Simplicity. We have come so far from the days of playing in the dirt.  As I watched two Thai children spending hours playing in the muck; catching tadpoles, splishin' and splashin.  Having the time of their lives.  They were content.  They didn't need an Ipad or Yotube, they had each other and they had the nature God had given them.  That was enough.  Sometimes less is more, Simple is better, and it took a child to remind me what really matters in this world.  Imagination, creativity, laughter, quality time with the ones you love & making the best out of what you have.  God knew what He was talking about when He said to have faith like a child. Not only is it a child like faith that we can learn from though.  We should love deeply like a child, forgive quickly, speak honestly, laugh and play, like a child, when we are hurt we should run to the one who is always there, Papa; Abba, Father.  In the simple ways they live their lives they leak a wisdom that we as adults often overlook.  How many moments have we missed, how many situations have we complicated, how much creativity have we lost?  Less is more, Simple is better. Let's go back to playing in the dirt and learn to live like kids again.

Low and behold,  my time to update is way over do. Once again I am going to try, try, try to share weekly if not more than that because Jesus is so good to me and has shared many revelations that I would love to share with you as well! So please stay tuned and I pinky promise to get some regular posting happening on this end.  (Grace, there is so much grace for this blog,)

God is working in this place!

Since we last talked, God has really been growing my heart for the city of Pattaya!  We have loved working with the Tamar center and their ministries.  During one of the bar outreaches myself and two of the girls from my team were able to talk to two young girls.  We were laughing and smiling just asking about their families, where they came from, etc.  They had only been working in the bar one month and they expressed that they didn't like their work.  The reason they had to work was because one was sending money back home for her sick father while the other was sending money back to her family so that her younger brother could receive an education.  What do you say to that?  We were really encouraged when our translator/tamar center volunteer started talking to the girls about Jesus, they both knew who Jesus was and one said that she believed in Him.  As we were getting ready to go they asked us to pray for them, it was very nice and special for me because it was the first bar girls I had gotten to pray for.  It's hard to express through an email, but it felt like we were just good friends, we were laughing and smiling, and filled with the Joy of the Lord.

As we walked back we agreed that if we were able to bless any girls from the bars we wanted it to be these two.

Two days later, Sara and I had a plan.  We would wait at the bar for the girls, buy them, and take them for dinner and ice cream.  Never in my life did I think I would be buying bar girls, but it was for a cause I believed in, sharing that they are precious and valuable in the sight of God and that Jesus loves them.  It was a really amazing time!  We took the girls out to dinner, bought them ice cream, and gave them a little necklace and earrings as an extra blessing! They kept saying how happy they were, big smiles lighting up their faces, tears in their eyes!  Although our communication was limited we still were able to laugh and have a fun time together, they taught us some Thai and we taught them some English.  They knew some songs like "let it go" from frozen that we sang together.  We were just girls being girls,  having fun with our friends.  We were even able to communicate that Jesus loved them so much! It was not only a blessing for them but I felt blessed that God had opened up the doors for us to reach out to these two daughters of His.  Please join me in prayer that God would touch their hearts and that they would discover the love of Jesus even more!!

5 weeks down, 4.5 to go! Outreach is officially half way over! It seems crazy to think that we have already been in Thailand for over a month! Time is flying by, and I am trying to seize every opportunity that God gives me! After finishing up two weeks in Pattaya we made our way to Chiang Mai. One lesson I am learning is that I will fail, it is inevitable, but God can be glorified through my failures! I had spent one month in Chiang mai on my outreach the previous year, and being confident in my sense of direction I believed that I could get our team from the bus station to the Zion Hostel, (I had been there once before, and I did know the approximate location of the place.) A few times I had thought about getting the address, but when I actually took initiative (another thing God is teaching me) and emailed our contact, it was too late. We arrived at the bus station at 7:00 in the morning, with two hungry toddlers and 7 tired and hungry adults. I knew that it was close to the Night Market street and that if I got there I would most likely be able to find it, or so I thought. We grabbed a taxi, piled in, and with me in the front seat to give directions, we were on our way! We got to the correct street and the scenery was familiar, Mcdonalds there, Starbucks here. I knew we were close but I came to the realization that by no means did I know exactly what street to turn on to get to the hostel. So I did the only thing I knew to do, Pray. I prayed God i've already failed, so if you can turn this situation around so that the team doesn't have to suffer on my behalf and your name gets to be glorified, please speak to me now! I felt like I should tell the driver to turn around and go to Mcdonalds, I thought that it was a smart idea because we could have a place to wait while I scoped out the surroundings and there was food! As I was thinking through this plan I really felt like now you need to tell the drive to stop and go to Mcdonalds. So that's what I did. The road was one way, so we had to turn here, turn there, take some back roads, and then out of nowhere we turn and there on the corner in front of us is a sign that says Zion!! “There! It's there!” I yelled with probably a little to much enthusiasm to be culturally appropriate. And like that, God used my failure to bring glory to His name, but also to encourage me that He is always with me, that He is leading me and speaking to me! I was tempted to play it off like I got us to the hostel safe and sound, but in the end I shared with my team how I cried out to God in the front seat of the taxi and like the good father He is, He came to my rescue. I learned many lessons that day, for one, when I have no idea where to go or what to do, literally and symbolically I can always turn to God no matter where I am or how desperate the situation! He is there, guiding, leading, and protecting. I also learned that it is always a smart idea to get the address of where you are going, no matter how confident you are in remembering.

The hostel we stayed at Zion, is also a part of lighthouse in action, a ministry working against prostitution in Chiang Mai. They have a ministry much like that in Pattaya where they do bar outreaches, and have a cafe where rescued girls come to work. Although we were staying there we were not directly a part of their schedule. We did our own creative outreach where we prayed for the city, listened to God, and did street worship and evangelism.

On Friday, our last day of ministry, some of our team went out to do street worship and pray for people. We were at Thapa Gate, the place where I met Kai, a lady-boy prostitute who wanted to except Jesus into his heart. On my outreach, Ria and I had talked to him three different times and shared with him how much God loves him and that there was a way out of his situation. Every time we saw him he would be very happy and always wanted us to pray for him. While I was praying about my time in Thailand this year I felt like God was saying that I would meet Kai again while in Chiang Mai. We had looked for him earlier that evening, but with no luck. As we were about to call it a night, I looked over my shoulder without thinking and saw that he was there sitting at the same bench as when I had saw him one year ago. It was mixed emotions of happiness and sorrow, I was happy that I could see him again and share that we have been praying for him almost everyday the past year, but sorrow that he was still in the same situation. We were able to encourage him, pray for him, and give him the information to our church contact in Chiang Mai. Would you please join me in praying for Kai?

• Pray that Kai would continue to seek God and that he would meet people to strengthen him and walk with him on this journey.
• Pray for complete healing and freedom from the pain of his past and from his work on the street
• Pray that God would reveal His heart to Kai, and that Kai would be overwhelmed by the love of Jesus.

It was truly an amazing time in Chiang Mai, and I can see how God worked in many big and small ways! There is already so much that has happened in Fang but I will save that for next week or else this blog post will become a novel!

Thank you for all of your continued prayers and support!! It is so great to have you on this journey with God! I pray that He will bless you as you have blessed me!

In Christ,

Eliana Jirucha

"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Romans 10:14-15)

Redemption

God in Thailand.

Pattaya. The Sodom and Gomorrah of modern day.  Sad. Beautiful. Tragic.  I fell in love with this city the moment I got here, and not for the usual reasons of the foreigners that roam the bar ridden streets.  I fell in love with the potential this city has.  A potential to be a place that screams the testimony of Gods redemptive love.

 It's a weird feeling, seeing men who could be my grandfather, with a girl who might as well be the same age as me, if not younger.  It takes everything in your being not to judge them and condemn them to hell, if I am being honest.  Putting yourself in a situation where you see prostitution first hand is not something you can prepare for.  No matter how many documentaries you have seen, or informative books you have read, that amount of brokeness you feel will never measure up until you are walking down the road.  Realities hits, it hits you like a big wave coming 1,000 miles an hour.  Girls in skimpy outfits line the streets, 30, 25, 23, 20, 19,18, 17, 16, 15, 14 years of age. People say its business. The lonely men get sex and the girls get paid. It is what it is. People say its emotionless, they say the girls are enjoying themselves, that they have no other choice, it's a part of culture and it is never. going. to. change. But if you look past that, If you look past the smiles, the giggles, if you look into their eyes, you catch a glimpse, a flicker in their eye.  Something that screams "Help." That's when it happens, like glass hitting a cement floor, Your heart breaks, so fierce, so real you can almost hear the sound.   

As I finished walking through the streets, I could feel the tears coming, I can't even think of an adjective strong enough to express the brokenness I felt, the pain I saw in the short 8 minute walk. I couldn't speak. I didn't have words.  What do you say when you see hundreds of God's precious sons and daughters paralyzed by the bondage of sin, a sin that devalues them down to an object worth a price of $10. All I could do was walk, tears streaming down my face, having an intense internal conversation with God.  As I was beginning to sort through my emotions, a man about the age of 70 brushed past me with a lady about the age of 20.  Never in my life have I felt as much anger and hatred towards a person as I did then. The sorting of my emotions was lost as a battle with God began.  How, just how could God love the men who came here?  If God is so righteous, if He is so just, how is this happening?  I don't understand, I can't comprehend how you can love a person who belittles a persons existence to dust.  How God, Why God? Are you in this at all?

And then it happened, as it always does, God showed me in a way I was able to grasp.  If you look at a perfect parent, (And God is our Heavenly Father, who just happens to then be the perfect parent),  You would state that no matter what their children do, they will love them forever.  Now, we tend to forget what the word 'love' implies.  When a child rebels, his/her parents may be heart broken, they may be crushed by the choices their beloved son or daughter is making, they may be angry at the way it affects the child or others. Boundaries may be set up, consequences put in order, but they still love their child with a love that never fails. Love is a choice, love looks like something, and I believe that Love for these men and woman will come when they encounter their Heavenly Father waiting with open arms for their son/daughter to come home, just like the prodigal son.  And there is one thing I know, without a shadow of a doubt, the love of Jesus is stronger than the power of the grave, it can overcome anything and everything.  The love of God can capture a nations heart, let alone a whole city.  There is also one thing that God's love never fails to bring....

Hope.  It rises it up from the depths of your soul and overwhelms you as you realize nothing is impossible for the maker of heaven and earth.  There is hope for the hopeless, hope for the broken, hope for the lost to be found.  In Jesus true hope is found, a hope of a never ceasing, never changing, ever constant, life-changing, radical Love. And that Love brings freedom, it's a love that brings redemption, it breaks the chains of the captives and shatters the darkness, it is a love like no other, a source of value, identity, forgiveness, restoration, it is a spring that never runs dry.

250 girls have been through a training put on by the Tamar center, a ministry who provides vocational training as well as discipleship for the bar girls. 90% of the girls who go through this training stay of the streets and are now providing their own income through a job skill provided by the Tamar Center.  They have their own hair salon, bakery and cafe, as well as sewing classes, and a beautiful card making business.  They have seen already so many stories of redemption and salvation.  God is working in this place.  Just talking to the founder this morning my heart is so inspired to hear what God can do through just one person with a willing heart to obey God and what He calls you do.

So many good things have come from being here, one it is that the passion in my heart is stronger.  Each time I walk the streets of this grief stricken city,  I will be reminded that there is hope.  That this is not the end.  It is merely the beginning of a grand story of redemption for the city of Pattaya.


No Pattaya is not Sodom and Gomorrah, it's Nineveh.  Amidst the darkness, amdist the pain, God's love shines through without fail.

Isaiah 65: 1-2, 17-19

"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me.  To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.'  All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations... "Behold, I will create a new heavens and a new earth.  The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.  But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.  I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more."

"Let Your love be a fragrance that dwells in this place, break the chains, their if freedom through Your Amazing Grace."