I have tried many times to come up with the perfect blog post for our ministry here in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We are working with Lighthouse in Action and the ministries include working with kids in the nearby slums, talking to monks at the local temples, praying for and meeting bar girls (prostitutes) and other people involved in the human trafficking industry, and finally working at the Zion Cafe coffee shop. All three teams here have the ability to be flexible and be involved in any of the other ministries going on through this wonderful organization, but with that said my team's main focus are the slum kids and the monks.
My heart can't help but break for the kids who live in the slums. They live in such poverty probably not knowing when and what their next meal will be. Their whole family probably lives in a house the size of a typical bedroom in the United States. My heart breaks for the monks bowing down to idols and caught up in Buddhism simply due to the perks of being a Buddhist monk such as a place to live, food to eat, and a good education. My heart breaks when I see a bar girl looking at her child playing in the bar while a foreign man negotiates her price for the night. Here it would be easy to get caught up in the hopelessness of their situations, but not this month. There are times when the emotions of my heart overwhelm the promises in my head, but I always fall back to those promises.
This month God has continued to show me He has a divine plan for all of this. A plan that brings hope to the hopeless, light to the darkness, and healing to the heartbroken! I can't fathom how it will all happen, but I rest assured in the fact He will call His children home. I see these promises lived out when a kid smiles when I throw a ball with them for hours, when a bar girl realizes we are not there to purchase her for the night instead we are there to get to know her and love her, and when a monk is interested in me telling them about Jesus. God has a plan of restoration, healing, and redemption for this city, for this country and it is such a privilege to be apart of that through prayer and action.
So for this month I could talk about all of the injustices that go on here (because there are many), I could focus on the hopelessness, but I choose to see these people uncared for by society as people God unconditionally loves. I choose to look at what God wants to give to these people and not as society looks at them wanting to get all they can from them. I choose to be a light that brings transformation amidst an area covered in darkness. I choose to look deeper than their exterior brokenness and heart breaking circumstances to see people deeply loved and pursued by the Father whether they recognize it or not yet.
I ask you to all be in prayer for the people of this beautiful country. We can't fully understand the goodness of God and His divine perfect plan, but we must rest in its truth. Therefore pray that God brings healing and restoration to this place and these people that so desperately need Him. Pray they find their fulfillment in God, not their lack in worshiping idols or selling themselves on the bar street. Pray their deep wound and urgent cry to be appreciated and loved is answered by God and not things of this world. Finally pray for personal strength and a deeper faith for me to rest in God's ultimate plan and be as big of a part of His plan that I can be. The victory is already His we simply must claim it and walk in this victory every day!
