Ba Bong Village!

Well I'm back from the village! It was such a hard, but good 10 or so days. Its hard to just write one blog of everything that happened but I'll do my best.

The village is 3 hours away. We rode in Jeepneys and I almost died by stomach sickness, which was not the best experience. Anyways, we get there and go into our host homes. My host home was the village chef's. The moms name was Mywan and she had a son and her husband. I loved them dearly. Esther and I both stayed there which was incredibly fun. The village looked alot different then we were all expecting, which is a very sad reality: Many men come to that village to get girls for prostitution.
Out of an entire village, there was only maybe 20 or so children, with only a few of them being girls. The rest of the village has given up their daughters so that they can have nice houses, small cars, etc. I dont think my house specifically did this but the other ones have for a fact. Just the thought of that made me so sick.

The first day we woke up at 5 to go to the market with Mywan. We didnt know where to go, plus it was dark, so she started to direct Esther and I by touching our butts in the direction to go. It was the funniest thing...ever haha. I loved my host family.
The days in the village seemed to last for forever. We were in bed by 8 every single night because we were exhausted. Funny thing is we didnt ever do that much..

We did a VBS with the village kids too. These boys were the ultimate precious kids Ive ever met. They were very similar to the ones we met in Bohol last summer. My favorite, Om, was the most tenderhearted boy I've ever met. He would sit in my lap with me and I would just play with his hair for long periods of time. He loved hugs and smiling and blowing bubbles with me. He was precious.

We visited a church and did some stuff there too. For the first time it dawned on me that someone can be half way across the world and get the same revelation from God that your getting. These teenagers were so on fire with God and just had such a pure love for Him. That was so awesome to see.

We taught English for two days. The first day, Amy and I got strongly hit on by the principle of the school. And had the stereotypical boys yelling they loved us haha. But was fun to play teacher. The next day was amazing though. We had younger kids and I made friends with a group of girls probably 10-13 years old. I had the best time with them playing games and loving on them. It reminded me of my purpose in the village and helped me refocus. Plus I love the joy I feel when I'm playing with these children.

We were also in a Thai parade. Bahahah... okay so once a year all the surrounding villages of a sports day. We all wore red jerseys and marched with our village. We participated in the aerobics part and then cheer leaded the rest of it. Ive never cheer leaded with old Thai women which was definitely an experience.

Another highlight was cutting the women's hair... without a translator..
enough said.

The village overall went really well. I got very homesick though, worse then all of DTS. I missed my family insanely. But at the same time I had very good quiet times where I really felt God and heard Him speak to me. It amazes me that God speaks the most in our weakest moments.
I also ate more then I ever have on outreach. Seriously I probably gained 5 pounds of straight rice and oil(boy do they love oil). ugggh gross.

Now were back in Chiang Mai where I will have internet access everyday, so I'll be posting more often. Thanks for praying for me!

Mali.

I'm in such awe of God's faithfulness.
Let me start with early yesterday, which will help explain the story of the last night.
I saw my friend Olivia and we were able to hangout and eat lunch. It was really fun seeing her and talking to her about life. But she started talking about how loving the people you meet is the most important thing. It started to make me think that much of my thinking towards missions is one goal: Them becoming Christians. Although this is the ultimate goal, its not something that has to happen in the first conversation you have with a person. I guess on many missions trips we are only there for a short time, so we have to talk about God right away. But for this outreach and for my life later I'm learning about investing in people and loving on them first. If you go in right away and just start talking about God and repentence, they hardly know you or trust you. You don't know anything about them nor do they know anything about you.
Needless to say, I was thinking about that alot before we went into the bars last night. Olivia also told me to look at it as if I was hanging out with friends. I realized that these women are no different then my old non christian friends, except they have a title of being a "Prostituted woman". So going into the one bar last night, I automatically shifted my thinking.
Her name was Mali. She was 34 years old, but looked about 25. She was very beautiful and worked at the bar. I asked her where she was from and she said half Thai half Indian(Funny how India pops up EVERYWHERE with me.) 30 seconds into our conversation she asked me if we could play a game. We sat and played Jenga and Connect four for an hour and a half. It was incredibly fun. We joked and laughed like we had known each other for a long time. She hugged me when I would almost make the tower fall but somehow it stayed up.
She already started to open up about her life. It was her choice(I think) to work there. She had worked at a corporation before but wanted more money and said she enjoyed working there. She started to tell me that she was very good at the games but would charge men 100 baht(3 dollars) per game(Which I couldnt help but laugh hysterically about).
She was a fantastic woman and my heart is so for her. I left with a smile on my face and a hope for them. I didnt say one thing about Jesus or God, just talked to her about life. I really realized the importance of showing people you love and care before shoving something in their face.

So that's what happened. New post next week.

The start of a long process.

Oh my..
Fourth day here and I'm already getting spirtually exhausted haha..
Yesterday was a very spiritually intense day. As some of you may know, yesterday was the abortion march in Houston. (There ended up being about 10000 people marching which is awesome) Because of that, Leah and I fasted the whole day in order to pray for it. It was really good and God gave me such a new revelation of the issue.
God did alot, but it was quite draning not eating, getting over jet lag, and being in intercession about it like 6 time.
But I guess what made it harder was the fact that we went into the red light district for the first time last night. Oh my lanz.
We walked for 15 minutes and all the sudden we turn and we're just there on this strip. It's extremely loud with tons of different songs playing, and instantly women come out trying to talk to you. They are dressed in almost nothing. Tons of men were there from all over the place. There is a hotel for the district right across the street, and a very nice hotel practically attached to this strip.
When I walked through there, my heart went to my throat. I couldn't think clearly or even hardly breathe. My eyes were opened immensely because it was right in front of my face.
I guess it hit me the second time when one of the places was called "Wild Orchid", just like one of the brothels in Houston. Half way across the world and it's the exact same thing.
I was able to hold myself decently poker faced until we started our walk home. I couldn't stop crying but even more then sadness and anger I had this strange urgency feeling. I've never felt it before and it will most likely take more times going into the bars before I know what it is, but its very different.

Tonight we're going into the bars to actually minister(yesterday was just observing and praying). I don't feel prepared at all but only through God's grace can I do it. We leave for the village thursday and I probably wont write another blog until the day we get back. Please be praying for our safety!

The land of the Thai.

Well I'm in Thailand everyone =]
I absolutely adore it here. We are staying at a place called Lighthouse which is an amazing facility. It's quite nice for outreach style.
So far we haven't really done ministry but have just been resting. Today however we went to the budhist temples in Chiang Mai. Ofcourse, this is going against all I've been taught of not going into temples, but it was a team thing and I had to. I went really prayed up but was still very shaken by it. It was such an intense spiritual place, especially when you would see those weird dragon things and the children dancing to the drum beat. It was a very intense wake up call for me but I guess it made my heart really want to be praying for these people. I really feel like the Lord wants to take the hearts of the children who are so desperately alone and empty. You can see it in their eyes.

On a whole other subject, we have to eat street food. Again, going against all I've ever done, but whatever. So far I've probably eaten the equivalent of one and a half meals. Everything looks terrifying and like I'm going to die eating it.

Tonight we go to a huge night market. We went to a smaller one last night and I realized I'm not good at buying souveiners for mass groups of people and I don't know how my dad does it. It's such a stressful thing in my opinion.
It's also a good thing I don't fit into these clothes because all of my money would be gone. Maybe God is trying to use this new known fat on my body to help me out.

So far everything has been good. We go to the village on the 21st for a week. I'm not exactly sure what we'll be doing but mostly VBS and teaching english I believe.

Keep me in your prayers! =]

Last part of Houston.

So I haven't really had a chance to update..
Houston was a phenomenal outreach. God really worked through us in alot of youth groups and churches the last week we were there.
One church there was a girl who had a very similar past as mine and I got to see her delivered from alot of her shame and past. It was such a beautiful thing.
We also got to pray at brothels one day. It was such a hard experience. I saw girls walking in and out of the places and just to see them was heart wrenching. There are mass amounts of these places all around Houston and they just blend in with everything else.


I'm leaving for thailand tomorrow. We are going to a village right away, bamboo huts and eating bugs. We might be up there for two weeks which means no internet. But I will try to update this as much as possible.

God is still doing some crazy things in me, but I don't know how well to explain them yet. Hopefully answers will be gained over thailand.

much <3

Houston.

Hey everyone!
So it's been awhile since I posted, but the last week of DTS was crazy and then I was on break. And this is the first chance i've had internet!
Right now I'm in Houston for my stateside outreach. It's been amazing so far. We are staying at this spanish church and its been fun. My team has gotten pretty close by just being in really close quarters.
The first night we went to street church and I totally fell in love with it. I really threw myself out there for stuff and just trying to talk to people. I also shared my testamony which really affected peoples lives! It's cool because I don't even remember what I said, but people came up at the end to receive prayer. Jesus is so good. We also had a dance party and any church that has a dance party is totally my favorite.

We also prayed at a Planned Parenthood which was tough. And tomorrow we're going to pray at the biggest abortion clinic in America and second largest in the world. We already saw it: Six stories high, massive, and teal. I got such a sick feeling just being there.

On new years eve we went out to minister on the crowded streets of Montrose. It was an incredibly eye opening experience seeing so many drag queens. We talked to people on the streets and just ministered until midnight. My new years started out with shelby, johannes, and I running around the walgreens parking lot screaming.

This weekend we had a 10 hour seminar on Human Sex Trafficking. It was very very very intense. I learned so much information that was amazing and eye opening. However the biggest change in my heart was when we did this exercise. The whole day I acted like I was a prostitute.. okay restart.
Three tables represented the sex district and one represented the church. Big Steve was my pimp hah.. anyways. the whole day they were trading the girls(I wasnt traded) and the christians were trying to talk to us. It was very seperated and honestly you start to feel resentment towards the Christian table. At the end of the day I was "Raided" and sent to the christian table. i did NOT want to be there. I wanted to be back at my other table, and plus the christians did all these things that in the sex district mean bad things but in christian thinking mean nothing. Such as a stuffed animal means bad luck but christians think it means comfort.
Anyways, that was probably confusing but was SO effective. Oh man.

Anyways, i miss home. alot. But I'm alive and okay.