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| Map of the Surat Thani Province |
This is a
story of faith. It’s a story of learning
how to grow in faith by trusting God for literally EVERYTHING. It’s a story of learning how to hear and
discern God’s voice when direction from Him is necessary. This story took place in South Thailand during
weeks 8-10 of my YWAM DTS (Youth With A Mission Discipleship Training
School). This is the story of my 19-day
Faith Outreach.
We didn’t
know where we would be going until we were given the bus ticket after arriving
at the bus station. There were 7 of
us. We were not allowed to bring smart
phones or any device that could access WIFI.
We had two ‘dumb phones’ that were used for emergencies and reconnecting
if we split up. We had no contacts and no chance to do research. We were going blindly by faith to a city none
of us knew, a city none of us had been to, trusting God would make the
connections for us. That city was Surat
Thani, Thailand.
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| At the bus station waiting for the bus to arrive |
PREPARATION:
We were given a budget of 50 Thai Baht
($1.65 USD) per person, per night for sleeping, 40 Baht ($1.30 USD) per person
per meal (breakfast was ramen noodles and toast with jelly), and 20 Baht ($0.70
USD) per person, per day, for transportation.
We had to trust God to stretch our finances and multiply them to provide
our needs during these 19 days.
The Friday before we left we had
intercession prayer for the outreach. During
the time we received words and visions from God. We saw,
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| Walking through the market |
-a
fruit market
-twinkling
lights
-an
old lady with a basket
-a
grandmother, mother, and child together
-patience,
don’t feel rushed
-work
together
-waterfall
with kids playing in it
-follow
Jesus no matter where He leads
-a
foggy place with us holding hands together
-be
positive and selfless
Except for the waterfall we saw and
experienced all of these things within the first 2 days. Even though we didn’t make any connections
the first day we were confident that we were right where God wanted us.
DAY 1:
Upon our arrival we prayed again
about what to do, got some more visions (which we saw while walking around)
then split up for a couple hours to check out the city center around the bus
station. We found a market to eat at and
some of the things from our vision Friday.
After dinner we walked to a pavilion near the fruit market to worship.
While worshiping a grandmother, mother, and baby walked into the pavilion to
rest. We couldn’t believe it!!!! Some of our Thai members went to speak with
them and she lead us to a cheap hostel.
After the worship the leaders
decided to take us to a hostel for the night to get a good rest. Most of us were looking forward to sleeping
in the pavilion but the rest was good. It was 200 Baht per person for the
night, which ate up 4 days worth of sleeping money, but we were trusting God would
provide what we had left to spend.
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| The fruit market I saw in my vision |
DAY 2:
After a
good nights rest, with air conditioning (something we don’t have at our DTS
base) we prayed again asking God for direction.
During this intercession time we saw,
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| The Pharmacy run by the pastor's son and daughter-in-law |
-a
river flowing through the door of the room we were praying in and that river
was the Holy Spirit
-a
bakery
-a
staircase on the outside of a building
-a
white curtain
-birds
-church
-business
run by Christians
-walking
two by two
After our
prayer we split up into groups of two to make connections and talk with people
about the culture of the city. During
that time we found some more things from past intercessions we hadn’t yet seen,
confirming again we were right where God wanted us. We also went to talk to churches we found in
the city from our first day of exploring. Then we came back to debrief.
Two of our
leaders shared about an experience they had at one of the churches they
visited. The pastor was not there so
they were given her phone number. But as they were leaving she walked into the
church. Even though she was busy she sat
and listened to our story. Then, without
being asked, she said the church had enough room for us to sleep and offered shelter
in the residence of the church for as long as we liked, no strings attached.
We were so excited and couldn’t
believe it when we heard! We wanted to
accept it but also wanted to make sure it wasn’t our own will desiring a place
to rest our heads. All of a sudden I
looked up from where we were discussing and saw a staircase outside a 3-story building
with a white sheet hanging from the side and a bunch of birds flying above the
building. We took that as a sign from
God. The other sign was the name of the
church, “Stream of Life Church.” All of
these things matched the vision we had received from God that morning.
When we got there we saw the church
was next to a river with a bridge going over and we slept on the third floor of
the building. In the guys room was a
sleeping pallet and 3 beds. This matched
a dream one of our members received the night before we left for outreach. Other situations that corresponded with our visions
were there was a bakery near the church and the son and daughter-in-law of the
pastor of that church own and run a pharmacy business!! All the visions from that day we prayed at
the hotel were met with the Stream of Life Church!!!
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| Cooling off in the air condition with my little brother |
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| The girl's room at the church |
DAY 3:
The first
morning at the church we had intercession asking God what we were to do with
the church connection we made. We prayed
again and got,
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| The night market with the twinkling lights |
-be
a blessing
-a
broom and mop dancing and singing
-serving
-discipleship
-kindergarten
-pray
for the leaders of the church
-listen
and don’t be stubborn
-a
church on wheels
We went to
the leaders and asked what they had for us.
They invited us to go do evangelism at the two local universities in the
city. They told us about a discipleship
camp they were going to have for the college students at the church. The also asked us to lead and speak at the
college cell group. We said yes. During evangelism we invited students to come
to the camp. One day at the mall one
lady some team members spoke with came to know The Lord and we were able to
connect her with the church.
The camp lasted 3 days and 2 nights
and also went really well. The youth had
a great time and said they felt very encouraged after! The staff also felt the
same way. We played games and had
opportunities to share testimony and speak to them. During this camp we took the youth to a clear
spring that had a waterfall fulfilling the vision of the waterfall.
This church
is located in a part of Thailand where only 0.2% of the 1.04 million people are
Christian (that’s 2,080 Christians).
They are busy doing outreach, and evangelism in the city and throughout
the province; partnering with other churches, discipling, and church planting. Each Sunday they average 2-3 new converts a
week. Since they are so busy, without a
lot of time or money to take care of the church, the church is dirty and hasn’t
seen a good cleaning in quiet a long time.
We had several opportunities to help clean the church for them.
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| Connecting with college kids at the university |
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| At the springs/waterfall with the college camp students |
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| The girl who received Jesus |
DAY 12:
After camp
we decided to pray again about what God was leading us to next. This intercession time left the group
extremely confused and torn as to what direction we should go. Half of us felt like we needed to stay and
half of us felt like we needed to go. We
prayed 2 times in the morning, took a lunch break, and then prayed again in the
afternoon. In our prayer times we got,
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| Teaching the Hokey Pokey to 3 year olds! |
-remote village
-shack
-dirt pile
-Baan Don (the name of another
church in the city)
-children in a building (either a
school or orphanage)
-the word ‘ask’
-kindergarten
Because of
these visions we thought maybe God was calling us to leave the church and go to
another place but some people really had peace about staying. Then we wondered if maybe God was calling us
to stay there but work in a different ministry within the church. We hadn’t done anything with the kindergarten
vision yet and it came back up so maybe there was something there. We also had no idea if the church even had
anything else for us to do.
Our main
leaders came back that afternoon to see what was going on and try to help
us. Little did we know the day before
the church called and asked them if we would be interested in going to a remote
village to do ministry work at a church plant of Baan Don church. We would work with kids, teaching English and
leading a bible study. Also, they had a
couple kindergartens for us to teach English at and an orphanage they wanted us
to visit.
The leaders didn’t want to tell us
because they knew we were going to pray about it and didn’t want the
information to sway our praying and asked the leaders of the church to wait
till after we pray.
Everything matched up with the
visions we were given for that day but we couldn’t understand why they seemed
so conflicting because we didn’t understand the big picture. Fortunately they were not conflicting to
God! He knew and was leading us even
though we didn’t understand. He brought
the two parts of the plan together and with that came understanding. God is a God of clarity, not confusion. If something doesn’t make sense and we ask
for Him to help us understand He will and He did.
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| At the orphanage |
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| At one of the kindergarten schools |
THE END
We ended up staying with the church
18 of the 19 days we were in Surat Thani.
Before this outreach we had no connections in this province and now we
have many connections. It was a great
time of building relationships, discipling, encouraging one another, blessing
each other, serving one another, and growing in our faith as we experienced it
ourselves and shared the journey with the church. In the end we had 3,000 Thai Baht ($90 USD)
left over from our budget and were able to bless the church financially with it. It might not be much but it’s money that was
left over in faith and I am sure will be used the same way.
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| Goodbye dinner the church hosted for us |
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| One last picture in front of the church before heading home |
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