Sawasdee ka!

Hey from Thailand! Our whole team made it hear safely and with all our luggage on the third! So we've been here for 10 days, it's been a very full and kind of crazy first week, taking in a lot of information, culture, and jumping into our new ministries!

My home for the first half of the outreach, until the end of January is Bangkok, Thailand.

The busy road right near where I'm staying

While we are here in Bangkok, we will be focusing on the ladyboys working in the red light district! A ladyboy is a male to female transgendered person, so these ladyboys dress and act as women, many of them you wouldn't even know are actually men. There are many non profits working in the red light district that focus on the women, but very few working with the ladyboys. So we are partnering with a lady named Celeste whose focus is on the ladyboys and helping to provide them with other options besides prostitution.

At this point in the outreach I have had a couple opportunities to go into ladyboy bars in different red light districts in Bangkok. Everything about it is so foreign to me, and at first is quite intimidating, but once I got into conversation with a couple of the ladyboys, I realized that they're just like the rest of us. Conversation doesn't have to be different, it's just building relationship, finding out what they want to do with their lives, what they go to school for, the same conversations you would have with anyone you have just met. We all have our different problems that we face, theirs look different than mine do, but for me I see such a big importance in really seeing the person behind it all!

Celeste has been working with the ladyboys for a few years and you can see the impact it is making. When we go into the bars and mention her name, the ladyboys instantly change how they're acting to us, they see us as a safe place because of the relationship that she has formed with them. They all get excited to see her and it is so obviously how much they appreciate the love and time she puts into them.

She has a cafe that provides jobs for the ladyboys who choose to leave prostitution, besides just providing a job she also provides English teaching, and art lessons. A few have already left prostitution, through her ministry which is so great!

So aside from working with ladyboys, we are also helping with a church ministry who is teaching English in a low income neighborhood who normally wouldn't have this opportunity. The boys on our team are not able to go into the bars with us, so this is their main ministry. We go and help out tuesday through saturday for a few hours! We work with kids in elementary and high school, they are such a fun group of kids, and I look forward to working more with them!

So those are our ministries we're working with, but totally aside from all ministry, let's talk Thailand!
It's beautiful, and different yet similar, obviously there's different language and different food. There is also a major western influence here in Bangkok which means we see a lot of familiar, which I think has softened the culture shock!

Ronald McDonald, obviously a familiar face, but in Thailand he is "wai-ing" which is a greeting!
Same same but different!

There is definitely a different spiritual atmosphere than anything I've experienced before, many new "symbols" it's an extremely buddhist nation, so you'll see buddhist monks out, there's also large spirit houses (shown below), on the side of the road, in the front of the red light districts, outside of shops, inside of shops, they seem to be everywhere and I don't yet totally have a grasp of what it's really for.

Spirit house

Buddhism is nothing like the high intensity spiritual atmosphere of India, but also nothing like the churches in North America either! I feel like a lot of buddhism is really tradition because it is so engrained in Thai culture and Thai families! I am curious to learn more about Buddhism because there is so much that I have no idea about! So as we go on living here in Thailand that's definitely something I want to educate myself on, and also how you reach out to Buddhists because it is so wrapped up in everything in Thailand!

As we go along, I can't wait to see and experience more of Thai culture and see God continue to move!

Thanks for all of your prayers and support!


*these aren't my pictures I got them off different sites:
 https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm1hcc4ZLZcA1-pkhKeF7qhyp27qxgp2Dqk0_U7xvzFxFvf0uGmMcup6cELKIjDejazuYFHSDzm1cIfK3dTDeF-OuD7atjbuDC1OXw1BkLKy02INrBabEXYH3OSZjp_XsfF7KFNT1Quoo/s1600/285937160_a2c97d93f7+%25281%2529.jpg
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Thailand+spirit+house&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=d&rls=en&biw=1278&bih=621&tbm=isch&tbnid=bI3863ZMrxdIPM:&imgrefurl=http://pattayapete.wordpress.com/tag/thai-spirit-house/&docid=pGL_Y9A1W5jRrM&imgurl=http://pattayapete.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/bangkok_hotel-spirit-house.jpg&w=800&h=600&ei=bd7yUOiqJcXtkgXWx4HgDw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=12&vpy=135&dur=319&hovh=139&hovw=178&tx=85&ty=85&sig=114962600125162742894&page=1&tbnh=139&tbnw=178&start=0&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:81
http://www.urbancapture.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/121212-2233-Sukhumvit-Road-Traffic-Bangkok-Thailand.jpg