Mountains, cool air and lots of smiles!

After a 10 hour bus ride north, I made it to Chiang Mai! (that makes it sound like I just got here, but really it's been over 2 weeks! my bad!)

What a beautiful city, soo different than the hustle and bustle of Bangkok! You can see the mountains from where I live and it's maybe 15 minutes to walk to the waterfall that's just up the road! My soul feels peaceful here, I love the calm of the city and the friendliness of people. And what makes me really really happy is the temperature and how it's not too humid! (since i started writing this it's gotten really hot and you just sweat all the time, so I take back the bit about the temperature!) Really it's so beautiful here!

While we're here in Chiang Mai, we are helping in another cool cafe, taking orders bringing water, all that good stuff, the cafe is called Wongen Kafe! Wongen is located across form the Chiangmai University campus, so they have a major focus of reaching out to the students who attend there. As a part of them reaching out,  Wongen hosts a game night and then an open mic night each week. This is a fun opportunity to bring students into the cafe, hang out with them, help them practice their English, and love them as Jesus would! So, once we're done our shifts at the cafe, we hop in a song tau and head across town to our slum ministry!

Song tau, this is our transportation around the city!

The slum ministry is so fun! it's literally located in the middle of a garbage field, and we put out a tarp for the kids to sit on, we get out some paper and crayons, along with some velcro ball and wait for kids to come! One at a time the kids will start to come over, usually it's one of the boys and they get into a game of velcro ball pretty quick! The kids just like to spend time, we'll blow up balloons, which they love to hit around or let go of before they're tied so they fly around. A lot of the kids will just come and sit in your lap or climb on your back, and just goof around! Really this ministry brings so much joy to my heart, I love to hang out with these kids and it's one of those things where you forget about the fact that you're in a garbage field and you don't care about lice and you don't care about the dirt and you just go for it! You definitely get put in situations that would normally make you squirm, one of the little girls was sitting in my lap eating a snow cone thing, she then decided to take a chunk of ice from her snow cone, and hold it against my face until it melted, that probably happened a good 4 times!

Aubon, one of the sweet girls from the slum, squishing snow cone against my face! 

Our last ministry is bar ministry, this time it's not just focused on ladyboys, but on the women and johns as well! The bar scene in Chiang Mai is so different from Bangkok, it seems way more low key and less in your face, but with that one of the things we've had to be careful of is not seeing it as less of a problem. It's still a major problem, it just has a different face on it in a sense, it blends in with normal life a lot more here! So when we go into the bars, we go in and just start conversation, they have pool tables set up as well as connect 4 and jenga to play with people who work there! Anna and I have been partners for going into the bars and we've gone into the same bar a couple times and bonded with a few of the girls who work there over jenga and connect 4! These girls don't speak much English so communication is hard, but we still feel it's important to go and hang out and love them and let them know we're they're to be their friends and not use them!

On a personal note, the Lord has really been doing so much in me here! I've been challenged everyday, not just by circumstances around me, but also the personal challenges God is giving me. In Bangkok the Lord was speaking to me of how in the midst of challenging circumstances to really press into Him and not rely on my own strength. I'll give you a peek into my journal of what God was speaking to me!
-WHOLENESS comes from God alone (Ezekiel 37:1-14: without His breath, we are just skin and bones, so don't try to do it alone)
-GO! go where I have sent you! (Trust, be still, peace, enjoy the way!)
-PEACE: Rest in Me! (Matthew 8:23-27: physical storms are calmed, so can the internal storms be calmed!)
-SELF CONTROL! (Proverbs 25:28: I don't want to be a city without it's walls up!)
-TAKE COMFORT IN ME! Rest in God, Weep in God, Let go in God, Take joy in God, Take hope in God, Be vulnerable with God, Raw. (In everything go to God, not just in the good but in the bad!)
-SELF DISCIPLINE (use your time well, personal time, team time, ministry time, be intentional)
-GO! (following where God is leading! Ruth 1:16-17)

So besides in my quiet times I was reading Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, which is basically a novel form of the book of Hosea in the Bible! This book not only helped me to have more of an understanding of the prostitutes we're working with, but also of God's love! Especially in the midst of challenging circumstances God really spoke to me of His love and how He never gives up on me! Even if I choose to run, He is still there for me, and He is forgiving! These are all things I've known but it was definitely time for a good reminder! So God definitely used Redeeming Love as a tool to speak to me and encourage me!

Since we've been in Chiang Mai I've been reading Proverbs a lot and finding the specific verse each day to really take with me throughout my day and my life!
WISDOM has really been a big theme in my quiet times! Proverbs 9:10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight." For me this is especially applicable to being in a place of leadership right now. I have to make decisions and figure out how to get everything to function best! I have to use wisdom, and really that means walking in obedience to what God is saying! Wisdom is all over Proverbs, and it talks of how responses to things and how you approach a situation can totally change the outcome of it, and so I'm really trying to be intentional in applying all the Lord is bringing up to me in my quiet times!

God has also been helping me face the things I've been trying not to. For example leaving YWAM Charlotte and going back home, starting up new relationships while keeping old ones, mourning people who are no longer here! I've tried to not think about these things because it was just too hard and seemed too overwhelming, but the Lord's been teaching me how to keep moving forward in the midst of it all! It may sounds small but it seems like a very BIG challenge to me! But God is faithful in walking me through it all!

So all that to say, the Lord has really been challenging me, I've been put in a new country, working with new ministry, I feel like something new comes up everyday where I have to figure out what the best solution is. Through it all God has really shown His faithfulness and His goodness, and given me and Cassie the ability to deal with everything that has come our way, of course with the help of our wonderful leadership back at the base as well! So in the midst of challenge, God's love shines through and his faithfulness becomes more and more evident!

With one week left, I know God still wants to do so many incredible things and I can't wait to see what all that will look like!


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picture of aubon by Ruthie Adams