Bangkok, Thailand

Hey Everyone!
I'm in Thailand! I arrived here at 2 a.m. Sunday morning. I I slept for a couple hours then my team of 7 (Gerry, Paula, Roman, Gerdien, Jennelle, Eilidh, and meee) went out to explore our city. We are staying two blocks from the YWAM base in a hostal. The five of us girls have a room to ourselves on the second floor. Everything (literally) opens up onto the streets. It's kind of like the front of the building is like a garage door... and you sit on chairs and tables under a room but with walls opened... yah hard to explain I'll post pictures as soon as possible. The bathrooms are rediculous. The toliet is a hole in the ground, literally. The shower is in the same small room as the toliet and you hold something like a shower head to get cold water out. The city is dirty and very busy. There are dogs, street vendors, motor bikes, cats, and mud everywhere. I am very tall here and stand out soo much. Jennelle (one of my fellow students from Canada) has blonde hair and she got a lot of weird looks and people laughing and pointing at her hair.
Culture: Talk about culture shock. I mean on the way here from the airport I sat in the back of a pickup truck in a sort of built in seat with a cover (on the freeway). I am not suppose to wear shoes inside a house. I cannot show my shoulders or knees. I cannot go anywhere without a guy (duh) and I can't touch anyones head or point to something with my foot. The head is considered the holiest place on your body and the foot the dirtiest (that makes sense). That's why you see many Asians sit cross leged because if you show someone the bottom of your foot it's like saying, "I hate you." Here you can get thrown in jail if you do anything disrespectful towards their king. You can't say anything about him except that, "He is a very good man." It's so extreme that you can't even accidently step on money that has his face on it. :S
Food and Stuff: Everything is stupidly cheap. For example a sim card is $1.50 AUD and it cost me $3 to call home for an hour and a half. A 16 gb USB is $16 AUD and a plate of food that would cost about 10 bucks at home costs 25 bat. (30 bat is 1 Australian dollar and about 93 cents USA). It is out of control! I have the option of eating larva, cockaroaches (spelling?), grasshoppers, locus, and many other weird small bugs. In the street markets there are things like pig heads, thousands of pirated movies, clothes, food, desserts, fruit and veggies that I have never even seen before (tasting some now), and so many other things. The street markets go for miles. There is bowling alley near by as well as a mall, 711, internet cafe, university, and oh so much more.
Ministry: This morning we had orientation for about two hours. We talked about culture, what to do and not to do, learned some Thai words and phrases "where is the bathroom" "thank you" "how much is that" "hello" "goodbye" "I'm sorry," and bought some of the hand made cards, and jewelry that they sell here at the base. Now this jewelry isn't just hand made Thai jewelry. It's hand made Thai jewelry that woman who have been saved from the sex trade make to live off of instead of going to human trafficking. We watched a video about the minstries they work with here and it's amazing. I cried. I saw faces of women and children that are so poor as far as money goes and yet are fully aware that they are the richest people because they have been saved into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Tomorrow night we start outreach and I cannot wait. We're working with MST which is a ministry that works with the foreign men who come here and feed the sex trade. MST believes that we need to work with not only the people sold into the sex trade but also the buyers of this trade. Thousands of foreigners come here simply for the sex trade. Today Eilidh saw a white man (which is not common let me tell you) being lead around by a young Thai girl today. She looked on knowing full well that this man either "owned her" or bought her for the day. It was really hard for me today to walk around in the markets knowning that the color of my skin represented someone who was coming here for cheap sex. Many guys and girls looked at our group skeptically and yah it was hard.

Praise Reports:

The Samoa and Vanuatu team arrived safely! The Thailand Team arrived safely!! :) Praise God we have some amazing staff here who have been very helpful.

Prayer Requests:

Please pray for tomorrow. We are going to go on a temple tour of all the Buddhist temples around Bangkok and we'll get to see downtown bangkok. Please pray that we'll be a light in such a dark and broken place and that as continue to work with MST, Night Light, and King's Kids that God will do above and beyond our expectations.

I love you all and this is crazy being here but yah I wanted to let you know that I love you guys and am safe and all that.

God Bless,
-Shanna