Thailand March 6

Another synopsis: More details and pictures to follow later on my blog:

We are ending another busy day in Pattaya. Mikki, Sarah, and I had a great day ministering today. We began the day by visiting in two prisons, passing out food, water, and fruit, handing it through the bars to the inmates. Usually all the cells are full and there are lots of children in them but today there were only half full and we found no children. I for one was happy that no children were sitting in cells, so we can thank God that that was the case on this particular day.
One of the ladies from the Tamar Center has been ministering in these prisons three times a week for quite some time. We were able to pray for a couple of the women and pass out tracks to those who wanted them. We learned to say "Swadeeka" in Thai which means, hello and prayed for them as each one took the food from us. It was so sad to see these men and women, I could feel nothing but love and compassion for them. I felt no fear, only love. This is totally amazing to me as all of this is totally out of my comfort zone, but it is a testimony to myself that God is doing a work in my life and teaching me how to walk in Jesus' shoes. This is what I have been praying for in my own life for sometime. Please continue to pray for me that I will keep my eyes on Jesus so I can walk in the power of His might daily. It is such an awesome thing to walk in.

It is not unusual for the girls to be arrested for prostitution if the bar owners haven't paid their bribes to officials. The owners don't get arrested but the girls do. Prostitution is illegal here but there are literally thousands of prostitutes on the streets here and bars are an endless sight so bribes are a part of life. The way it works is that the bars only sell drinks. If you buy a drink, the girls must entertain you and talk to you. If you choose to take a girl out of the bar, you have to pay a bar fee, then the girl is yours for however long. If you take her to a hotel, you pay a service hotel fee to the hotel for your extra guest and then you pay the girl for her services.


Later we went to a mission and helped with a party for children of the area. They frosted heart shaped cookies and decorated them, the first time they had ever had an opportunity to do that. They did a great job and seemed to enjoy it greatly. The mission is run by an Australian teacher here. We got to lay hands on the kids and pray for them. They were so thankful for the prayers and hungry for love. We passed out candy and the paper heart cards our kids at Grace House had made for them. It was interesting at how from two parts of the world God threw a theme party! Hearts from AL to pass out and heart cookies to decorate and hugs to be given out! Isn't it just like God to choose LOVE for his theme?????? Oh, He is such a great creative God!!!!!!! I knew He LOVED parties!. We are going to pass out the rest of the cookies on the streets. What was interesting was that before we left and our church family prayed over us, that Mikki was given the word "cookie". That God was going to do something powerful that involved cookies. We had no idea! Mikki came looking for God and when they told us that we were going to help with cookies. We got excited! Sometimes we may not see all that God does behind the scenes but we can trust Him that he HAS done something to add to his kingdom.

There was an adjoining youth mission called the Crossing where youth hang out and skateboard, play pool, etc.

We had some interesting Thai food today, too. Jason and Sarah Ricketts, our missionary friends, have an amazing work laid out before them here and are doing a fantastic job. i'll tell you more about the work God has laid on their hearts later.
Love, Melissa