Back Again

There is a joke that we are on "Thai time"  and that things happen usually thirty minutes to an hour after they are suppose to.  Well my blog has immersed itself into the Thai culture and is also on Thai time.  *cough, cough*  I swear guys, one of these days there is going to be breakthrough and I will be posting regularly. But until then,  I hope you will be able to bear with my blogs sense of spontaneity.

Thailand.  It has a beauty all of it's own.  I could visit it time after time and still find new surprises.  I love that the houses are painted with vibrant colors so bright it makes your eyes hurt,  the fact that their word for "eat" is literally translated "eat rice", and that when you say "no spicy" you will most of the time be served a dish that'll bring tears to your eyes and sweat to your brow.  I love their sense of family, the respect they show their elders, and the way they will give a guest everything even if they have next to nothing.

There is a beauty in every nation, but something about Thailand draws me back again  and again, each time I find myself falling more in love with a place that is so foreign from my own.

These past three weeks have been wonderful, challenging, eye opening, life altering, perspective changing.  Outreach is something that is impossible to describe in one sentence, let alone one word.  There are so many impressions, emotions, experiences, and for the first weeks it seems like every thing you do is new.  But there is something so beautiful about it too.

The first two weeks we spent in Pattaya, Thailand.  There we got to work with children from the slums, teach English to the women from the bars, and also go on "bar outreach" where we get to sit down and talk with the women, ask them about their lives, hear their stories, and build relationships.  We got to hand out roses with notes of encouragement, pray for some of the girls and share the gospel with them!

We then headed up North to a village close to Korat.  There we stayed in the house of a woman named Pi Soi.  She is one of the leaders from Tamar center and is a part of counselling the girls who come out of the bars.  She blessed our team so much by cooking for us and bringing us into her family.  Every day we worked practically around her house, digging water trenches, pulling up weeds, and fighting off fire ants (and scorpions, spiders, and geckos! eek! ;)  Through out the week her neighbors would come up to her and ask her why all of these "farang" (foreigners) were here, let alone working for free.  Those questions gave Pi Soi the opportunity to share the gospel with her non-Christian neighbors.  God really spoke to our team that we would be the ones planting the seeds, and on our last night we literally planting tree's who would bear fruit in 2-3 years.

We also got to go on a spontaneous prayer walk around a temple close by.  Our eight year old team member, Kate, felt like we were suppose to go to the temple and tell the people about Jesus!   Her Dad wanted to show her what it meant to walk in simple obedience to God and so a bunch of us went! I even got to use my gospel bead bracelet to share about Jesus with one of the guys there who worked at the gift shop.  He listened intently and at the end asked us to repeat what the colored beads meant so that he could remember!! We really have faith that God wants to use him as a man of peace in his village and that he will remember the gospel and share it with his family, kids, and neighbors!

We are in a new village now, even further north!  It is called Chiayaphum.  We are staying at Tamar Center and have had a great week so far.  Our first day of ministry we saw five of our Thai brothers and sisters accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior (!!!)  We have also gotten to teach English in a school, pray for many sick elders, and help practically on a sugar cane and potato farm!

It is so incredible to be in this place and experience God's heart for the Thai people!  They are so hospitable and kind hearted!

God is continuing to teach me new and sometimes challenging lessons every day.  Almost every moment I feel that God is speaking, showing me new things or giving me a different perspective.  I continue to be reliant on His grace, wisdom, and love.  I am so humbled in many moments when I remember and realize that I am nothing without Jesus.  He is the one who equips, builds, prepares, leads, guides.  He is the reason why our team is doing what we are doing.  He is the one we want to receive the glory.  None of this is to make our names known, or to feel like a saint.  It is all because of God who sent His one and only son to die on the cross for the sins of the world.  It is because this is what Jesus calls us as Christ's body to do, "Go and make disciples of all nations".

What a blessing it is to walk in simple obedience to Jesus.  So we will keep doing what we are doing, giving Him the room and waiting expectantly for the power of God to move.

He wants to restore, redeem, rebuild and I am so thankful that I get to be a part of that :)