lord and Savior, and to believe and live that out every day. And guess what?!? He prayed the prayer of salvation that afternoon, led by Lace.
Please help me praise God and officially welcome our new brother in Christ, Magid into our Family. #FAVOR
My teammate Britt also wrote about this awesome encounter in details. Click here to read it.
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We walked away from our time with Magid feeling super grateful and humble that Papa trusted us among all people to bring Magid into the Fam. We decided to celebrate by getting food. Well, not really, it was just dinner time and we were hungry. We opted for street food and as we were walking, Britt casually voiced out her strong desire to see the sunrise before we leave Bangkok. “It would be awesome if we could somehow get access to the rooftop of one of these tall buildings in our neck of the woods and see the sunrise one morning!” And Lace had second that wish.
When we got to the food stand and were casually waiting for our meal to be ready, this man struck a conversation with us. His name was Sam. We found out that he was a retired endocrinologist from San Francisco (SF). He was originally from Thailand and was here in Bangkok for vacation. He’s been in town for roughly 3 weeks and was getting ready to fly back to the States in two days. We got our food and tried to wrap up the conversation. However, he didn’t seem to be picking up on the subtle “nice-talking-to-you-but-we-got-to-go-now” clues. Instead, he followed us and kept on talking to us. As we were walking back, he pointed to the tallest residential buildings in the area and casually mentioned that he was staying there. “Really?!? We totally wanted to get access to one of these tall residential buildings one morning to go see the sunrise. But we didn’t know anyone who lived in one and we didn’t want to trespass.” Lace commented. He shook his head: “No. You don’t want to trespass!” “So would it ok if we were to meet up with you one morning for us to come see the sunrise?!?” Lace asked. To my surprise, he happily said yes to having us over the next day. We exchanged numbers and the next morning, we got up, made our way to his building, and we watched the sunrise. And it was magical. Afterwards, as he was walking us back, we told him that we are Christians and we love Jesus and we would to pray for him. He told us he was Buddhist but he wouldn’t mind if we do. We did. We prayed for him and his family, and he was so happy about it.
Seriously though, how cool is our Papa to even care to see it that this little desires of ours was fulfilled. I guess he did want us to celebrate Magid after all. And allowing us to meet this man and softening his heart to have us over to watch the sunrise was such as sweet way of Him helping us do so. #FAVOR
Sam’s Residential Building
Beautiful Sunrise. View from the 47th floor of Sam’s building
Left to Right: Britt, Lace, Sam and Me
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.: F A V O R :.
1 My child, never forget the things I have taught you,
Store my commands in your heart.
2 If you do this, you will live many years,
and your life will be satisfying.
3 Never let loyalty and kindness leave you!
Tie them around your neck as a reminder.
Write them deep in your heart.
4 Then you will find #FAVOR with God and people,
and you will earn a good reputation.
-Proverbs 3:1-4
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You’re awesome for reading: thanxies so much! 
One More Thing:
- I am still $5,174 away from being fully funded. Please prayerfully consider partnering up with me on this journey and hit the “Donate!” button located on the top right corner of this page and make a donation. ANY amount does and will count. Many thanks in advance!
