Hi Everyone! Can you believe I've been in Thailand almost three weeks? It's been an amazing time or learning and adjusting so far. I am enjoying the immersion in a totally new culture. Being able to experience a new language, food, and practices is stretching and challenging at time and other times it's exciting and fun; often it's a mixture of all four. Even though they don't have a whole lot with this post I'm throwing in random pictures just so you can see what I've been up to with your own eyes.
There are six of us going through a month of training at Impact School of Missions in preparation for various internships across South East Asia. We have classes and training up until the end of the month; in October we all officially move on to our internships! Our month at ISM consists of classes
involving classes on the culture, language, effective ways to minister and serve, culture shock/stress, learning about ourselves, and many more. We explore some of the typical tourists spots in order to get acquainted to the culture we're now living in. We are also given the opportunity to get some hands on experience in various areas of serving and working.
Thus far we've served in children's ministry, a couple people have shared their testimonies, we were able to volunteer at Samaritan Creations cleaning and whatever else they needed; today we visited an Immigration Detention Facility. An Immigration Detention Facility is different than a prison in the fact that everyone there is there due to visa violations of some sort. They could have been there illegally, stayed past their visa dates, or any other violation. Some of them would be there a few months and some a few years. Sometimes entire families are living in this facility. We were given the name of the person we would be visiting with when we got there and just some basic information about them; such as where they were from and family facts, etc. I was expecting to end up in a room with tables and chairs where you meet up with your person and you're able to sit down and talk; that is not the case. You walk into a concrete room with two fences down the middle of it. All of the visitors on one side and all of the people in the facility on the other. It's hot, crowded, and you have to yell in order to have a conversation with people on the other side of the fence from you. It was very chaotic and confusing to say the least. It took me a while to find my person, when I was finally able to locate her we had to yell to hear each other but it was worth it.
The woman I was there to see was in the facility with her sister. Two of us were able to speak with
the sisters and hear their story. They were from Pakistan and had fled to Thailand to escape persecution they were facing because of their Christian faith. Only one of them had ever been married and her husband was dead as was their father. Due to the nature in which the left their country they were in violation of immigration and visa laws and were arrested and placed in the detention center. A place where they felt safer than they did at their own home. Jail was safer for them than their own beds.
My whole life growing up I heard about the "persecuted church" and I've prayed, given money, and moved on with my life. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to volunteer at Voice of The Martyr's and it was an amazing and life changing experience. It challenged me in the way I responded to people being persecuted for their faith. It helped stop seeing those being persecuted as a far away "church" and realize that it's my family out there being persecuted. It truly changed my perspective and heart towards my hurting brothers and sisters. Even still, it's one thing to pray and fast and intercede and it's a completely different matter when your persecuted family is standing right in front of you. These are the women we read about in our church newsletters. These are the women we hear about in the news. If we're really honest with ourselves, often times these are the women we say a half-hearted prayer for, send five dollars to, and then never think about again.
Being able to stand there and hear their story was in and of itself moving, convicting, and amazing. Yet before I ever uttered a word to offer to pray or do anything else for these women the looked at me and thanked me for visiting them and told me they would pray for me every day, and they meant it. I have no doubt in my mind that they will pray for me every day. They know what it is for prayer to be the only tool you have to rely on. My initial reaction was that they shouldn't be praying for me, I pray for them. Then I was so humbled because, they are current heroes of the faith and they want to intercede and pray for me. They continued to tell us about the fellow Christians in the facility that they worship and study The Word with. They told us a little about their families and themselves. Then as we began to pray with a for them they grabbed their scarves and covered their heads. That simple gesture touched me more than I was expecting. If we're not careful we can see covering your head for prayer as strange as pointless but when I saw them cover their heads in prayer I saw a complete and total dedication and love for Christ. I saw such a self denial that they were putting themselves in danger to serve God. I saw women who when the world tells them they have every reason to hate God and turn their back on Him they instead offer him themselves with the highest amount of respect and love for who He is. I was truly honored and humbled to be able to speak with these women, provide a small amount of food, and pray for and with them As we were
leaving they thanked us and told us again that they would be praying for us.
I don't know what will happen to these women or where they'll go from here. I know that they have changed my life and that I will continue to pray for them and I ask you to do the same. They aren't statistics or a news report or article. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. They are our fellow believers. Our family and they are suffering for everything we take for granted. We want to throw a fit and blame God because things don't go our way at work. Well they are being killed for God and yet they worship and love him like we have never known. We all need to take a look at ourselves and examine how much we're willing to give up for our faith and face the reality that there are people all over the world actually giving their lives for it.
There are six of us going through a month of training at Impact School of Missions in preparation for various internships across South East Asia. We have classes and training up until the end of the month; in October we all officially move on to our internships! Our month at ISM consists of classes involving classes on the culture, language, effective ways to minister and serve, culture shock/stress, learning about ourselves, and many more. We explore some of the typical tourists spots in order to get acquainted to the culture we're now living in. We are also given the opportunity to get some hands on experience in various areas of serving and working.
Thus far we've served in children's ministry, a couple people have shared their testimonies, we were able to volunteer at Samaritan Creations cleaning and whatever else they needed; today we visited an Immigration Detention Facility. An Immigration Detention Facility is different than a prison in the fact that everyone there is there due to visa violations of some sort. They could have been there illegally, stayed past their visa dates, or any other violation. Some of them would be there a few months and some a few years. Sometimes entire families are living in this facility. We were given the name of the person we would be visiting with when we got there and just some basic information about them; such as where they were from and family facts, etc. I was expecting to end up in a room with tables and chairs where you meet up with your person and you're able to sit down and talk; that is not the case. You walk into a concrete room with two fences down the middle of it. All of the visitors on one side and all of the people in the facility on the other. It's hot, crowded, and you have to yell in order to have a conversation with people on the other side of the fence from you. It was very chaotic and confusing to say the least. It took me a while to find my person, when I was finally able to locate her we had to yell to hear each other but it was worth it.
The woman I was there to see was in the facility with her sister. Two of us were able to speak with the sisters and hear their story. They were from Pakistan and had fled to Thailand to escape persecution they were facing because of their Christian faith. Only one of them had ever been married and her husband was dead as was their father. Due to the nature in which the left their country they were in violation of immigration and visa laws and were arrested and placed in the detention center. A place where they felt safer than they did at their own home. Jail was safer for them than their own beds.
My whole life growing up I heard about the "persecuted church" and I've prayed, given money, and moved on with my life. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to volunteer at Voice of The Martyr's and it was an amazing and life changing experience. It challenged me in the way I responded to people being persecuted for their faith. It helped stop seeing those being persecuted as a far away "church" and realize that it's my family out there being persecuted. It truly changed my perspective and heart towards my hurting brothers and sisters. Even still, it's one thing to pray and fast and intercede and it's a completely different matter when your persecuted family is standing right in front of you. These are the women we read about in our church newsletters. These are the women we hear about in the news. If we're really honest with ourselves, often times these are the women we say a half-hearted prayer for, send five dollars to, and then never think about again.
Being able to stand there and hear their story was in and of itself moving, convicting, and amazing. Yet before I ever uttered a word to offer to pray or do anything else for these women the looked at me and thanked me for visiting them and told me they would pray for me every day, and they meant it. I have no doubt in my mind that they will pray for me every day. They know what it is for prayer to be the only tool you have to rely on. My initial reaction was that they shouldn't be praying for me, I pray for them. Then I was so humbled because, they are current heroes of the faith and they want to intercede and pray for me. They continued to tell us about the fellow Christians in the facility that they worship and study The Word with. They told us a little about their families and themselves. Then as we began to pray with a for them they grabbed their scarves and covered their heads. That simple gesture touched me more than I was expecting. If we're not careful we can see covering your head for prayer as strange as pointless but when I saw them cover their heads in prayer I saw a complete and total dedication and love for Christ. I saw such a self denial that they were putting themselves in danger to serve God. I saw women who when the world tells them they have every reason to hate God and turn their back on Him they instead offer him themselves with the highest amount of respect and love for who He is. I was truly honored and humbled to be able to speak with these women, provide a small amount of food, and pray for and with them As we were leaving they thanked us and told us again that they would be praying for us.
I don't know what will happen to these women or where they'll go from here. I know that they have changed my life and that I will continue to pray for them and I ask you to do the same. They aren't statistics or a news report or article. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. They are our fellow believers. Our family and they are suffering for everything we take for granted. We want to throw a fit and blame God because things don't go our way at work. Well they are being killed for God and yet they worship and love him like we have never known. We all need to take a look at ourselves and examine how much we're willing to give up for our faith and face the reality that there are people all over the world actually giving their lives for it.
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