Thailand is amazing, heart breaking, and eye opening so far! We are staying in Chiang Mai this month and are working with YWAM in a program called Love Acts through our amazing contact Emmie! I attached two videos the first one is her testimony and the second is a video explaining what our ministry is here. AND here is the link to their website http://www.ywamthai.org/lighthouse/.
Some fun that we have been having is that for the past four days have been filled with basically non-stop water fights! The Thai people are celebrating a new year and the Song Kron festival is part of this celebration. A country wide epic water fights…how flippin awesome is that?! Everyone participates, especially when you go down around the red light district. So. Much. Fun.
But let’s get to the nitty gritty of what our ministry is all about this month, shall we? 🙂
This month for ministry we are going into the red light district picking a bar we feel called to, and buying girls drinks so that we can eventually take them out on a date. Yup, our goal is to steadily date a girl or two from the bars this month. Why would we want to do this (especially since most of us are girls)? Well it is because we get them out of the bars and show them Jesus through our lives and our actions. We don’t preach the Gospel here with words…we do it with our actions.
Only 1% of the people here in Thailand is Christian with the majority being Buddhist at 94% and the other 5% is Muslim. One percent, guys. I’ve even heard that someone say here to be Thai is to be Buddhist…it’s so much a part of who they are that they don’t know how to be one without the other. So if we go in bars and talk to these girls telling them that God has a plan and a purpose for them and that they are beautiful daughters of Christ then it will mean nothing to them….they don’t know who Jesus is. They don’t know about His unconditional love. I don’t know about all of you but that kind of blows my mind.
It also blows my mind and breaks my heart to see all of these people stuck in lies. The enemy and the world have deceived them for far too long! How can anyone go past these 30+ bars and look past the brokenness of the women, teenage girls, and lady boys?? What drives these men to “buy” a girl for the night when they have a wife and kids at home? How can your heart not burn as you see men old enough to be your grandfather drooling over and inappropriately touching one of these girls? How can a mom or dad sell tell their teenage daughter that she has to go work in the bars so she can provide for the family? How can Dad’s bring their sons here to “show them the ropes” of working the bars?? Sickening. Heart breaking. Confusion. So many lies…so much brokenness. They need Jesus so desperately.
I’m a fixer kind of person…I’m sure most of you know that haha 😉 So now I’m sitting here thinking what can we do change all of this? If we can’t really explain who this Jesus person is really so what are we left to do? Answer: Live like Christ. Show them who He is, and how He loves. Galatians 2:20 says “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” ESV. So God has equipped us to live our lives as if we are Christ himself, and that we can pray and ask God to continually give us a Christ-like attitude and walk. Once we form relationships with these girls and/or lady boys then we love them with all the love Christ gives us! This pretty much always gets them asking “why?” “why are you so different?” Boom. A door opened to talk about this man Jesus Christ that is so important in my life! 🙂 We can also get to talk to them about finding a better future, a better purpose, a God driven purpose. Lighthouse in Action has a program they can attend called “Change” where they can be sponsored and then be taught English and helped to get the proper documents to work. I’ve already heard of some amazing turn around stories from this ministry and am excited to see God at work this month!
I wasn’t sure what to expect when coming in to this ministry, honestly. I wasn’t sure if we’d be snatchin’ girls outta clubs like a secret relocation program style or what. I didn’t know if these girls were sold to a pimp or if they were forced there. In a way they are forced to work there with no other options…and it’s not in the way I thought it would be. The economy here is pretty low and for these girls to make enough money to care for their parents and kids 9if they have any) is to work in a bar. And a lot of times these girls are from small surrounding areas that don’t give the girls proper documentation to work in the cities and get a better job so they are stuck. This is such a spiritual stronghold that needs to be torn down! One of the ways that we will make a difference this month is building deep relationships with the girls. Friendship should always be about quality and not quantity right? 🙂
Emmie told us that we are not extracting girls like the secret service but instead we are going to be farmers. Well slap me with green and yellow and call me John Deer! I can do this kind of work haha. So this month we are planting seeds, watering seeds, and maybe even getting to harvest a few! It’s exciting yet exhausting work. Pumping out Christ’s love, acceptance, grace, and forgiveness everyday multiple times a day is hard work. One of my teammates said something like we came here for a sprint triathlon and somehow got placed in the iron man haha. So needless to say our team here will need some awesome prayers from our readers and friends to ask God to provide us with the strength, energy, joy, and love that we need this month because it most definitely won’t be done on our own abilities.
So far I have been out three times and have already started relationships with three girls – Fa, Kimmy, and Oy. They are just so eager to talk to us it’s kinda ridiculous. No one we have talked to likes working in the bars even a little. Please be praying for these beloved daughters of the most high King by name and asking for the lies that have been spoken over them to be crushed and that the spiritual strongholds in this work will be demolished!
Thanks for reading and for your continued prayers and support! Enjoy the vids 🙂
