looking back on the month of January

I have been in Thailand for almost a month and it has gone by soooo quickly. It still just feels like I arrived a few days ago. I love everything here I love the culture, food, and the people especially the children. Since arriving I have had the opportunity to be involved in some ministries here the first has been youth night and the second is nak wing or live life and helping start a new ministry in the community we live in Bagna Villa.

Some of my favorite moments from this past month have all involved kids. My favorite memory is from Nak Wing where we drive to the slums and go out into the communities and pick up the kids and bring them to this church and teach them about basic health. I got to go out and walk into the slums and just see where the kids live. As soon as the kids see you they come running out and jump on you and give you the biggest hug ever. We picked up around 16 kids and piled them into the sung tow and I sang songs with them like head and shoulders, twinkle twinkle little star, and they taught me a song about an elephant. When we got to the church we all went inside and learned about fruit and veggies, played games, did a craft, passed out vitamins, juice and apples. During this time I met 3 siblings and they captured my heart although we could barely talk we still played games (mimic the American and clapping games). The whole evening they just clung onto me and wanted to sit on my lap and followed me around.

Next memory was at youth night where I just went and played with one of the young boys. Neither one of us spoke to each other but just played in the street with a balloon for about 30 minutes trying to keep the balloon from touching the ground. Something about the simple things here is what I love just getting to be with the kids makes my day and I get so excited to just be around them. The more time I spend with them the more I realize that God speaks through all languages and his love is universal.

Some interesting things I have done since I have been here is go to the beach for a weekend, ride a mototaxi, eating bugs, experience a torrential down pour, riding the bus, taking a ferry, seeing a floating market, and just walking around the streets of Thailand and seeing all the sights and interesting smells of Thailand.

Oh and one more cool thing that I learned this month is that I am going to India for outreach and to Chaing Mai and Bangkok

 

Week 3

On friday night we had our second youth night and it was amazing. We played hockey, had worship in Thai and English (such a beautiful and powerful thing It's to hard to explain how it sounds) and had a message about how God heals broken hearts. I spent most of the night with three young ladies and got to practice my limited Thai and they tried out their English on me. As I spent more and more time with them I began to realize how our God speaks his love through any language. These girls as the night went on began to share parts of the lives with us and we got the opportunity to lay hands on them and pray for their needs in their lives.  They shared their lives with us and their stories despite the language barrier.

 A few specific things that stood out too me this week was:

-When asked is God omnipresent what does that mean everyone of us said God is in everything and the speaker held up a water bottle and said so then does that mean God is in this water. We all went really quiet and eventually said kinda and he said no everything is in the presence of God.

Instead of asking God why? Ask what are you trying to show me?

The theme for the week was Repentance and it was a powerful week God broke a lot of chains in many lives including my own. Each and every single one of us got up and confessed our sins and asked God for repentance publicly just like it says in James 5:16. The feeling in the room was breath taking as each of us confessed you could feel the heaviness of sin and then the feeling of the God taking the burden of sin away. 

Just want to warn those that are going to read this that it contains some very intense facts about child trafficking.
Wow today God broke my heart for the children of Asia especially Thailand and Cambodia; a women came who works in Pattaya on walking street(the capital of sex trafficking in Thailand) and she goes and works with the police on removing the children from the streets. Today she shared a few stories about some of the kids that she has helped removed from human trafficking.

We learned about three types of trafficking:

1st-those exploited for work: meaning they are sold to work on mushroom farms and boats. This type of trafficking pertains to boys ages 9-10 years old and they are forced to work about 12 hours days and are drugged usually on speed and raped.
2nd- those exploited into beggars rings: meaning usually babies under the age of one are sold to traffickers who then drug the babies and sit on the corners and beg for money. These children are usually used until around the age of two or three then they are usually sold off or drugged and left on the side of the road to die. This type of exploitation is not commonly talked about but is one of the worst form of abuse because of the drugs they give the babies because it delays them so much developmentally most can't walk or talk (along with how the traffickers treat the babies is horrific).
3rd- those exploited for sex: this is one of the most commonly thought of when people talk about trafficking. There are many forms of child sex trafficking and children of all ages are affected even babies. Some of the most common ways these children are exploited is for sex, pornography, massages ect. These children are sold by their families, or tricked by traffickers because the family is told that their children will have a better life.

These facts are daunting but aren't meant to discourage us because when we lose hope that is when the enemy wins. God is present and God is the only one that can heal these children from the trauma and abuse they have suffered. One the stories she told us about was three children that where being sold on the street by their step-father. He broke their noses, burned them with cigarettes and slashed them with knifes regularly. He was selling the fourteen year old girl for 20,000 baht or $672 USD and the two boys for 100,000 baht. The women who talked today found these children got the police involved and got them removed from the stepfather and returned them to their mother but since these children where Cambodian citizens and didn't have paper work they where shipped back to the border and a  week later where trafficked again by the stepfather. For four months they looked for these children and many people where praying for these children to be found. One day the lady who was our speaker was sitting in her car and looked out her window too see the boy and she knew that this was GOD our GOD saves and finding these children was an act of GOD and a miracle and to never be discouraged. Because we have God on our side we can fight for these children.

In sharing this I don't want to leave you feeling lost and overwhelmed I just want to bring awareness on such a serious issue that is overlooked by many people. Please Pray for these children and the city of Pattaya and for walking street and pray for these men and women who are going out onto the streets to save these children and lastly the people that are participating in these activities.

    WOW my first few days in Thailand have been amazing. I arrived safely and was the second person to arrive most of the others are coming in the next few days. There are a total of 24 students in my DTS and around 6 staff members. The first few days we have nothing scheduled so we can just relax and get ready for schooling which starts on Monday. Yesterday I had my first experience on the roads of Thailand its crazy. It’s seems like there are no laws to what a driver can or can’t do. We took a taxi to a big shopping center/mall it was giant and it’s so weird the mall has grocery stores so I bought food and toiletries and went to Ikea and got bedding and stuff for my room.

     All is good in Thailand and I praise God for my safe travels and everything went well. God helped keep me safe through all of customs and immigration and helped give me courage when I had problems getting into Thailand; the immigration people confused me and kept asking me question I didn’t understand or knew the answer too. The whole time I kept repeating the verse Isaiah 41:13 For I am the Lord your God  who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. While in immigration I kept repeating this verse and finally after about 15 minutes of them questioning me they allowed me to continue on. This verse continued to help me as I walked through the airport all by myself and made it to the meeting point and nobody was there to pick me up. I waited three hours and prayed and kept reminding myself God is their  holding my hand through it all finally at 3am I found a thai couple and used their phone to call YWAM and they came and picked me up (they thought I came in at 12pm).

     School has just started all we have done is team bonding and going over rules for the next 6 months. In our team bonding we did a picture scavenger hunt we ate bugs, learned the bus system, took a lot of group photos and shared many moments of laughter.