With every bump that I hit on these rocky
roads in the North, on the back of this song thaew I am driving in, I become
more and more aware of the little bits of myself that are changing. Like I do
more often, I ponder how much has changed for me in the last 3 years, I can
hardly recognize the girl I was when I left my small town in September 2010. I
thought I was headed off to an adventure back then… little did I know where God
would take me! I could never have imagined being on this journey, in this place. So here I am,
bouncing around on the back of this truck, going 80km and hour around the bends
of the Mekong; I’m breathing in what has already become one of my favorite
smells, the smell of the sun setting and Thailand quieting, everything is dusky
and colored pink in light of the
descending sun. I have one leg tossed carelessly off the back of the pickup
tailgate, Im leaning back into the bench in which I always reside in when we
travel. The warm wind is blowing by me and I am looking across the river at
Laos… I wonder, will I ever be able to go back to living like a typical North
American? What does that even mean for me anymore? I am becoming more and more
aware of what a minority we are in America. I have always thought myself much
separate from “the rest of North America.” No ,
I thought to myself , I am not like so many egotistical, haughty North
Americans who live in ignorant bliss… but the truth
is, I am entirely North American. My entire life has been lived in ignorance of
the suffering and pain of not only the people around me but also the people who
are exactly like me who live across the
world, the only difference being that we were born in different countries…
We arrived in Bangkok and we were picked up
by Ricky Sanchez, a long term missionary working with MB mission who lives in
Chonburi Thailand. His job with us was to “orientate us” to Thailand, to teach
us about the culture, the do’s and don’t’s, and the religious back ground. It
was such a whirlwind, from getting off the plane, to having no idea where to go
or even who would be picking us up. We didn’t know where to meet Ricky, there
was honestly not one person we could find that spoke a bit of English. We
didn’t know what we would be doing that week or what we would be seeing, we
didn’t know what a Bhat was (their currency) and we hadn’t yet learned to do
quick conversions to figure out what cost what. I remember that first step I took out of the airport and
onto Thailand soil, it is so vivid for me because I literally felt like I
stepped into a wall of humid, sticky, heat. There is no way to describe it; it
is almost like moist air is being blown at you from the ground and from all
sides. The week sped by, we did lots of things; We worked at the Abundant Life
Home one day, it is an orphanage for kids who are HIV positive. We spent the
day planting coconut trees. Won’t say much about that except I never want to
dig another hole in Thailand soil again. It’s a mixture of rock hard clay, and
dust. It was at the orphanage that I got to meet Bing-Bing, the little girl who
first broke my heart for Thailand back when Ricky Sanchez visited CBC in
September. Ricky told our class her story, and it was while listening to her
story, with silent tears and a broken heart that I first felt God laid Thailand
on my heart in a blanket of compassion and passion heavy and strong. Meeting
her was unreal! Like God was confirming where he had called me. It was like God
was also showing me the hope before he showed me the hurt… that came in the
following days as Ricky orientated us to the brokenness of Thailand. He spoke
about the bondage the Thai people live under. Both to Nirvana (Buddhism) and
also to generations and generations of sexual brokenness. “To be Thai is to be
Buddhist” , we hear this so often our here. Buddhism is a lifetime of pouring
yourself out, of striving to rid yourself of self. It’s a lifetime of striving
to pay a debt that you were born with yet never knowing if your workings have
been enough, never knowing if your Kharma will be better to you in the next
life. Thai people don’t even kills flies because they believe that all animals
and bugs are their ancestors who never paid their full debt, thus came back as
lesser beings. They live their entire lives like
this. Striving for something yet never knowing if they have come to it, never
knowing if there is hope. It breaks my heart. We went to this massive temple; I
think it was the biggest one in all of Thailand. Hundreds and hundreds of
people were there, they were bowing down to a statue that was about 16 inches
tall; emerald Buddha. They have given their lives to this statue that cannot
save them… a statue that cannot even talk to them or hear them. My mind can
hardly grasp it and my heart can hardly take it.
…Later that night we walked about 5 blocks
down from where we were staying to the biggest red light district in the world.
I can hardly type this because I cannot physically see through the tears that
are blinding my sight…Most of me wishes I could go back to being ignorant, I
had not understood the saying “ignorance is bliss” until that second and that
moment. We turned the corner on this street and I took about 3 steps before I
hit a wall. There was nothing there but I literally felt like I hit a physical
wall. The person walking behind me had to physically push me to take my next
step because I could not actually lift my foot and move it forward. I felt like
I was stepping into Satan’s kingdom… I guess I sort of was. The red light
district in Bangkok is 2 and a half blocks long, it took us less that 3 minutes
to walk through. It has a thriving market in the dead centre of it, and this
one little part of the city houses over 10,000 prostitutes. In two blocks.
10,000. I don’t have words, and I don’t understand. I just pray, a lot. The
people of Thailand have been SO blinded by Satan and his schemes. He has broken
them, and tied them into such a sick and heavy bondage that they don’t remember
what it is like to live in freedom, they never even knew what freedom was to
begin with…There is hope though, God is showing us that he is still working. We
hear stories and we are meeting woman and people who have been rescued from
that very street. Bing Bing and others like her are meeting Jesus and are
finding freedom. God is saving souls, one person at a time he is using people
to break Satan’s chains from these people. We have been praying for God to show
us his purpose in all this pain and suffering. I feel like God showed us this
so we could be aware of the battle we are in. We are now up North working at
the Changed Life Centre. God reminded me of what I would be doing in the next
three months. He reminded me that I have a part to play in the battle, that
here, in Khmu villages; we are fighting for souls, one person at a time. It’s
even in the name of the Centre, “the Changed life Centre”. When it feels hopeless, like I don’t understand why that
kind of pain exists, or when I just want to be angry at God for not knowing why
he allows things like that to happen, or when I just plain cant understand why
God does what he does, God reminds me that he brought me hear to focus in
rather than to try to understand the big picture. To, one person at a time,
bring comfort and hope and freedom. Since coming here to the North we have been
working in local preschools, loving on the kids there. We have been visiting
widows and loving on the local Khmu teenagers. I am trying to pour all that I
am out for these women. They are the same as me. They have the same desires and
hopes and dreams except that I was born in a country where I might be able to
achieve some of these… most of them will never know that privilege. When I look
into the big, brown, hopeful eyes of any of these beautiful Khmu and Thai
children or when I gaze into the withered, sunken eyes, that hold an entire
life of hardship and experience of these old women who have lived so much, I am
keenly aware of my privilege. And sometimes…for
brief moments, I hate it, because the only difference between them and I is our
birthplaces, and I didn’t do a thing to earn or deserve what God has so richly
blessed me with. God is giving me a heart for this place. It’s hard to have a
heart for Thailand. I used to pray that God would break my heart for what
breaks his…Now I beg that I would never experience the searing pain that he
must feel for his children every day. I pray now instead each day for a measure
of compassion and ability to see what needs to be seen and to hurt for what
needs to be hurt for. Which brings me back to my very first point… Where do I
go from here? I don’t know how I will move back into the culture of North
America, all I know is this; That God has shown me some of his heart and I will
not leave this place unchanged. There are pictures both beautiful and painful
that have forever been branded on my mind and heart and God will not let me
return to where I once was. I go forward changed. I move forward with new
purpose and a sometimes, furious passion. My God is mighty to save and he has
placed in me a new objective. We will see where he takes it, Ill do what he
needs me to and Ill go where he calls me to. Whether that’s back to where I
came from or forward to a new place, where God leads, I will follow because he has given me a passionate purpose.
