Red Light District.

God is overwhelming me with His love and faithfulness. This week is full of challenges. my heart breaks for this country. I have fallen in love with the thai people and am amazed at the ways god has been using us here! We spent the week reaching out to thai people in the Slums and pouring out love on them.
on wednesday afternooon i was feeling really homesick and just having a hard time and dealing with culture shock. i was scared for the red light district not knowing what to expect.. on tuesday night God really just started preparing me for the red light district that we were going to go to on wednesday and i just had this heaviness in my heart all tuesday night and all day wednesday. I just kept praying and crying out for FREEDOM over this country and over the women in Pattaya and bangkok where the red light district is. so we left at 4:00 to go to phat pong which is where the red light district is. when we got there i was overwhelmed. it was horrible. the streets were filled with hotels, strip clubs and bars. within the first 5 minutes of being there Me and shawna were just standing there and this guy came up to us and asked us if we were looking for a 'job". it made us so mad. these men here are pigs. but we have to try so hard not to judge them because for them its an addiction. these men need just as much reaching out to as these women do. anyways, we ended up splitting up into groups, so I went with Calla and our translater Pook. we prayed and asked god to open the doors for us. so we were walking down the street and we all felt like we should go to this bar. so we went in. and all of a sudden Calla started freaking out because there was this bar girl that she had met last year at the same bar who was there working! they both recognized eachother! so we sat down and got a drink and began talking to her and getting to know her and telling her about god. we asked her if she was happy and she said she hated it there. she was only working here to make money for her family and give to her parents. she works from 6pm-6am and only makes 100 baht a night. 500 baht on a good night. she actually remembered calla telling her about God last year. she says she has no time to think about jesus and doesnt want to leave buddhism. but she said she would think about jesus and think and research christianity. she was the sweetest lady i've ever met and it was such a blessing to be able to talk to her and tell her how much god loves her. so we spent on hour sitting at the bar just ministering to her and she didnt even want us to leave. it was so awesome! all the other girls from our team had wonderful stories about the girls they were able to minister to! God has really given me a heart for these women and I really want to go back. On saturday we have a free day so Me, Lauren, Shawna, Ashley and Melissa are going to take a taxi and go back to the red light district and spend the night talking and ministering to the people there. so please pray that god will use us and open the doors and soften the hearts of the ones he wants us to talk to!
I dont have time to talk about what the rest of the week has been like but i will just say it has been amazing! i love this country and really would love to come back someday for a longer outreach. On monday my team leaves to go to Indonesia to start the next part of our outreach! this is the part where I will need the most prayer. it will be very challenging and I am so excited!
God bless!