Schooling and Exploitation

Hey, Barb here! Today: wow! Today was our first day experiencing our ministry roles. I greatly enjoyed mine. This morning Brad, Melissa, Matt, Glen and I all headed out to Anubaan Chaing Mai around 8ish this morning. Not so early really, but when you had an awful night of sleep, it seemed earlier than reality. Upon arrival to the school, we met with the what I would call the principal/headmaster of the school. He spoke with us for a bit then took us to the classes that he hopes we would work with. We will be working with two fourth grade classes, and two fifth grade classes. Each of these classes are connected to the English program. Therefore, they have foreigners teaching English, math, and science, all in English. At least that was the case in the fifth grade classrooms. As the headmaster introduced us to the teachers we were introduced as follows: Melissa, Brad, Bob, and Mak. Mind you, all of this was in an hard Asian accent. Matt and I corrected him once. I am now Barbara to the Thai people because it is apparently much much easier for the Thai people to say. I enjoyed observing in the classes today. Brad and Melissa actually got to work with groups of students, helping them to memorize and act out poems that are English. Melissa even taught her group how to high five! After school today we caught a songtaew back to our accomodations to chill out. I was hoping to get a bit of reading in and a short nap, but a few of the boys showed up to spend some time with us. No big deal at all. I really enjoy just hanging out with the team, especially today when they had been elsewhere. It was nice to hear their experiences prayer walking and at Chaing Mai University. Soon enough, it was time for the team to meet back up and head over to the Garden of Hope. The Garden of Hope is a ministry that is based towards the women and children in prostitution. The team went through the short training of the ministry and then we headed out to do some prayer walking in the area that the ladies will be heading out to. Honestly, that was very very difficult. Mind you, Thailand is the red light zone capital of the world. Chaing Mai is the red light zone capital of Thailand. As Mark put it: "When you go out there it's almost like stepping into Hell." I saw exactly why he said that while we were prayer walking. We were there in the early evening: maybe 4:30ish and already many of the women were standing outside the edge of their bar, being exploited. As we walked and stopped and prayed, I was burdened and pained to see the women like this. It makes me angry that people would do this to the epidomy of God's creation. This is not what they were created for! Oddly enough, when I would say hello the women and give them a genuine smile, there was a peace about it. I know God called me here for this: even though I have absolutely no idea why some moments. Tomorrow night the ladies, excluding Laurie because she will be out at Sao Patong village will meet up with the other staff of the Garden of Hope and go and talk with these women. Please pray for us as we do this. Pray that God not only protects our own hearts, but that He is evident, even in the burliest of moments. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for the Thai people and us in the next few days. I thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. You will never know how much it has truly meant for us.