We're here!!!

I’m in Thailand! We got here on Wednesday morning at 1:00am and headed over to the Nancy Ross Training Center (YWAM base in Bangkok). After spending two days there, we took an overnight bus to Chiang Mai and arrived at Abba House early on Friday morning.

Abba House is where our team will be living and serving for the next month. David and Joyce Moore are the founders of Abba House. There are about 20 girls that live here – these are girls who were at risk of being trafficked (had been sexually abused, have mothers in the sex trade, or are orphans). There are also 10 men that come here on a regular basis who were in drug rehab or prison before but are now following Jesus.

So what will our team be doing while we are here?

We will be teaching English lessons to both the men and the girls; sharing devotionals, songs, and skits; and leading some worship services. We will also be doing some prison ministry, visiting a home for disabled children, and maybe going to a village for a weekend. All of this ministry started yesterday for our team!

We had this past weekend off to settle in and see some more of Chiang Mai. On Saturday night, we had a neat experience while visiting a night market. I was exploring the market along with two other members of my team; Marissa and Gulya. While walking along and checking out the numerous stalls full of different fun things to look at and buy, we eventually ended up at a Buddhist temple. After going in and looking around the temple, we began talking to a Buddhist monk who was standing outside. His name was Jan and he was from Cambodia. He was very well-educated and had studied and read lots of books. Gulya asked him if he had ever read the Bible before and he replied that he actually had three Bibles (all in different languages). We started asking Jan questions about Buddhism and discussing our faith. We talked about how we place our trust in Jesus, and he told us that his faith was in himself and his good works. We had the opportunity to hear more about what he believed and to also share the truth with Jan about how we need God and we are only made clean and whole through Him, not by our good works. We talked for a long time and Gulya and I prayed for him at the end of our conversation. We encouraged Jan to continue reading the Bible, specifically the book of John, and to pray to Jesus. He seemed to really enjoy our conversation and to be genuinely interested in what we had to say about Jesus and our lives as followers of Christ.

About halfway through our conversation with Jan, Marissa noticed that there was a girl standing nearby who was listening to our discussion so she invited her to join us. The girl asked what we were talking about and Marissa told her that we were sharing our different beliefs (Buddhism and Christianity). She seemed interested so Marissa stepped aside and began having a separate conversation with her. Her name was Chloe and she was from China. Chloe told Marissa that she admires people with different beliefs because she didn’t grow up having faith in any religion. She had gone to church before with two of her friends who were Christians but she was still unsure and had questions about Christianity. Because Marissa grew up in a Catholic family, she was able to share from her experience of also not growing up as a Christian and really wanting to be sure of the truth. Chloe was very interested and open. She was curious about Christianity but seemed to be unsure of where to start in asking questions. Marissa explained the gospel to her and talked about how we serve a living God – we don’t worship idols and statues. God is always with us and the Holy Spirit lives in us. At the end of their conversation, we all prayed for Chloe. We prayed that she would continue to seek the truth and that Jesus would reveal the truth to her.

It was great to have these conversations with both Jan and Chloe and to see their hunger for the truth. Pray with us that both Jan and Chloe will remember our conversations and will truly seek after Jesus. Pray that God will reveal Himself to them and that they will come to know Him. Only He can truly satisfy them!

Our team now has a blog so I probably won't be updating my blog as often. Here is the link: www.pleasebringtherain.blogspot.com.

Merry Christmas!