home sweet colorado

We are home now! If you ever fly to Asia- Cathy Pacific is the way to go! Now we are getting settled and processing all that has happened the last two months.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and support.

It has been an incredible two months.

Also, please keep praying for NightLight and for change in Bangkok.

Love.

never keep it simple

here is the culprit: (only it really was McDonalds)

here is the result:

Friday night and into Saturday morning, Tony got sick. After throwing up many times I took him to the hospital where he spent the night getting fluids and antibiotics. The next day we found out he had a bacterial infection in his stomach and food poisoning. So he spent another day in the hospital. Here, he is rockin the IV. The hospital was very nice actually, he had a private room with a couch and flat screen TV with cable. They even put a rose in the room and gave him sponge baths, after sweet Thai nurses came in and asked, "You want me wash your body?" haha! Now he is back at home with more medication and taking it easy. Praise God for the great hospital and staff, and that Tony is doing better. I think he just wanted to do something different that weekend...

Here is the previous weekend, when we scrubbed down our friends new house.
And here is a picture of me on my birthday! We were at a pretty posh coffee shop.

Last week in Bangkok! Pray everything goes smoothly and pray for NL as they search for a possible new building.

2 weeks

2 weeks left to enjoy bangkok
to work at NightLight
to do outreach with NL or MST
to eat pineapple bought off the streets
to eat banana pancakes and mango sticky rice
to buy coffee from the same woman everyday
to have men try to sell you a suit everyday
to see rats in the trash, bats in the trees, and cockroaches under your feet
to walk the same path to work through a park dedicated to Jesus
to feel the sticky hot humid heat and cool pouring rains
to see the faces of women working at NL
to see the faces of women working in bars
to walk into houses barefoot
to see new life long friends
to smell bangkok...

Chang Awesome

Heres how sweet Chang Rai is...

Boat ride to elephants

Me riding on the elephants head with Molly, Audrey and our guide (so cool)

Tony and his new friend

Tony and I at lunch yummmm

Me in front of the White Temple

More of the White Temple

chang rai

We are in Chang Rai for a long weekend to visit the Fish family who Tony met last year in Thailand.

Chang Rai is beautiful! And the Fishes hospitality has been so amazing. Plus this is a welcome relief from Bangkok's polluted air. Chang Rai is more relaxed, less crowded, less western, and cheaper than Bangkok.

Tomorrow we will head back to NL!

tension.

megan:

There is a tension between the different sides of life here.

The work side, the outreach side, and the touristy/ everyday life side. Everyday starts with church 9-10. Then work 10-12. Lunch 12-1 and work 1-5. Work presents its own challenges, as I imagine any kind of job would. (Since I have limited work experience.) Plus is not just a business, but a ministry as well. But after about a month, we have a better idea of how things work around here and what we can do while we are here.

The outreach side is the most different side. It always starts with prayer. Then dinner, the same place, same meal every time. Then break into groups. Then go to a bar. Sometimes are harder than others. Sometimes I get to have a conversation with a woman sometimes I do not. I am always praying. Trying to make eye contact, smile or say hello. Play a game or hear about a womans dreams or children. Sometimes we are the only people in the bar, sometimes there are many customers, many women, or few women, lots of things going on, or nothing going on. Rituals, drinking, loud western music, lights flashing, cheap decor, dimly lit. a sprite in front of me. When we go home I feel relief to be out of the area- but my heart breaks a little more every time statistics become my friends.

Then the tourist side. There is more to Bangkok then prostitution- even if it is so notorious that any tourist book can tell you about red light districts. It is also true what the tourist books say about being careful that as falang (foreigner) you don't get scammed! Last Saturday we set off to visit the Kings Palace and as soon as we set foot on the curb: we were seamlessly intercepted into a fool proof procedure for scamming falang! Although we cant complain that much. We DID get to see two Wats as promised... but then we also got to see two very nice suit shops and three very nice jewelry shops. All for 30 Baht and two hours of our time. At least it was not really a money scam. Then we saw the Kings Palace and got to borrow some awesome clothes since we had shorts on.

I'm not sure how to handle all sides of life here. I do feel friction between them. I also feel challenged to see how big God really is. And how limitless his love is. Please pray for the women in the bars and for our outreach night.


tony:

I have now also been able to go on outreach 2 times. It is really strange, talking to men about what most men prefer to keep secret. In fact, I feel like the culture in the US would encourage you to keep quiet about sexual/relationship feelings/morality. Its becoming more and more apparent that sex is not all the men are here for. You see bars full of men sitting sharing drinks or a meal with a woman working in prostitution, trying to carry a conversation and it hits you. These men crave relationships....close relationships that they have not been able to attain with out a monetary cost. I find that particularly sad, since most of these men are from western areas. What in our culture has isolated these men so much that they feel a need to pay for love and kindness? Christians are supposed to give love freely (love thy neighbor), but it seems like we missed a few. Or have we missed a lot? I have realized how we are called to remember the forgotten, see the unseen, love the unlovable. I am so guilty of not doing this, and I am praying for this to change so that I may offer the love and grace that was shown to me first.

I have also found it difficult not to place a huge gap between me and the men. We are supposed to be non-judgmental. We are there to share love and grace, but how? We offer surveys to begin conversations (the data we collect is actually used though) and to convey that we care about what there going through. Anyways, its easy to put yourself on another level than that of these men, and that inhibits the ability to love. I know that I need to realize that I am one that was and is continually in need of love and grace. We are all on the same level, in fact under different life circumstances I can't say for sure that I wouldn't end up in same place as these men. When we place distance between each other...or when we apply status to our circumstances it inhibits the ability to love.

Christ called us to view each other as brothers and sisters, and not in just some hokey Christian jargon way, but as actual blood relatives. Now when i see a homeless Thai mother with her toddler sleeping on her lap, I can't help but see my own mother and sister sitting there (it's enough to bring you to tears). It has allowed me not to feel so awkward to bend over offer money, and say hello (I wish I could say more, but my Thai is so limited). If I haven't made it clear, this is related to my point about placing gaps between ourselves and those in need. If I were to see this woman and her daughter as just homeless, Thai, beggars, etc. I would have placed a huge barrier to me and this family, and if I want to help I would have to work hard get across this "gap" first, and the effort would feel like charity. However, when I narrow this gap by thinking of them as my own family, it places them right next to me. And when I try to help it's not "charity" it's just what you do for family. The same goes for the men in the sex trade, they are my brothers, and at times its hard to see that.. really hard, but I'm trying and praying that it would become more apparent to me. Please pray for this in me and our community as we try to show the love and grace we were given first.

our bangkok

pictures...

This is a park I get to walk through every day. It is small but a welcome change from the city! They even play music with some nature sounds so you don't hear all the traffic!


Tony and I on the way to Chatuchak weekend market... it is pronounced more like jatujak


Here is Tony and the King of Thailand. (On the skyscraper)

The market is HUGE. We didn't even make a dent in it. You're supposed to get good deals but since we are farangs (foreigners)- we didn't find any that day.


This is also where NL buys a lot of their beads...


Okay. Meet Benji. One of the cutest babies on earth.


See? I'm not joking!!Almost every morning we grab coffee from the sweetest lady who has a small coffee cart and makes a great iced mocha.

This is madness! A view looking down on some of Siam Paragon's escalators- we were on the top floor which has a VERY nice movie theater, bowling alley and karaoke.


This is the chandelier that hangs in the lobby area of the movie theater. You can't take pictures once you enter the theater, but the interior is as nice as the Buell Theater (for those from CO).

Here I am after I got my hair blow dried. I never thought I could enjoy having straight hair.


A sweet view from the boat we took down the Chao Phraya river.

A nice thai man took our picture on a boat we took to cross the river.


This is the Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn.

It was pretty hot that day.

The whole thing is very intricately designed with tiles, shells and even china plates.

Here we are on the third level, and behind Tony is the Kings Palace across the river.


Most people pose with the peace sign here- so I am fitting in nicely. That is more of the Wat behind me.


Scary! The stairs were so steep!!

This is more of Wat Arun and Tony!



Quick update:

Tony hasn't gotten to do outreach yet with MST yet. It has been raining a ton so it has been cooler but also more humid and muggy. Unfortunately, all this rain has made the roof of my bathroom fall through- due to rain collection above it for a long time. Someone should be out to look at it soon but some pipes for the AC run through there and my roomie and I were advised to not use AC. Thats the bad news- but the good news is that Tony will move into the other NL volunteer house and will get to sleep in AC!

We would appreciate your prayers for all the women we meet on outreach, and woman we cared for this weekend who is 5 months pregnant and has a 3 year old son. Other women of NL found her passed out on the road, kicked out of Starbucks and left on the sidewalk. They brought her to the house I am staying in and we kept an eye on her all night. Then in the morning NL staff shared with her about NL and offered her a job, but she insisted that she didn't want to be a prostitute and had another job lined up that she was starting soon. Please pray that she comes to NL and that her baby and son are okay.

Also, Tony just finished the book Irresistible Revolution by Shane Caliborune. He found it challenging and powerful as it states that it, "will disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed." A lot has been on his mind from and I am excited to read it soon as well.