Please pray for our team

Colossians 4:3-6 ~ That God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ. Pray that we may proclaim it clearly, that we will be wise in the way we act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. May our conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that we may know how to answer everyone.

Please pray for Thai believers

Colossians 1:22-23 ~ That they will continue in their faith, established, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel.

Colossians 2:2 ~ That they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know Christ.

Please pray for Thai nonbelievers

Colossians 1:6 ~ That the gospel will bear fruit and grow in their life as they hear it and that they will truly understood God’s grace. 

Colossians 2:13-15 ~ That they will be alive with Christ, have their sins forgiven and their condemnation taken way.

How He love us, oh, how He loves us!

Hi Everyone,

It has been way too long since I have last posted and my-oh-my has there been a ton of changes that have occurred in my life.

I am now attending Moody Bible Institute in Chicago after a long year of doing online classes. There is a ton I still need to process when it comes to my first year online with Moody, but I would like to share that another day. As of tonight, I would like to share a bit about the ministry trip to Thailand that I am preparing to go on with 7 Moody students, 1 Columbia student, and 2 leaders from Moody (March 8th-24th).

Over the course of the past two months, I have started to meet with the team in order to train for the Thailand ministry trip. A majority of the meetings have consisted of laughter and excitement for what God has in store for us, as a team, Thai believers, and Thai nonbelievers. Since it is late at night and I need to go bed at somewhat reasonable time (yes, I know it is college, but I still need to be maintain a healthy sleeping schedule) I will explain a bit of what happened at the meeting tonight (6-9pm).

As always, our team met in the Commons and then headed to the activity room near Joe's. I was rather excited for this meeting because this time we would be talking about prostitution, which I have a passion to fight against by raising awareness, providing intervention, and giving support (signing petitions in order to make the government more aware of the seriousness of this ever-growing issue, etc). I know from here I can keep on talking about my passion for this special field of ministry, but I would like to still try to stay on track and explain how the night first started out. Well, Levy and Nok (the two leaders of our team) began to ask us questions to see how we all were going. Once we all talked amongst one another and let each other know how we were doing, Nok went through a bit of the schedule for the trip and then took out copies of a worksheet that had some Thai language on it. She likes to go through Thai language lessons most every team meeting, so we do not head to Thailand without being familiar with numbers, and how to ask questions (e.g, Hi, my name is Ashley. What is your name?). Most of the questions that we are learning to ask are intended to help group members be able to become better acquainted with the Thai people by seeing how they are doing. Also, we have been learning to ask certain questions, such as Can I have this dress for a cheaper price? so we are able to bargain for better prices when we are in the market place. I found out that for the most part, bargaining prices in Thailand is rather common . Today, we learned how to say the word beautiful, which in phonics can be translated as suay. I cannot way to say this word to the girls I will meet in the bars that are located in the red light districts of Bangkok; and for any of those who don't know, red light districts are apart of urban areas and consist of brothels, strip clubs, prostitution, etc.

Once we finished up our Thai language lesson, Nok and Levy had us run through our group skit again that we will be doing at different places we visit in Thailand (churches, schools, etc).

Once we finished going through our skit, then Levy put on a documentary about sex trafficking. This documentary was not as shocking to me because I have watched a documentary about sex trafficking before, but still it was heart wrenching to hear the stories of former and current prostitutes who are struggling in life and feel like prostitution is their easy fix to make money or was an "easy" avenue to take in order to make a quick buck. I was encouraged because at the end of the documentary, some of the women who were interviewed began to speak about God's love for them. As they began to speak about God's love, tears began to stream from their eyes out onto their cheeks. As one of the former prostitutes (forgive me for referring to her in this way, I forgot her name) was talking about the love of God she began to weep. This kind of weeping that I saw that beautiful woman experience at that moment was a way of healing from past hurt and brokenness. I could sympathize with those emotions of sadness, joy, pain, etc., because I, too, have experienced abuse, so I know the hurt that trails after it. However, I also have learned and experienced the love of God in my own life, so I can sympathize with the tears of joy that I am sure that woman had shed. God's amazing love is so overwhelming! :)

I will write more tomorrow, Lord willing, so I will now close out this written entry with a song called How He Loves by David Crowder Band

 

As you watch this video and listen to the music, please pray for victims and survivors of sex trafficking. Pray for rescue and restoration. Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world!