"For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning."- Psalm 30:5   Growing up in a quiet Christian family I never thought I would witness this. I never thought that I would see bar tops full of pole dancers gyrating to pulsing music. I never thought I would observe a woman being approached by four men to purchase for the night. I never expected to see five and six year old boys playing connect four with scantily clad women at a bar, while their parents shot whiskey in the background. The last...

I don’t even know where to start…Monday night was my first night of bar ministry and it was so different than I expected it to be. The bars are everywhere; there are HUNDREDS of girls dancing on bar tops and girls soliciting men on the streets and FAMILIES with children walking around like this is completely normal. Looking at all of it, it is so easy to get this hopeless attitude and I really started to think that until we went into the second bar. I was really feeling a pull to that bar, so I told my team leader that’s where I would like to go and so we went and all...

Community looks different everywhere you go.  Sometimes community is hard but community is beneficial to everyone involved.  When we live out community the way that Jesus asks us to, we are stretched, grown, and educated.     Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:25 “Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.”       In the community that we have formed here in Thailand, I have already been stretched.  The Lord has called me into another season of leadership this...

I fought with the ocean and lost. It is true for 10 of us who after a day of doing some construction work for SHE got to go to the beach for the first time since arriving. It is incredibly beautiful, secluded, and calm with islands in the distance. All sweaty from a hard days work, I sprinted to the water excited to cool off. Luckily some other people got to the water before me otherwise I might not have a foot due to the razor sharp rocks of death. I of course didn’t have shoes I could wear in the water so it took me approximately 15 min to get up to my neck. In between I tried...

(from a few days ago in my journal) Today we walked Bangla Road (where we will be doing our night ministry) for the first time and it was so heavy, even during the day. There are literally HUNDREDS of bar, which means that during peak season there are around 1200 girls working every night. Girls at risk of being purchased and taken advantage of. As we walked down the main road and saw the alleys branching off that were filled with what seemed like an endless amount of bars I felt this weight…this feeling that I will never be able to have any sort of impact because I am too small,...

We arrived in Phuket after a 12 hour ride from Bangkok. Our host picked us up and took us to our housing – the SHE (Self Help and Empowerment) house. Currently there are 3 or 4 teams here with us which means it's a full house! (For more information about SHE you can click on this link http://www.shethailand.org/ )Lately, we have been helping out with SHE by serving in small ways such as helping with cooking, cleaning, construction and day care. Next week we are going to go out to the bars in Bangla road to form relationships with the women working at the bars there. As for now,...