Let the Nations Rejoice!

Greetings from Bangkok. Each day we are here, I fall a little more in love with this city. The people here are amazing, and so are the many sights to see. Sunday brought us a trip to church with the girls, and to put it simply, I had the most intimate God moment that I have had so far on this trip. Having never been on a mission trip before, and actually, having only left the country once to go to Canada, I had never experienced a worship service done in a different language. The service we attended Sunday was done completely in Thai. As the worship leader opened the service, I was nervous as to how much I would even be able to understand. My fears were put quickly to rest, as the worship leader began to sing the classic worship song "Above All". As we chimed in with English, our voices blended with the Thais around us, and in that moment I realized, probably for the first time that although we were singing in different languages, we were lifting praises to the same God, coming before Him with the same humble hearts. I realized that although the language barrier has been, and will probably continue to be, one of the biggest difficulties on this trip, that my Lord doesn't have a language barrier, and that He hears the prayers of all of his people. During this time of worship, I began to look around at our girls. Knowing what some of them have come from, it is amazing to me that they can even praise God at all. However, as I looked at their faces, I saw genuine hearts that recognize their Savior, and the unconditional love that He has for them. These girls understand what is to be given freedom from Christ on a greater scale than what I ever could, and to see them fully embrace the freedom they have been given has blessed my heart tremendously. 

On a funny note, all of us American girls ate some bugs for lunch yesterday. Eating a bug was the one thing I said I would not do in Thailand. However, they were one of the 'options' we had for lunch, and the girls talked me into trying it. It really wasn't that bad and actually tasted like potato chips. The only gross part was when the legs stuck in my teeth.

 

We had our first full-blown Bangkok shopping experience yesterday. Ann, the house mom here at Beginnings took us out to a fashion fair and to the MBK center, which was pretty much the most incredible thing I've ever seen. We were able to barter, and to get things that in America would be ridiculously expensive. How fun! It was crazy crowded, but we enjoyed it, and Lyndsey was a champ at bartering. We were definitely ready to crash when we got home. 

That's all for now! 

Day 2=Done.

So, the first two days in Bangkok have been fantastic. Some highlights are as follows

• The girls here at Beginnings are wonderful! They have been so accepting of us and helpful. Even though they tease us about being "farangs" they are so helpful with everything.
• Banana Rotice- If you EVER have the chance to try it, please do. Its amazing. I'm not really sure what's in it, but yum yum yum. 
• Fruit- Mangosteens, Mangoes, Apples, fruits i've never even seen before, so cheap. We got an entire bag of mangosteen for less than $2. 
• Learning bits and pieces of Thai. We are trying to teach the girls English, but it helps for us to know some basic Thai too. We've mastered, hello/goodbye, thank you, you're welcome, beautiful, and come here. Haha. Definitely a ways to go though.
• Seeing God make beauty out of ashes. The stories of some of these girls are so dark, and seem so hopeless but God has turned them around and made them beautiful. One girl, Jit, has found such peace and redemption in Christ that she hopes to go back to her home town someday as a missionary. These girls are incredibly resilient and joyful despite what they have been through. They have taught me so much.

Thats all for now! We're enjoying our first Thai thunderstorm right now :) Hope to hear from you all soon!

We have arrived!

Hello friends & family! We have officially arrived and spent our first night in Bangkok. It is 10 in the morning here, currently, and we are preparing to begin our first full day in the country. To catch you up on the trip over, everything went very smoothly. Being my first flight and all, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I handled it like a champ, according to Lyndsey and Janette anyway. We flew from DC to Detroit, then Detroit to Tokyo, then Tokyo to Bangkok. We hit a couple roadbumps in Bangkok, like not being allowed out of the airport because we didn't have the address of Beginnings, but we finally got everything taken care of, and arrived back at Beginnings around 1:30 am. On our drive back, our taxi driver took us through the redlight district. It was good to see this from a distance, I think, before we begin going out and ministering in the bars. Driving down one side street, we literally saw 30-40 girls just lined up, approaching the cars that drove by. None of them looked to be older than 16 or 17. As we entered the 'bar area', we passed Nanabar (?) which is a block, 3 stories high of just bars. About 2,000 prostitutes are employed there. As we looked around, we saw western men with young thai girls everywhere. Although we knew to expect this, seeing it firsthand is so much more difficult to come to grips with. Thanks so much for your continued prayers, I will keep you all posted as we found we have internet in our room! I love and miss you all, feel free to email or facebook me, since I'll be able to keep in contact daily.

And so it begins...

To be completely honest, I feel like God has a great sense of humor. It seems the one thing we always say we won't do is the one thing He will ask us to do. Anyone who knows me is aware that I've never been much for missions. I've sat through countless missions emphasis weeks at LU, rolling my eyes and wondering why we didn't have a business emphasis week. Then one day, sitting in church, something clicked. Our pastor was talking about Freedom 4-24, a program to raise awareness and help fight the human trafficking industry in Thailand. As he showed a video detailing the struggles these girls battle every day, my heart began to break. I realized these girls, who were younger than I am, had to sell even their dignity every day, because they were required to financially provide for their families. I hated it, and I wanted to help stop it. I began to get more involved with the Freedom 4-24 cause through church, and the more I learned, the harder it was for me to get it out of my head. I literally couldn't stop thinking about these girls and how badly I wanted to help make a difference in their lives.

At some point during those weeks, I felt God draw my heart towards Thailand, but I was so scared. I talked to a couple key friends, and to my parents, about what God was doing in my heart. I finally surrendered, said "Ok God, I'll go." Within 24 hours, out of the blue, I got a phone call asking me to go to Thailand for a month during the summer, working with the ministry Freedom 4-24 supports. I knew God had big things in store for me.

In the days that followed, a close friend shared the following quotation with me, and it has become my anthem, so to speak, for this journey that I'm about to take.

“God’s will always expresses divine intention. Christ is intentional towards us. He never bosses us or appoints us to something for the sheer sake of presuming authority. His will always have a purpose. Sometimes we go our own ways, and God still has mercy on us and shows us something there. Other times we beg Him to allow us to go a certain place and He consents. Still other times God takes us places we never intended to go. Those are places where He will reveal Himself to us in ways we didn’t even know He existed.”- Beth Moore

I never intended to go on any mission trip, much less a month long one to Thailand, but God, the author of my story, had bigger things in mind for me. I know its going to be an amazing month, and He has shown his faithfulness through each and every detail of this trip. I fly out for Bangkok on Wednesday the 24th with Lyndsey and Janette, two of my roommates, and closest of friends. I should be able to update this blog a few times a week while I'm there, so stay tuned to hear about the work God is doing. Keep us in your prayers, its going to be a trying month, full of the unknown. However, as Paul said in his letter to the Romans, "If God is for us, who can be against us?"