Say What? Alright. I See You, God.

I’ve been asked a few times what our ministry looks like in Thailand. Well, here it is. It’s what we call ATL. But I’ll talk about that in second. First let me tell you how we got here. 

Many of you may not know but we were originally supposed to be in Chiang Mai, Thailand but God had different plans. On one of our layovers on our way to Thailand we got a message from our squad mentor back in the states that said the air pollution in Chiang  Mai was too bad and that we would be staying in Bangkok. Of course this was God’s plan all along we just didn’t know it and that’s okay cause God’s timing is perfect. Anyways! Over the next 48 hours God revealed more about what staying in Bangkok looked like for our squad. He gave us a super bomb place to stay, with so many places to go and people to minister to right at our fingertips! Seriously, His provision has been absolutely incredible. 

So what does ministry look like? Like I said, it’s what we call ATL. This stands for Ask. The. Lord. And that’s exactly what we do. Each day we agree to have quiet time and prayer from 8-10am. In that we each ask the Lord what he has planned for our day and we do it. Simple as that. 

It may look like street evangelism, prayer walks, bible study in a coffee shop, or literally ANYTHING. That’s really the key: being open to WHATEVER God has planned for us. We have to be continually praying and coming back to the Lord to ask “What’s next?” We’re not looking to convert all of Thailand. (Unless that’s God’s plan. Haha. That’d be freaking cool.) We’re looking to listen to and obey God in every minute of everyday. We want to say “Yes!” to even the craziest things God has planned for us day to day. 

Need more context on what I’m trying to say? Here are a couple examples of what this may look like put into action. 

1. YELLOW. Not the color. The word spelled out. Just like that. That’s what my teammate, Meme, felt like God was saying to her one morning. Well if you didn’t know, the national color of Thailand is yellow. Haha. It’s like, “Okay, God. Way to be vague.” But as we went through our day we saw a sign for a jewelry shop that had the word yellow written out on it. So Meme and I went inside. The shop owner spoke phenomenal English and said that one of his favorite things to do was talk to travelers. Cool! We talked about his job, traveling, and all sorts of things! We spoke about God and obedience to him. He was very receptive to what we had to say and he invited us back anytime to hang out. We plan on going back to talk more with him. Look at God. We would have never gone in that shop without Meme’s prompting from The Holy Spirit. 
2. We live right next to a river. I felt like I was supposed to prayer walk along the river and had a specific portion in mind I knew I needed to go to. Also, I really felt like my teammate Marilyn was supposed to go with me. We ended up deciding to prayer walk at a different time and in a different place but a few of us headed down to the part I felt we needed to go to anyways. There’s a restaurant there and we thought we would eat there for lunch. As soon as we sat down there was a man at a table near us who kept staring at us. He was clearly listening to all our conversations about listening to God and letting Him guide us and not worrying. Finally Marilyn made long enough eye contact with him to feel comfortable asking his name. From there we were able to talk to him about God being our guide. From our conversation it was so abundantly clear God has already started a work in Him. God was just using us as a small stepping stone to allow him to take another step towards God. What a great God that he gives us the opportunity to be a part of what He’s doing! 

I hope this gives you a better idea of what I mean when I say this month isn’t necessarily a month connected to a specific ministry but a month where we are asking the Lord and living out step by step what he is wanting from us. 

This is ATL. 

This is ministry. 

This is Life.