Missioning to Bangkok

When my friend, Amy ended her teaching contract in Thailand earlier this year, I had little desire to head that way after also missing the chance to join Phumi and Raquel for their vacation there last year. The only reason I'd go, I had casually mentioned before, was "If it's for a mission trip or something like that."

By June or so, I'd signed up for our church's first trip to Thailand to help out at a place called The Well in Bangkok, Thailand. This was my first time ever doing anything of the sort, and getting so close to the issue of sex trade. During my time in Korea, I've learned so much about the industry, and most importantly, that what we see on street corners and in red light districts is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much brokenness and such a huge opportunity for us to show love to people who would generally be seen as irresponsible for 'choosing that lifestyle'. 

There were 12 of us in the group (Canadians, Koreans, South Africans and Americans) and we spent a month or so learning how to bake and doing spiritual direction in preparation for the trip. We would spend a few days at The Well teaching the women how to bake and giving them the basic skills they'd need to make and sell their own home-made baked goods. While doing all of this we'd do what we were called to- to love others as we do ourselves, and share the love of Christ, as we know it, with them. 

*all pictures by the talented Lee Smathers

On sunny August afternoon, we all met at the Dongdaegu bus station where we'd be sent of with prayer from some of the leaders of the Korean church and make our way outta kimchi land, to Bangkok city. 

We'd land in Bangkok, settle in and start prepping for Kingdom work. We got some rest and were up nice and early for a service at New Song church followed by a baking-supplies shopping spree at Tesco. The service was awesome, and as we do in Korea, we loved being in God's house with people of "all tongues and nations". The place was a cute and cozy space with a coffee shop upstairs, but a message and atmosphere much greater than the space it filled. After church, Jeremy, who welcomed us at the airport and helped us to our hotel etc, took us to a lovely restaurant where we'd have the most AMAZING food and get briefed on cultural tips and such. 

Armed with bags full of baking supplies, and two brand new ovens, we were up bright and early to head to The Well, where we'd spend most of our time for the week. Honestly, we were not entirely clear on what it was we would do (or, rather, whether things would run the way we had planned) but we were ready to take on whatever came our way. We met Jim Larson (who started The Well and runs it with his wife and other  volunteers) and his team who gave us a brief background of the women and families we'd be meeting and also the Thai sex trade in general. It was clear from the conversation that what needed to be dealt with in Thailand, was the brokenness that's at the root of the culture, rather than how the problems manifest themselves in the multi-million/billion sex-trade industry. 

We spent the day getting to know the women with some ice-breaker activities, praise and worship and some practical baking lessons. 

In the evening, those who had energy at all, would head out to see the hotel surroundings and take in some of Bangkok. The days were really packed with activities from about 9am to 3pm and team meetings and prep for the following days, so while we were out seeing the city, we were pretty much zombies- ones very eager to try out all sorts of food. 

With the exhaustion carrying over and planned activities not always working out according to plan, tension rose within the group and we found ourselves losing patience with one another and losing focus of what we were there to do- to serve. On Wednesday morning, our leader was humble enough to lead us into a good prayer session where we'd just commit everything to God and let Him do what He would through us, 'cause on our own it's all too easy to get lost in our checklists and to-dos. 

And boy, did the Lord come through for us. The rest of the day went so smoothly, and we were already so well connected with the people at The Well (numbers now higher after word of mouth spread to even cities 8 hours away about the baking classes and spiritual direction that were taking place) and the team was just in better harmony. After a mini sermon Lorna and I shared on freedom from guilt and shame, we had an amazing time of prayer as a group which threw our schedule waaay off track, but we welcomed it knowing that that was the Holy Spirit taking over and just doing things more intensely than we could ever. Goosebumps, I tell ya! 

On the same day, it was Mother's Day in Thailand, which was perfect since we had a pampering session planned for the afternoon. Girls will be girls!

The next two days were spent wrapping up the baking classes (and whole lot of tasting in between), getting our groove on with some dances we'd prepared and also finally doing the Lifehouse Skit, which was a really good illustration of the seen addictions and unseen spiritual battles. We concluded the trip with a few group pics followed by hesitant goodbyes.

The trip was a great time for me to be reminded how God can do awesome things if and when we submit our will to His. After all, Dad knows best!