Well I would generally separate the two weeks, but these ones have a lot to do with each other and the same contact, so it makes sense that I would write about them together. Our contacts name is Lawn and he is the only non Christian contact that we will have all outreach – but he knows what it means to love and has the heart of a servant. He was extremely hesitant to invite a YWAM group because of the way that the church has burnt so many people, but it didn't take long at all and we were very close and there was no barrier created by belief at all. It's amazing though because this is that way that it should be. There is such a divide between Christians and our Christ – if there wasn't, belief barrier would not exist. The only thing that was really difficult though is that we were not able to openly discuss the reason that we were here in Thailand. We were told that we needed to earn the right to tell people about the Jesus who has saved us – which is how it is in the real world, but it is a hard adjustment after the discussion focal point being Christ quite often. This is preparation to how living really is and that relationship is so much more important than a “quick fix” but I never let myself remember how hard it is to walk in the world but not of it. Home preparation is tough but I am excited to be able to walk in “real life” with God and not trying to do it all on my own again.
So these two weeks were spent a lot with a school group where Lawn is an English teacher. For the weekend that we arrived we went to an English camp with a group of about 200 students to interact, play games and have them immersed in conversational English. The kids are brilliant but the school is one with a lot of money so we weren't received as well as other schools had received us. It took a little while for us to get warmed up to each other, but stops along the way to the place we were staying got a few of us aquainted before full immersion. We arrived a few hours after departure to a RESORT!!! This is a free trip for kids who are in advanced English and it was at a resort with a spray pool, dining hall and hot showers! Ah – I didn't think that would ever be a luxury I would receive here in Thailand, but it was amazing and the resort/real beds and rooms that only had four people at most in them, were a wonderful change from sleeping on the classroom floor the night before. The first night there we had a little trip on a floating house thing to a little beach area in groups of students, us and teachers all intermingled. The group that I was in ended up having a girl almost drown, but God was with us and she was completely fine just scared. It was a crazy way to start off, but we all had had a long day and slept fine knowing she was okay and that we got to sleep in beds! The next few days were full of activities and just hang out time where I got to know a couple girls really well and many of the students are very good at English so conversation wasn't strained like it has been in the other locations. I was in charge of a game about ASEAN with another girl on my team and a few teachers and have now become the most knowledgable person ever on southeast asian unions and the history of the countries involved ha. It was a lot of fun though and the last night we were able to present our dramas and dances and the kids had prepared performances to share with us and their classmates. It was one of the most depressing things to see how many boys struggle with gender identity disorders and that that it has become the focal point of many of the kids humour. There were songs, dances and dramas and most every one had something to do with a boy being a girl or homosexuality – it is extremely accepted here and teachers and all were being entertained by what was happening in the stage. If the issue was something that I hadn't known was so prominent I'm sure that I would also find humor in it, but that is what makes is so sad. There is just an apathy that is spread through the nation that it is okay for these boys to be unhappy with themselves and lack identity in their specially created selfs. There is a spirit of desperation that comes along with that lack of identity but we are and were able to intercede for them and the other performances that were a bit uncomfortable as well - I have realized the culture is shifting and sexuality is being embraced much more than we had realized. Welcome to western influence though – high school is one of the most sexually charged places here and there, I guess I just chose to ignore it at the other schools we had visited because I was much more satisfied with being able to share the message our dramas had to offer. The performances led to a dance party and so many kids were afraid to just step out and be goofy, but the ones that would dance with us we were able to really get closer with and have an awesome time together. The next day we did have to leave though and no matter how little time you spend with a group, it's still hard. When the kids saw us at the school again many brought us gifts and one girl that I didn't even realize I had made any impact on had bought me a beautiful bracelet in a silk bag. Many other students were bringing us stuff and asking to keep in contact with us etc. So I didn't realize that we meant anything to these kids – but God moves! I don't know why I doubt the attractiveness of Him in me, but He was attractive to them also and we were bale to make a small impact in their lives – YAY!
Next we were out to the jungle. I didn't think that we'd actually be able to head out and do what you think of when you think of missionaries – but we went out in the backs of pick ups, tents in hand, ready to build bathrooms, garden, cook, clean and do whatever else we were able to do to help. It was an hour + on the highway and then to the jungle “road”. Two hours of bumps, turns and intense dust where car sickness was part of our collective consciousness and banging into the sides of the trucks became comfortable, but the scenery was beautiful. There were mountains to the border of Burma and plant life beyond where our eyes would take us. A river flowed in the midst of all of this and the mystery of animal life lurked constantly – but we had been warned already that snakes and scorpions would not be a rarity to our new home. I spent most of the ride on my leaders lap, holding back the sickness in my belly but when we arrived we were ready for the heat and lack of hygeine we were about to experience. It was actually amazing to sleep in little tents with two other people and having the choice between showering in a bucket or a river. My physical body might not love it, but mentally I think I could've definitely spent more than ten days out there in the jungle, as long as I had people around me. We were welcomed nearly instantly by a scorpion sting to a fellow YWAMer and in the hut area that we had designated to be a meeting place a snake dangling from the ceiling. The one thing that I cannot handle welcomed us and I didn't do so well with it's appearance, but God was with me and I knew that I was where I was supposed to be – so I walked in a bit of fear, but it did not stop me from being where I needed to be. The enemy also came at me with this fear over and over, causing my nights to not be as full of sleep as would have been best, but through the tiredness we worked and served and God brought us so much joy through that. We were able to clean ourselves off after the dusty truck bed ride as well after our little meeting, but there was no water out for bucket showers and people were a little anxed to hit the river after seeing our new creature friends. But we all decided it was worth it and river showers ended up being one of the highlights of my days everyday. After long, hot days, it felt so nice to hit the cool, running water and enjoy the purity of it with the people that we have grown to love a lot. The Thai team that was with us became close to hearts very quickly also. With getting close to the Promma students, we also got very close to Lawn and his son Rak who came to the village with us. By the end of the week he had decided that Jake and I were his newly adopted kids and then I turned into "daughter-in-law to be" by the second last day. His heart is seriously so full of love and it was awesome to be able to spend time with him and look at what a life of full service looks like. We were all there for two months, he's been 8 years and it doesn't seem to me that his village work and teaching is going to be moving back to America. It was just crazy how one week with someone can make you so inspired and be friends. Once again, God is cool and living for Jesus makes all things a little different.
So the days were extremely full and ranged largely in activities. We would usually have breakfast at 7:30 am and if you were on the cooking crew, you were expected to be there at 5:30 am to make sure that the food was ready in time for everyone to get to work. Also there is a lovely, incredibly steep 15 minute hill walk that we took to get to the village from the area that we were camping at. I loved that it required us to get in physical activity, but early in the morning or directly after work time, it was not my favorite walk in the world. So since I was team one, we were one of the teams that got to wake up nice and early twice, luckily the rest of the day was quite relaxed and we were able to sleep after breakfast while everyone else started their work duties. So that is what my first day looked like and since I was coming down with a cold and getting used to the area, it was nice to be able to hang out with my team and shower in the heat of the day while the work projects were still going. My team was a little over half Thai students from the school we had been at and a teacher and then two YWAMers and myself. My team was seriously awesome and I felt like God has blessed me big time there because I wasn't in as much need of encouragement to keep my attitude up because the people around me kept me cheerful. That second night [first day] we were able to just relax and get to bed early also, which was great and since I wasn't into packing a sleeping mat with me, I hit the ground hard with my two tent mates, nice and cozy. There wasn't a lot of breathing room so each night was one of... bonding, with each other and all of our belongings. Sleep was never abundant in my case and each night my cold got a little worse, but God blessed me with strength each day and healing came the more that I put effort in. It was pretty amazing that my stamina had nothing to do with me at all, and even though we weren't able to spend as much time with God as we had been at other locations, He was so present in our physical bodies and the choices that we made to serve. Each of the next days looked quite similar to each other with working on projects such as filling sand bags for cement making and filling in ground, breaking up plots of land with hoes, planting new life or laying brick on a brand new washroom, beautiful service. I loved being able to use my physical body to serve God and each day was rewarding in the fact that there was obvious progress being made. With 23 of us and 27 others, each work project had it's share of people and I have never seen people work as hard as a few of the Thai boys that were from the school and Lawn's son. It was great to see how they could serve without a motive, just to help people and being able to do it in the name of Jesus was the most amazing thing, but realizing that I am not making some big sacrifice was necessary and awesome. I personally really enjoyed laying brick and Erika and I were made partners on a wall, so finding a rhythm was necessary to get things done. We found one quickly and I have never seen so many bricks get used up by a team of people so fast [the whole washroom team, not just the two of us]. A few of us stayed a little later than usual working time and used every single brick and finished most every wall. One day and the empty cement pad with toilets and squatties, turned into something that could be used in privacy! It seriously seems so ridiculous to have this much joy over toilets, but after contributing time and work into it, I could not be more happy talking about an area to pee. I must say though, safety inspectors might not have loved the work that we did so much, but it looked a lot better than some of the toilets/squatties that I have been using. There was also this beaming pride that came from me when I saw that after breaking up a plot of land in the garden, I had two fairly decent sized blisters that had now been filled with dirt. I'm going to be honest in saying I haven't contributed so much to farm work since I have been able to find ways out of helping, but I am actually encouraged now to use my newly toughened hands. Dad don't get excited, callouses do go away and I'm not sure I'm going to want to break them in again ha. So the days were full of that and the only villagers we saw much of were Jamon, the facilitator of all of our work projects, Da, a boy who loved to come help us after school, and a few little boys who always tried to get food during meal time or when we would get ourselves snacks. After though, the boys were able to play soccer with the boys, girls aren't allowed to play soccer, and a lot of us would watch or play volleyball or just take some down time with each other and Jesus before the night started. After dinner was our time to hang out with the villagers, which meant watching movies. It was often just the kids, a few families and the military men who were based there for a while. Honestly, it was nice to be able to just have a comfortable time with the villagers since most definitely didn't speak English or fluent Thai since they have their own language. Getting some of the kids to warm up to us was really enjoyable also, since “farangs” are a little more scary when they are not seen everyday. I didn't play with too many kids, but a few of them really just needed love and we gave it to them whenever we could. The first day we met a couple kids who as their only toys had empty pop bottles and took the lids off, made a tower and then put them back on. They weren't so into playing but we just sat with them and they definitely warmed up to us more and more the longer we stayed. One night before dinner and the movie, two little boys who grew to really enjoy our team were playing with me in the back of Lawns truck and were giggling so hard everytime I tickeled them. One boy had a sore that had obviously been taking too long to heal, open when he hit his knee against the truck. So I cleaned it up a bit for him and got the blood off of it, replacing it with polysporin. Well he LOVED that he could spread it around all on his own, so we spent the next 15 minutes together, sitting on my lap and staring at the newly cleaned cut he had had for far too long. The problem was that he was so covered in dirt, I can't imagine that any sores were able to heal properly, but he was consistently all smiles. It was amazing to me to see how tough every single child was. Walking barefoot was a non issue, wrestling each other, laying on the hard grass and even falling asleep in the chill of the night, on the unforgiving grass just so that they could be there to watch a movie with us. It was sad to see each one with the same outfit everyday and never clean. This was more for the younger than the older, because all of the older kids that I met when I was able to teach a bit at the school, were much more well kept and actually were checked each morning to make sure that their fingernails were clean. The younger kids that I saw though were thoroughly covered, and after trying to clean one little boy who never wore pants off with wet wipes, the realization that the dirt is ingrained and would be acquired again as soon as I let him go. There wee tons of stories like this for all of us and I'm sure that when I'm done writing this I am going to wish I wrote countless more, but that is the idea of what we saw every day there. What I have seen in magazines and TV shows is nothing to seeing it first hand and this village was much more privileged than many more the earth hosts. Deep in the heart of the jungle is more reachable than other places of the world – but I am so thankful that I was able to see even a not so extreme case of what poverty looks like. So that was a bit of what spending time with the kids in the village was like. We were able to watch some of the women use looms to weave intense designs and fabrics – cool to see and these women are seriously talented. We also watched some of the men play in real competition to the military team and they were amazing! Men would be playing without any shoes on and taking hits that I couldn't with full on shin pads. These people are built tough, which makes sense with the kids built like nails.
After the movies there was only a limited amount of truck space to drive back to the camp site, so most of us were left with walking the 1km steep hill in the dark. The nights that we forgot headlamps and had to depend on cell phones and candles weren't awesome, but even with the high tech head lamp or flashlight, the walk was still a little scary. Each side of the dirt path was forested area and a few homes, so what was contained within the trees, was always mystery. Besides the rare noise that we didn't recognize, this walk usually created an adventure instead of trauma. It was also a nice walk to do alone during the day to spend some time with God. I was able to do this one full time and even though I was scared of some of the things that I heard, God asked me to commit to spending that time with Him, so I did. It was one of the most rewarding prayer times I've had! Rejuvenation came like what would come from an hour and the walk itself only seemed like a minute. I love how He rewards His servants when they are faithful - God is so evident in all of life it's insane!
The last day at the village was tough par usual since we had to leave our new friends, but we go to give each kid in school a new toy or two and make their day a little bit. The harder part actually was arriving back to Promma and having to say goodbye to our new working buddies. We were able to see most of them again though which got harder and harder each time. We had made some real friends with them and Jamon, so our prayers are going to be full of people that we would love to be able to celebrate with in eternity. I am so thankful that we were able to have such a different experience at each location and God was always with us in new and perfect ways. This location was where I had the largest home sickness spell from being physically sick, but God was always there rejuvinating me and making my attitude right when I couldn't alone. He kept me safe from ever seeing a snake again and each time I encountered something new, I was overcome with fascination verses fear. We only had one night of worship out there and it was in the dark, under the snake home hut, but God was so present and peace dwelled, not fear. God is always good in all things and in all places – I am constantly remineded of how amazing the God that I serve is and that I am beyond blessed being His child.
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