bangkok

hey everyone!

so my team has left bangkok after a week of doing ministry with the YWAM base there. they have been lovely hosts, and luckily we've had really nice accommodation! thailand is SO much like indonesia, all the smells and sounds and tastes are so much like what i grew up with. i have been enjoying the fresh fruit juices, making sure that i make the most of how cheap and available they are here!

here are a few photos:

(temple in bangkok) (buddhist statue) (me and dao, a little thai girl) (my birthday cake :)

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the ministry we have been involved in most of the time is called MST (men in the sex trade) which has been extremely intense. this ministry involves going out to the red light districts of Bangkok at night from 9pm-1am and communicating with the foreign men that are there. we have surveys and informations packs that have information about aids, christianity and other stuff. in preparation each night we do at least 2-3 hours of prayer and worship, because this is such a tough thing to do - especially when we are all so tired. our team has dealt with it well but it has been pretty emotionally draining, which leaves us a little snappy with each other during the day. but i am learning so much about spiritual warfare and the way that god teaches us things through this all.

the YWAM base in bangkok asked me to write a story about one of my experiences in one of the more crude districts and this is what i wrote:

"...as soon as i stumbled out of the song tau (traditional thai truck) i could feel the weight of where i stood and i was hit with a wave of exhaustion. I looked around and found myself right in the middle of chaotic patpong, one of bangkok's many red light districts. The main street was a jumbled mess of markets and go-go bars and nightclubs and the people reminded me of ants, how they scurried through the maze. I found it really hard to concentrate on what i was doing and why i was there because i could feel the heaviness in the air pressing down on my body and my heart. With every step that i took, a thai pimp would shove a small laminated piece of paper with a list of sex shows on it in front of me. It was so hard to smile when i said "no thankyou", but i was trying so hard to remember to love the people despite it all. Our team decided to split into smaller groups and i found myself in a group of 5 people, who all felt that we needed to prayer walk around the area instead of direclty approaching the men. I had not had a lot of expericence with prayer walking, so i wasn't sure what to pray for. There were a thousand things scrolling through my overwhelmed brain, and i found it hard enough to keep my eyes open, let alone string a coherent prayer together. I tried to look at the faces of the girls in the open go-go bars, and i noticed that they all wore the same half-smile, that so obviously gave away how bored they were with their acts. I desperately wanted to walk right in and offer up my hand to help them down from their stages and lead them away. As i kept walking, the simple sunday school song came to mind: "Jesus loves me this i know..." and i sang it through in my head. As i got to the line, "they are weak, but He is strong" i had a vision. All the walls of all the bars and clubs folded down in to the ground, leaving all the interiors exposed. All the girls on their podiums and men in their chairs were totally exposed. Then i watched them all kneel, all of them. They knelt right there on their stages, and in their cages, beside the beds and behind their bars, dressed in their bikinis and their suits, and they all started singing with me, "yes, jesus loves me, yes, jesus loves me...". It was a beautiful conetxtualised vision of the truth that i had always known: one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. (philipians 2:10-11). It was hard to believe that that vision could ever be realised, and that i was actually making a difference during that prayer walk. It was even harder not to believe the lies of the enemy that told me i was just a crazy person walking around in circles, talking to myself. But i know that Christ is in me, and that His very presence in me, in that place was more powerful than i will ever understand in this life, and i have every confidence that my God could indeed tear down those walls and redeem them. "

next post, i'll tell you all about the children's ministry that we are doing at the moment (it is so so much fun!!)

please pray for my team - for unity and discipline and strength. i know that god will do big things through us here!