Our time in Thailand is almost at an end, and I don’t know where to begin!  

This month has been joyful, heartbreaking, frantic, comfortable, humid, spicy, colorful, urban, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, girlie, peaceful, stormy, fun, stressful, creative, chaotic, satisfying, fascinating, and sweaty.  Each of those adjectives could be its own blog, but for now, I’ll just leave you with some of this month’s most salient points about our ministry here.

I loved the work we did.

At Zion Cafe we worked in a variety of ministries.  We established relationships with sex workers in the touristy red light district surrounding Zion (the cafe also runs a program to help prostitutes leave the sex industry and start new lives).  We went to slums to play with children and Buddhist temples to chat with monks.  We worked in the coffee shop downstairs (we weren’t allowed to touch the espresso machine) and walked around the city, praying and meeting people.  

 In short, this month was all about building relationships.  It wasn’t about numbers or results.  We did not keep a tally of souls saved or Bibles distributed.  Life this month was like life at home, in that the ministry we did was very natural.  Our job was to go where our hearts were, meet people, and be kind, loving, and open with them.  

For me, that looked like spending a lot of time at the many Buddhist temples in Chiang Mai.  It was like being a religion major again, going to the temples’ “Monk Chat” programs and exchanging teachings of Buddhism and Christianity, of Thai and American culture.  I’m fascinated by monasticism and the little I know about Buddhism, and to be able to talk with practitioners was an honor.  And it was a joy to share my own faith with the monks there, who were eager to ask questions and hear about where I came from. 

This month I also had the opportunity to focus on one of my recently-neglected hobbies: painting!  Zion Cafe is filled with colorful murals, painted by past World Racers, and our host asked us to paint two for her: one in front of the building, and one in a hallway.  Kori, her mom Janice, and I painted the first one pictured below. Tara and I threw up the second one just this week over three days.  

 One more thing.  When we hear about doing mission work and volunteering in Thailand, I think many people’s minds jump to human trafficking, and for good reason.  Thailand is a major source and destination in the sex industry, meaning that many people work in it come from poor villages and towns in Thailand, and that people travel here to take part in it all.  In many cases, the men, women, and children sex workers have been deceived or coerced into this profession, hoping to move to a city and get a good job.  But Thailand is unique in the fact that some families knowingly send their children “to the city” to work in the sex trade and support them.

It’s a heavy issue, and one I can’t hope to cover adequately here.  Suffice it to say, it is a strange, strange feeling to walk through the red light district, past a hundred bars, invited in by 14 year old girls who tell you they are 18.  It is strange to see normal looking (usually) white people with normal smiles and good manners frequenting these bars night after night.  The evil can be subtle when everyone acts happy and silly and innocent in the bars, and it can be blatant when your teammates return, shaken, from visiting a dingy strip club or a restaurant where you can order women off the menu.  It is sad, and infuriating, and it makes me feel helpless because this is a system that can’t be taken down in a day, and has no simple solution.  

But it is also strange, because we went to those bars five nights a week to make friends with the people there, and even in the crushing stuck-ness of their situations, we laughed together.  We played pool and Connect Four.  We didn’t just establish awkward missionary-sex worker relationships.  We became actual friends with the girls here.  We met girls and ladyboys (biological males that dress as women) who have met other World Racers before us and with whom we quickly connected.  We went into the bars not as clients looking to buy someone’s body, but as friends.  And while buying a girl a soda and looking at pictures on each other’s phones might not seem like much in the face of her harsh reality, it is powerful to be there with her just like it is powerful for God to be there with us.  And by the way, if the God that thwarted Mozambique’s big scary systems last month is the God with everyone in this red light district now, I know love and justice are more relentless.

We are leaving Thailand (tomorrow), but more World Racers will come next month to the monks and art projects and children.  And they’ll continue going into the bars, meeting people, showing them love, and offering a way out if any so choose.  It’s a big, complicated problem.  But there are many, many people out here chiseling away at an industry of deception, shame, lust, and confusion with love, pure motives, and Connect Four. 

A (very blurry- sorry!) photo of my parents and I in the red light district during the Parent Vision Trip