Here's something amazingly outlandish. God didn't send us here just for the girls in the bars. He did send us here for them but he sent us here for so much more. If we were to have the attitude that we could only talk to Thai women who work in the bars we would be limiting what God has in store.
So every night we go out, we start with prayer asking God for direction and praising him. In the beginning of our time here, our idea of success was not lined up with God's view of success. We thought that if we didn't talk to a Thai girl working in the bar that we were doing something wrong, or that we failed. After feeling that way was when God made it known to us that he wants us to bring glory to his name. And that he will let us know what to do. He wanted us to give up control of the time we spend on Bangla Road.
So we did.
And there was a huge change.
One night we spent the whole night at the end of Bangla, where it meets the ocean, worshiping on the beach. That's what God wanted us to do that night and we had a peace about it. One night we didn't talk to a single girl, just guys. We met a group of four Aussies who were there on their college break. It was us four girls talking to them four guys in a bar where all the Thai women could care less that we were there. The guy who talked to me was Ben and he saw that I was drinking a Sprite and he thought that was so weird. He was so curious and began asking all sorts of questions. He asked how long we had been in Phuket and when I told him a month and that we go to the bars every night but not the weekends he looked puzzled. Then he looked at my drink again, put all the pieces together and was like "why are you here?!" It was so awesome to be able to tell him all about it. I got to tell him that all the girls we have talked to don't want to be there and that they just need money. He told me "that's what I was worried about, that they don't like it". Those four guys were really interested in what we are doing here and respectful of our answers to their questions; and that night, God wanted us to talk with those four guys so that's what we did. And God saw that as success. God just wants his name to be known on Bangla Road and he wants us to praise him there and everywhere.
Thats another thing, when you are praising God and giving him glory and getting to know him more and falling more in love with him, thats when you see him move the most.
Another night, last Monday, we talked to the most Thai girls we have ever talked to in one night. Then last Wednesday night, we talked to a couple of guys from Burma who work in a tailor shop on Bangla. We had really good conversations about Jesus with them and the guy I talked with reads his Bible all the time so we got to talk about that for a while. How cool?!
All I'm saying is, we surrendered our ideas of success to God and he began opening all sorts of doors for us to do what is pleasing to him. And he is continuing to do so. Forever. As we leave our hands wide open for him to give and take away.
