Where to even start! Its been a little over two weeks now and I absolutely LOVE this amazing city! its seated in the north of Thailand up near the Burma border. I am still shocked at how in love I have fallen for this country and place. I fought God for a long time on going to Thailand. I new I wanted to do the Asia outreach portion with my team-mate sarah and she really felt called to Thailand. I on the other hand though to myself, "Thailand is overrated, everyone in ywam goes there, I want to go somewhere new and remote and exotic like Burma or Tibet or the hills of Nepal.." I was really NOT wanting to go to Thailand. Buttttt.. my heart was changed, as God has a habit of doing ;) (This is probably one of my favorite places all year!) I found this ywam ministry in Chiang Mai, Thailand online and really felt compelled to work with them. They even had a coffee shop that they used for ministry!! PERFECT! :) and it was in the north, not the south of Thailand where lots of people I know have gone, so I guess its more "remote" , although its a large city, still, its near by many villages and hill tribes and in close proximity to Burma :) haha. Being in Thailand is so different that when I was in the Philippines. There is so much obvious culture here where as the Philippines was more westernized. The brilliant colors, temples, markets, and cafes make it such a fun hip city. If Bangkok was NYC then Chiang Mai has more of a Lancaster/Philly feel. perfect again. Not to mention the ministry I am with is amazing. They are such a light here and I am so blessed to be teaming up with them! They are so excited we are here and say its an answer to prayer because they are in the process of making a new website and have NO PHOTOS they were praying for someone to be able to help and we came 1 week before the graphic designer's photo deadline! so in addition to serving along side of them we have been photographing away to bless them with nice high quality images that really show the heart of their ministry.
The ministry is Lighthouse in Action
started by a Thai YWAMer Emmi Khanthana.. click here for her story!
Lighthouse In Action has three sub-ministries :
WONGEN Kafe and college outreach - this is the coffee shop that is located right across from Chiang Mai university. They reach out to the college students and also have an english club in the cafe and do fun events such as open mic night. They also use this place as an alternative working environment for girls who want to escape the bar scene
Love Acts - This part of the ministry is the one that I am focusing the most with. Love Acts does outreaches in the bars to the prostitutes at night as well as teaches english to the bar girls in the afternoon. Three days a week we also go and teach english and play with kids in the slums. An American volunteer, Bethsaida, is running this sub-ministry, you can view her blog at http://agendalove.com/
X-Life - this part is the prevention part. Many girls are trafficking from poor villages and told they will have better jobs in the city. X-life sends outreaches in to the villages to build relationships and bring Jesus into the hearts of the buddhist thai people living there. They have started in Emmi's village where she was born and hope to expand into other villages. We got to spend 4 days in the villages (i'll post about that later!)
so thats briefly an overview of the different things I'm working with here. Stay tuned for more detailed stories and photos! we got to do some exciting things in the villages and have been having incredible times meeting the girls in the bars. Pray for continued strength and perseverance for these last 2 weeks! Below is our FIRST Thai meal.. mmhmm pad thai at the sunday night market. DELICIOUS. The food here is great and cheap! you can eat for a dollar! There is also another DTS outreach from Perth working with this same ministry. We all live in the same house together, its been a blast getting to know them all, I already feel like we've been friends forever!
So blessed to be apart of everything God is doing here!!!
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