Thailand
June & July 2005
The more I travel, the more I realize how richly blessed we are. I have been invited to go to Thailand on a unique missions outreach to help orphans and street kids. I will be going with our church, Coast Vineyard, and approximately 25 young people. We are planning to travel to rural and extremely poor areas throughout Thailand. Our purpose will be to provide prayer, encouragement, supplies, ministry and other aid to orphanages, street kids, schools, and churches.
Our trip is scheduled from June 27 to July 8, 2005. I am very excited to be able to go with my daughters, Melissa (18) and Jessica (16).
Please pray for our safety, protection and success. If you are led to financially support this trip, we are asking for donations for medical supplies and financial help for the orphanages and safe houses. Safe houses rescue children and teenagers from the street. Donations made through Morningstar Foundation are tax deductible.
Thank you for considering this very important and worthwhile cause. May the grace of God bless you.
Post Trip Comments
August 2005
This brief overview summarizes the highlights of our missionary trip to Thailand. Our team of 28 teenagers and twenty something youth were quite brilliant at the way they handled all the interesting things that we had to deal with. Our18 hour Thai Airlines flight had a short layover in Osaka, Japan. I noticed the restrooms were quite high tech with very cool looking electronic flushers, water faucets and hand dryers. In the back of the plane, I was able to joke around with and develop rapport with a Thai businessman who works for NCR and had been traveling to USA on business. He let me pray for his new business venture and I asked God to give him faith and salvation as we started descending into Bangkok—that was fun. (I exchanged emails with him and have since received a very gracious and thankful email since returning).
We landed in Bangkok. Bangkok is an incredibly busy airport. All of our 500 pounds of medical supplies that we brought (smuggled) in made it through! When the security lady opened up one of the bags and asked me in Thai what the 10 bottles of Amoxicillin were, I just said “Medicines”. She looked at me…. and I suppose I don’t look like your typical drug smuggler---so they let us go. That was good!
After a harried ride from the airport to the Bangkok Christian Guest House, I finally fell asleep around 3am and got up for an early morning run at 6:30am. The streets of Bangkok are crowded with street vendors, pedestrians and lots and lots of cars and motorcycles. I ran with one of our team members, Laura and as we finished, I noticed this man without legs and terribly infected teeth begging for money. I gave him 100 baht (about $2.50) and his eyes got big as I prayed for him.
We left Bangkok and headed out for Chiang Mai that morning. Compared to Bangkok, Chiang Mai is paradise: much less polluted, crowded and the atmosphere is less hectic. We stayed at a place called Mountain View Christian Guesthouse. On the very top of the house was a gazebo area that was really awesome for meetings and praying together in groups.
Our sub team of eight (who arrived a week later) was stationed in Chiang Mai which is located in the Northern part of Thailand. The other 20 team members came back from an amazing trip to Laos. One interesting thing that happened in Laos was that two of our team members Sean and Wayland tried to swim across a river and had to be rescued. As Sean relays the story to me: “I knew I was going to die in the river if God didn’t save me” Sean had been dunked by river eddies several times and he was losing it when he prays and suddenly a branch appeared out of nowhere. When I saw that one branch I knew it was like God’s hand reaching out to save me. Sean was able to climb out and flag down some Laotian fisherman who just laughed at these crazy Americans who were trying to swim in this very swift moving river.
The entire 28 member team visited an orphanage called Im Jai House (see www.imjaihouse.com) in Chiang Mai that was run by a very dynamic lady, by the name of Miss Ladda Timkunta. In a country that is almost predominantly Buddhist, it was interesting to see how this sweet Christian lady had created a loving family environment where the focus in developing each child’s relationship with Christ. We delivered about ¼ of our medical supplies to Im Jai House and truly enjoyed holding, playing and praying for their 50+ kids.
The next day we met with the team from International Justice Mission. IJM is a human rights agency that rescues victims of sexual exploitation, violence, slavery and oppression. We were able to give them about 200 pounds of medical supplies including several first aid kits which they had requested. Sean Litton, who heads up IJM for all of Southeast Asia, told us some amazing stories of how IJM prosecutes and builds an international law case against the brothel owners who are sometimes just as powerful as MAFIA members and who have deep local and governmental police connections and political leader protectors. Our meeting with IJM was extremely eye opening and meaningful and we were all very excited to have met with the IJM team. (Go to www.ijm.org for more info).
Our team got a chance to pray and bless the IJM team and they were quite thankful.
Next we visited New Life Center, also in Chiang Mai. The New Life Center works with tribal girls who are at risk for labor exploitation and victims of abuse and human trafficking. As it turns out, the New Life Center had a very positive working relationship with International Justice Mission. IJM had rescued and referred several girls to New Life Center. Each organization had a different ministry to help the girls rebuild their lives. Sexual abuse trauma can take years to heal and the New Life Center is very gifted in praying and ministering to these precious girls. We learned the story of one of their girls, Sara who had been born in Thailand into an Akha family tribe. As an infant, she was sold into a Mien family. Sara was raped at aged 8 and later sold to a brothel in Chiang Rai by one of her relatives. She was forced to work in a brothel for approximately 2 ½ years where she was beaten and abused. The brothel was finally raided and Sara was brought to New Life Center in April of 2002. We gave away most of the remaining medial supplies to this group. Go to www.newlifethailand.org for more info on New Life Center.
Our entire team of 28 split up into three sub teams with one group going to Cambodia to minister to a safe house rescuing girls out of human sex trafficking. Another team went to the refugee camps on the border of Burma and our team stayed in Chiang Mai. Our team of 11 was made up of Melissa and Jessica (my two daughters) Jamie and Michelle, (our pastor and his wife) Jamie’s three kids, Nate, an American missionary, Lisa, James, and Courtney.
One of the most interesting meetings that we had was set up by Nate who was friends with an American missionary couple named Mark and Astrid. They told us fascinating stories about going into Vietnam to smuggle bibles where the entire group of people ahead of them were meticulously searched as well as the people behind them… but they were let through without being searched. They had just come back from Vietnam where they just found out that 13 Vietnamese had been killed for being Christian. But the most exciting story they told us was about the National hero of Vietnam who was the key general who overtook Saigon in 1975 and drove the Americans out. This man had committed to become a Christian on one condition: if he was healed on Christmas Eve December 24, 2004. Apparently, this general was approximately 80 years old and had a life threatening disease. During 2004, he became increasingly more ill and finally he died…. on Christmas Eve, 2004. Several doctors witnessed and pronounced him dead and they prepared a death certificate and started preparing for an elaborate national funeral. Several hours after his death, Jesus came to him, healed him and resurrected his life. Our Lord completely restored the National hero of Vietnam to health where now he looks like he’s only 50 and he tours the country proclaiming Jesus as his Lord and savior waving his death certified as proof that Christ is the resurrected Lord! Wow! Now that’s a story you won’t hear about on CNN!!!
The next day we traveled to a mountain tribal village Christian church. There are approximately one million tribal people living in Thailand, scattered throughout almost 3500 villages like the one we were visiting. Tribal people are guaranteed Thai citizenship. This lack of status, coupled with a growing decline in their ability to sustain their traditionally nomadic lifestyle, has left tribal people highly vulnerable to poverty and exploitation. Each year, a number of tribal girls leave their homes under false pretenses and end up in exploitive labor situations. The van ride took over 3 hours but when we got there it was worth the trip! The church building was built with bamboo stilts above the ground. We arrived about an hour later then we had planned so the entire church was waiting for us singing worship songs. The Village pastor introduced us and we worshipped and then prayed for them. The girls performed a worship dance song that was quite impressive and it touched our team. We could feel their genuine and heartfelt worship and devotion to God. I tried to play doctor for an old man with a bad shoulder infection from a puncture wound. The amazing thing was that I would pour alcohol and hydrogen peroxide on his open wound and he would just smile! Everyone we prayed for were so thankful and sweet spirited. As we headed back to Chiang Mai, the rain game down hard for about a half hour and then it cleared up.
We arrived back in Chiang Mai and purchased 80 high quality Burmese bibles to smuggle into Burma. Burma which is now called Myanmar is a military controlled government. The government is extremely oppressive and their strategy is to consolidate control by forcing all villages out of the remote hills to Army-controlled sites, then using them as forced labor to serve the soldiers. Villages flee into hiding in the forests surrounding their farmlands. Then they try to survive from hidden rice fields around their villages fleeing from place to place whenever the Army patrols come around. Tens of thousands live this way in Burma. Essentially the power of the Army is rooted in the deep racism that has permeated Burmese society since its beginnings. The military exploits this racism by turning the people against each other and thereby increasing its power and fear creating a country at war with itself.
The next day, we got up early and prepared to leave for Burma. Melissa had started vomiting earlier that morning. After praying for Melissa, giving her some charcoal pills we decided to leave her at the guest house in Chiang Mai. This was a difficult decision for me as I felt a little uncomfortable leaving Melissa behind. Later, it turned out to be the right thing to do for us and Melissa.
The van ride to the Burma border near Chiang Rai was 3 hours. We arrived at the Burma border town and we found out that our Burma pastor contact had been arrested 3 days before. We unloaded all of our bibles at the Thai side of the border town. After 2 hours of paperwork, passport photos, and bureaucracy at the Burma border, we finally were allowed entrance into the country. As we entered Burma, you could immediately feel the darkness and oppression. I noticed the way this evil looking man was leering at Rose, Jamie’s 4 year old little girl.
Our taxi took us to the Burmese hotel. The hotel turned out to be a golf resort, casino and brothel built right next to poverty. We were told the government police were following us and that it was not safe to visit the orphanage that night. We had dinner with our Burmese contacts at the hotel and afterwards prayed for them in one of our rooms. We were told that all the hotels are bugged and monitored by the military government. They invited us to go to the orphanage at 5:30am the next morning. We went to bed early. The next morning, we walked to the orphanage from our hotel.
As we arrived at the orphanage which was a run down little building on stilts, we could hear the children singing worship songs. These little Burmese kids had such beautiful eyes. You could see their innocence and love. They sang songs for us. We sang songs for them and they laughed. We got a chance to pray for each of them and I took pictures that I promised to send. My fondest memory of our trip to Thailand was praying for a little boy whose foot was turned sideways as a result of a bout with tuberculosis when he was a baby. His face of gratitude and wonder stays with me.
After we prayed for the couple who ran the orphanage, it was time to walk back to the hotel. Although our stay in Burma was short, the trip to the orphanage remains locked in my memory as the highlight of our entire trip.
The drive back to Chiang Mai to catch our flight to Bangkok was pretty uneventful other than the fact that we weren’t sure we would be able to make it in time. We called ahead to check on Melissa and she had fully recovered from the stomach virus so she met us at the airport with all of our luggage and we just made our flight in the nick of time.
After landing in Bangkok, we were able to go to a Youth With A Mission Christian worship service. The worship was awesome and the people we met were great. I was able to pray for one of the leaders. The next day, one of our team members coming back from Cambodia got very ill with some kind of stomach virus. We prayed for her for several hours and she was fine the next morning.
As our team boarded the flight from Bangkok to Los Angeles, we couldn’t help but think about the wonderful people we were able to meet and minister to. I ended up talking with a Hindu woman from Nepal the entire 18 hours back and it was a blessing to pray for her to receive salvation through Christ. We are already beginning to prepare for our next trip to Southeast Asia which will most likely include a visit to Vietnam.
