Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
We arrived in Thailand on the 18th of December on the shortest travel day of the Race thus far…to make it a short story we got from our ministry location in Cainta, through 2+hrs of traffic in Manila, to the airport, made the 3hr flight from Manila to Bangkok, through customs, and to the YWAM base in Bangkok all in about 10 hours! We spent about 4 days in Bangkok for our squad to debrief on the last four months of the Race. A few of the World Race staff came out and spoke life into us, reminded us what the World Race culture is all about and reminded us why we’re here and what we’re doing. It was a nice reality check.
On December 21st, we took a 12 hr night bus from Bangkok to Phuket, Thailand (a small island on the southern tip of Thailand). We got here early in the morning, had a bit of rest and then dove straight into ministry on our day of arrival by going on a prayer walk on Bangla Road in the afternoon and doing outreach in the bars later in the evening. Our next few days were busy with cleaning and cooking for Christmas.
Our arrival day in Phuket – just after prayer walking down Bangla Road by Patong Beach.
Christmas Eve, we were able to spend on the beach (Nai Harn). It was lovely and relaxing, just what we needed.
Christmas Day, we woke up in the morning and opened secret santa gifts. We helped cook and then the World Racers, along with a YWAM team and our contacts had a barbeque by a nearby lake. That was the first time I’ve barbequed on Christmas, that’s for sure. The weather was perfect – not to hot or humid (other than that, Asia has pretty much been a sweat fest).
(This is our whole team together earlier in December in the Philippines where we had a Christmas party with the whole squad!)
The week following Christmas, SHE Ministries was closed for the holidays so the only ministry we did was bar outreach 3 nights. It was a bit of a struggle at first…we are only in Phuket for 3 weeks – we don’t have time for a “week off.” However, it was humbling and a time of much needed rest!
On our outreaches in the bars, we go in, buy a soda and talk to the women working there (some work in prostituion). They're supposed to engage in conversation with the customers so that they will stay longer and buy more drinks. It works out nicely…they have games like jenga and connect four. Our aim this month is to get to know these women, build relationships with them and connect them to SHE. SHE Ministries offers English classes, jewelry certification and other skills training so the women can come out of the bars and make another way of living and providing for their families.
Saturday, New Years Eve, we were able to go to another beach here in Phuket (Karon Beach). It was my favorite of the two beaches we’ve been to so far. At the end of the evening, my team and I got ate pizza on the beach, watched a cloudy but peaceful sunset and made some memories. Before we left the beach, all of the teams got together and sent off lanterns. If you’ve ever seen Tangled…it was like that but the lanterns were much bigger. It was beautiful. When we got home from the beach, a few of us watched Tangled. It was perfect because we were watching it and from the window right beside us, we could see the fireworks and lanterns being set off. When the lantern scene from the movie was on, there were literally lanterns floating by my window! It was such a beautiful scene to see in real life! At midnight, there was no countdown and we didn’t watch Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve. We were just all together enjoying the moment, watching dozens of lanterns float high up into the air and fireworks go off right beside the building and all over town. It was marvelous!
This week, we've started back full time ministry which consists of leading devotions, childcare, construction on the new facility, cleaning, helping put together and do inventory with merchandise, prayer walks, bar outreach, etc. It's busy but we are loving it here at SHE Ministries and loving Thailand!
*I'm only $589 away from being fully funded! Yeah God!
