So many many amazing things are happening on this trip, its hard to figure out what i want to share right now…

I can’t remember if i’ve wrote this already, but Saturdays are my busiest days, I have Saturday School from 9-12, guitar lessons from 2-4 then we spend time in a poor area from 5-6 which usually ends up turning into 7. But today was the most special Saturday yet. Last night half our team got a glimpse of a red light district (a story for another time) by accident and it broke our hearts. Seeing it on film and hearing about it makes us cringe with sadness… but actually being there is way different and so much more intense. I cried the whole way back in the taxi and most of us cried while we prayed when we got back to our place. Being so close to the prostitutes and feeling how real it is and the darkness in Thailand was so evident… it made me cheerish Saturday school even more this morning. I looked into all the little kids’ faces and prayed that they would not fall into the lifestyle we walked by the night before.

After Saturday school Grace and  I continued working on the mural we’re painting for the church when one of the girls from the school 4 of our teammates are teaching at, Am, showed up. Am just kinda hung around, helped me and Grace carry paint buckets around until 2:00. None of the kids showed up for guitar lessons, so I invited Am to stay at the church and I’d teach her guitar. She already knew the A chord, so I taught her D and G… giving her the skills to play the song “God is so good”. We practiced that song for about an hour.. singing it in English and Thai when Pi Roong came out of the church office and sat with us for a bit. She watched us play guitar and then just straight up told Am in Thai “Jesus loves you”. and I guess hearing that love touched her and she began to cry… I knew that look on her face, it was the same one I had on when Helen Livingston told me I was loved by a King. Pi Roong continued to share the gospel with her for the next couple of minutes and at the end of those couple of minutes, Pi Roong asked her if she wanted to accept Jesus and she did! She prayed for Am and she became a new sister in Christ today! Seeing how those 3 simple words “Jesus loves you” touched her compelled me to give my bracelet away. The bracelet that came from my own personal testimony and reads “loved by a King”. I tried to explain to her what the bracelet meant to me and what I hoped it would do for her… I pray that it would remind her that she belongs to Christ now and that nothing can separate her from the loves that comes with being in Him.

SUPER exciting! Am is special to me… although I’m not quite sure why. I’ve only talked to her once before today and it wasn’t for a very long time. But it excited me to see her randomly show up at the church today just to hang out and I was so glad she was there. Be praying for our new sister, Am! That she would be rooted in Christ, that even as our team is getting ready to leave Thailand, people would be there to minister to her and that she would grow into an amazing woman of God.

God has been teaching and showing me so many amazing things on this trip. We have less than a week left here and even tho I miss home I don’t feel quite ready to leave. God has really broken my heart for the Thai and it’s been amazing being here, loving these people thru God’s love… and I think this trip has really taught me what that means. Some of the kids that we’ve been playing with on the street are really really naughty. and I think back home, if I played with kids like that, I’d get super frustrated and maybe even try to avoid them. But here, when i look into their faces, I can can clearly see their desire for love and God gives me love that could never be from me… to have patience and show them Jesus’ love. I love walking out of our condotel and seeing them ready to terrorize us (in love). Pray for those little kids.. that they’d stay in BanSuan church long after we leave Thailand and that one day they will come to know Jesus.

Only 6 days left of ministry.. then we go back to the OMF Bangkok home for a few days before flying back to the US.

with love, peace, and joy,

Katie