DAY 6: Connection hopping…and change of plans!

Much of the team was pretty wiped out from the previous day. We had two services we attended to see what church looks like in Thailand. Walked over around 10am to a church called New Song that was a Thai/English church. All the worship songs were in English, and was actually really joyful. The room was pretty cozy and people could cram in to sit on the floor or cushions to listen to the message. It was pretty intermixed between Thais and Americans or other Europeans, and we mostly went to just observe and worship together.

Here are some pictures:

We then all went out to lunch at a local food court, which had a beautiful view of the city and was a refreshing place to chill. We had about a half hour to run back to our hostel and then meet back up to head over to another local church around 2:30 that most of Night Light attends.

A few people on the team worked with Janie with the kids and got to love and teach them, while a few of us went upstairs to attend the Thai service. It was fun experiencing all the Thai worship songs and trying to sing a long, and one thing we picked up is Thai people cannot clap on beat, but use the off beat. It was pretty funny trying to get us to follow them. The message was completely in Thai as well, so used that time to pray and watch people. The first church was a bit more westernized than this one, but still had a pretty familiar structure.

After the service the rest of the team joined up and we got to pray for Annie who is the director of Night Light. I give props to this woman. She is a fierce warrior to contend with. The team really went for it in praying over her and blessing her. We also got to pray over her sinuses that had been inflamed and begin to break off any attacks physically against her. She said it was starting to feel better. We felt so honored that she had been so open to our team in letting us come and work with them and asked if she would pray over us. Sitting on the floor around her and hearing her sincere prayers of favor and blessing, there was just this feeling of reverence for what God was imparting through her. She basically released us and gave us a blessing to go into the darkest places and that our ministry didn’t have to be anything like any other ministry, but that we were to reach the one that others would not or were too afraid too. It meant so much to us that a woman like this who has been working the hard soil for breakthrough for years would trust and give blessing to a team of young newbies to Thailand to run with such vision and freedom.

As we were walking out, Janie pulled us aside and asked if then we would pray for one of the girls there for her sinuses that she had been battling colds and infections for over 2 years. The team huddled around her and began to believe. We asked her how she felt, and Janie translated 70% better. You wouldn’t know by the look of her face. It was as if SHE wasn’t even shocked she was being healed. We continued to pray and less than a minute later she was completely healed. She told Janie, “ I knew God was going to heal me!” We all laughed. She had more faith than us!

Here is the restaurant we ate at. It's very popular in Thailand (there's one in Bangkok and Pattaya). The restaurant actually is about raising awareness for "safe sex"... but we all laughed at how they probably over-marketed condoms! The food was amazing!


We ate dinner with a couple from South East Asia House of Prayer (SEAHOP) that was at the service that wanted to grab a bite with the team and connect. In talking with the couple and sharing back and forth our hearts, the Holy Spirit began to really connect some things. They began sharing their heart for the Northern region and what they had been praying for and revelation started coming to the team about really praying about sending a team to another part of the Northern region to a specific place where many of the girls who sell themselves in prostitution come from. Yonnie and Janie began to start making some calls to see who they could connect with and be blessed to move forward on this. As we were talking Janie began to share the need to attack the root and stop the flow from girls being pressured and leaving their towns and families to come to the city to get a bigger house or provide for their families. Janie began to share that it is so needed for people to go and work in the homelands and specifically in the region of Isaan. As she was speaking we could see the couple get really surprised. Kala, the wife, began to share a dream she had a month ago. They started working with SEAHOP a few months back and they said they have been really feeling the Isaan burning on their hearts and in their prayers. She then had this dream:


I was walking in the hills next to a large river. In front of me was a family who had just lost their youngest child in the raging river. The mother looked at me in total desperation and asked, “Who will keep the children of Thailand safe?” In that moment, I knew Brandon and I were to build a fence along the rivers edge to stop this river from claiming so many children’s lives.

I woke up from this dream quite shaken. I thought of the Apostle Paul’s dream of a Macedonian man begging him for help. I saw the desperation in the mother’s eyes and my heart was stirred. After praying about it a short time the Lord revealed this dream was about ISSAN. Issan is the North Eastern part of Thailand. What divides Laos and Northeast Thailand is the giant Mekong River- a river just like in my dream.

What is significant about Issan is that around 90 percent of all the prostitutes we see in Bangkok are from this area! The dream depicted it so clearly! It is as if there is a raging river sweeping away the sons and daughters of Issan. In mass numbers young women of Issan are being sent by their poverty stricken family, tricked by those wanting to exploit them, or choosing themselves to come to Bangkok for work. Most of the time the only work they find, or the job someone promised them, turns out to be “dancing” in a bar and supporting their families back home with the money made selling their bodies to male customers. They find themselves stuck in a cycle they cannot break out of. They cannot tell their family what they are really doing, cannot return home, cannot quit sending money back home and they cannot find any other job due to lack of education. Not to mention the emotional impact just one month in this environment has.

It is overwhelming. We are facing a sex industry that is overlooked by the government, accepted in society, and even boasted about in travel guides and stories from travelers passing through. We are facing a system that has a spiritual reality every bit as real as what we can see with our eyes. A darkness that feeds on souls and is fat on countless souls from Northeast Thailand.

The plea resounds in my ears, “Who will keep the children of Thailand safe?” Brandon and I choose to stand in prayer for these women and children who are being taken away by this raging river. Through prayer we will link arms with others who are praying for and ministering to these women. We will become a living “fence” along the river and by the Lord’s grace many will be saved.

-kala
“will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night?”
Luke 18:7


As she shared this you could feel the team just get excited and begin to just burn to send a team up to see and work with the people this next week. After a few hours of discussing, we had the rest of the evening free and waited to hear what was happening with the team. Jesse and his wife Tanya and their baby Zoe, were going to lead a team, but ended up Jesse, Christian and Lonnie went to go make contact and see how Iris plays a role. So if you can be praying for them for just open doors and insight to see what is really happening and how Iris can come along side to really help stop, like in the dream, the flow of girls from the North into Bangkok and Pattaya. 

So while all three of the guys headed North, we have two girls that joined up with us from Harvest School 13, and 14 of us traveling a few hours East to Pattaya to go meet up with Jess!