A funny conversation about facial hair removal on Friday night turned into a prospective business opportunity for Rish in all of an hour.

Here's the story!
Rish was sitting on the couch at Sophia's house when she randomly asked the girl next to her if she had thread.  When the girl responded that she did, Rish offered to remove the facial hair above her lip for her! Haha.

This unexpected offer lead a group of us girls going into an upstairs bedroom to watch Rish "thread" the hair off of this girl's face, leaving it smoother than a baby's bottom.  As it turns out, Rish was a beautician back in Pakistan!  While more girls quickly lined up to be "threaded," Waan realized that this had the potential to be a great opportunity for Rish.  She could set up a small business out of Your Place Cafe above Newsong starting by word-of-mouth in our little community and hopefully expanding with some advertisements in the future.  Eventually as she is able to get supplies, she can move into hair cutting/styling, facials, mani's, and pedi's in addition to eyebrows and upper lips as she is doing now, which could greatly increase business.

Tonight was officially her first day of work and she had 1 customer.  It is our hope and prayer that this business will take off for her not only so that she can support her family, but also so that she can build relationships within the community, continue to gain work experience for the future, and hold onto that sense of accomplishment that we often take for granted when we are able to work hard to earn our money.

* Refugees and asylum-seekers in Thailand are prohibited from working which forces them against their will into the position of receiving handouts wherever they are available.  This is extremely difficult for them.  This informal job can help Rish to hold onto her dignity and sense of pride in her work.

Rish is extremely excited to begin, and we are excited for her too.  This is such a great opportunity for her to make money doing what she loves and bless others in the process.

Pray that God's hand would be upon her new business, for a strong customer base, and provision for her and her family.

Tonight I went on outreach with Sophia and Mackenzi into the red light district of Nana.  I have been going with Sophia into another red light district, Soi Cowboy on a weekly basis for several months now, but tonight she felt that we were supposed to go into Grace Hotel in Nana which is notorious for the trafficking of Eastern European women.

We started a short ways away from Nana where Sophia pointed out a tucked away staircase that lead to a government-protected brothel full of teenage girls.  We also stopped to pray outside of a bar that looked like a pretty normal sports bar from the outside but actually carts in many underage girls late at night, both Thai and Cambodian.
After that we went to visit bar girls that we have made friends with before heading to Grace Hotel.

Grace was surprisingly quiet inside, but it was still early.  There were a few prostitutes hanging around, but by the time that we were heading out a whole flood was coming in.

Sophia shared with us personal stories of helping women from Uzbekistan escape their oppressors while she was working with Night Light, the ministry mentioned in the video below. You can watch the full story here:

Our conversation was interesting because at the very base of it was the reality that in Thailand "money buys the law," as Sophia says.  In other words, it doesn't matter what is legal and what is illegal as much as who has the most money.  There are reasons that businesses like Grace Hotel are able to run so smoothly here in Thailand.  These reasons are not mentioned in the video and it's unlikely that you will find them online.  I would love to tell you exactly why, but because of certain laws I would probably be imprisoned, so I'd rather not.  For the moment I'll put it under the broad banner of "corruption."  I can explain more later upon returning to the states.

Please pray for Thailand.  Please pray for our government.  Please pray for the thousands of men, women, and children stuck in slavery both here and around the globe.  Thank you.

I just got off the phone with a woman from the Congo DRC who was literally squealing with joy when she found out that she could buy food.

Let me back up for a moment.
I met *Bellice a few months ago through Dwight at In Search of Sanuk.  He said that she was an asylum seeker living on her own and could really use a friend to hang out with.  So I started inviting her to gatherings at Newsong and checking in on her periodically.  It didn't take long to figure out that she was barely scraping by, often unable to afford food to eat.  One time I talked to her and she hadn't eaten all day.  I bought her food before service and she kept offering to share it with others!  At that moment I felt so selfish because I knew that if I was in her position I would have scarfed it down without a second thought.

As the story goes, the police raided her building a couple months ago so she had to move to a safer place.  She now lives significantly further away which makes it difficult to get together with her.  I called her today to check in and when I asked, "Do you have enough food to eat?" she responded with, "Oooooh how did you know that I have no food?!"  
She had been given a little extra money this month by In Search of Sanuk but was not sure if it was supposed to be for rent or food, because she didn't have enough for either.  So immediately she asked if she could use it for food because she has nothing to eat.  I made a quick call to Dwight to get a better picture of how much In Search of Sanuk has been helping her every month and we determined that I need to do an assessment with her because she clearly needs more help, but of course she can buy food! 

When I called her back to tell her that it's okay to buy food with the extra money she literally squealed with joy.  I had never heard anyone so excited to be able to eat before.  It wouldn't have surprised me if she was jumping up and down.  "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! God bless you! I am so happy that you are in my life! Thank you so much! I am going to go to the market right away!  I am so happy! I am going to eat right away! Thank you so much!" she continued to exclaim between squeals and giggles. Wow, my heart was undone.  This woman was SO excited about something so basic.  She was overjoyed at the opportunity to eat.  That's something that I take for granted, often grumbling when I can't eat something that I like or when I don't get enough.

It wasn't only her excitement for a basic necessity that touched my heart.  It was her thankfulness toward me.  I couldn't comprehend why she would thank me.  I didn't do anything!  I didn't produce the money, give it to her, or buy the groceries.  I was merely a messenger and a friend.  Then I realized that being a messenger and friend is part of the process; it's part of the greater picture.  Without that messenger and friend she may not have eaten.  We each have a part to play in helping others.  Sometimes it's big, and sometimes it's small.  Sometimes what we think looks small is actually big.  Rarely if ever are we able to see or comprehend the full extent of how God is using us in a given situation.  The people that have supported In Search of Sanuk did not get to see the excitement on Bellice's face or hear it in her voice.  When they gave to this organization and prayed for it, they probably didn't know that they would be enabling this starving woman to eat.  But they saved her life and will forever be a part of her journey.

As soon as the wedding was over on Sunday afternoon I basically locked myself in my room, only coming out to buy bread and eggs down the street at 7-11.  I cleaned the apartment like there was no tomorrow (it was smelling pretty bad from neglect), watched movies, and ate junk food.  It was time for some much needed R&R.  Not only for my mind, but my body too.  I've been getting sick...again.  This time it's just coughing, pain in my throat, and the left side of it swelling up.  So it's not too bad.  But still, sometimes I get sick of being sick.  If I were to guess (and I may be wrong), but it seems like I've been coming down with something (as minor as it may be at times) about once every 3 weeks.  That's a lot!  I'm going to blame the heavy pollution, humidity, drastic temperature changes between indoors and outdoors, and difficulty to maintain a healthy, well rounded diet.  Those are about the only reasons that I can think of.

Today (Tuesday) was the first day that I wandered out.  It was a little sad at first because my neighbor thought that I went on a trip yesterday.  When I explained to him that I was in my house all day he couldn't understand why I didn't even come out to say hi.  And I didn't have the language skills to explain it.

Then I taught English for an hour.  We read an article about "Gangnam Style," watched the youtube video, and I showed them how to do the dance.  Haha yes.

After teaching I went with some friends to a Hillsong Network Event where there was live music and speakers from the church in Australia.  On the downside, I fell asleep during the preaching (It was really good. I was just really tired).  On the plus side, a lot of people came to know Jesus for the first time!  That was awesome :-)

To top off the night I went with Evette (my roommate) to get an oil massage.  A few days ago a friend PayPal-ed me some money with a note, "...if you spend this on anything BUT luxuries I'm going to be pissed. Get yourself a massage."  That didn't take much convincing.  And massages here are CHEAP!  The 1 hour oil massage was less than $10! 
Last time I went to this particular massage parlor it was really awkward when a man propositioned me for sex.  "You come back I give you massage. I pay you."  Ick.  But I later found out that this is extremely abnormal for this parlor and they're usually really good.  So I decided to give it another try and LOVED it!  It was the best massage I've ever had in my life!

One of the families that I've been working with recently informed me of their run-in with the Thai immigration police.  All 5 of them have expired visas and are in danger of being thrown in the detention center indefinitely if caught.
They had just left church and were waiting at the bus stop on their way to Moon and Rish's wedding when the immigration car pulled up and the police started walking toward them.  According to another asylum-seeker that I know, immigration seeks out illegal people very aggressively in October and November to meet some sort of quota from the government.  This means that homes, bus stops, and businesses are being raided constantly at all hours of the day and night.  It is very dangerous for refugees and asylum seekers to travel anywhere, or even stay in their home for that matter.  They are terrified to go anywhere or do anything.

Anyways, this family saw the immigration police coming toward them so they fled up to the skytrain.  When they saw that the police were following them they ran down the other side and hopped onto motorbikes back to church were they stayed for nearly 7 hours before feeling comfortable enough to return home.

"My children were so scared," said *Walice, "my daughter wouldn't stop crying."  Heck I would be scared too.  From what I've heard (but have yet to see), the detention centers cram about 100 people into cell, including young children.  People will either end up there or deported back to their home countries where they are likely to be killed.  Rarely ever do they have enough money to bail themselves out. "I praise God for our safety today. Please don't forget to pray for us. We really need your prayers," he said before we hung up.

As the flower girl kept saying all morning, "Today's the big day!"  
After a year of engagement, a month of uncertainty, and 3 days of wedding planning, Moon and Rish finally got married!

I fell into the role of wedding coordinator quite unexpectedly and without a clue as to what to do or how to do it.  It felt like the blind leading the blind. Haha.
The wedding was quite simple, but as always there are a lot of decisions to be made and small details to attend to.  The donation from a supporter in America was a life saver, as were the people at Newsong Bangkok.  Rish looked beautiful in the wedding dress that she brought from Pakistan with her new shoes, tiara, faux red nails, elegant jewelry, and curled hair.

It was so great to see the community getting together to bring makeup, jewelry, cake, drinks, and decorate the church with fresh flowers.  One of our friends Megan walked upstairs to our room with her suitcase, fresh off the overnight bus from Laos and was like, "Hey can I use your shower.....OH MY GOSH it's your WEDDING DAY!" and ended up spending the next 3 hours decorating the church.  Hahahaha.  I love how people here jump right in.  I don't know what we would have done without them.

The bride and groom were both so nervous.  Rish was even scared to walk down the aisle by herself.  She tried to convince my roommate Evette to walk with her.  Haha.  We were Skyping in her parents, and it was a memorable moment to see the look on her father's face as he saw his little girl walking down the aisle all done-up in white.  How difficult it must be for a dad not to be able to give away his daughter on her wedding day, but how great it is that even in these tough situations he could watch the ceremony.  We got the whole thing on video too, so that's awesome.

And then a couple from Newsong covered their stay at a nice hotel for the night too.  Every couple should have some privacy on their wedding night.  Otherwise they would have gone back to sleep in the same room as his mom, dad, brother, and sister.  Not exactly romantic.  They called me later in the evening just to say how thankful they are to everyone that helped make this day possible.  After everything settled down and we got the apartment picked up a little bit, a few of us kicked back and watched a movie with Subway and a glass of wine.  Wow, what a day!

It's been super busy and super exciting lately as I found out on Wednesday night that a couple, *Moon and *Rish that I've been working with from Pakistan will be able to get married on Sunday!  That's given us about 3 days to put together and pull this thing off.

Every girl dreams of her wedding day and unfortunately Rish's parent's aren't able to be here with her, so we wanted to make it really special.  But it  quickly dawned on me that we had about a $10 budget.  I called Chris, the president of Life Raft International (the NGO that I'm working with to help these families) and he contacted a friend who donated $150 for their special day!!  Praise Jesus!

So Thursday evening the couple came over and we started planning, and on Friday we went to Sophia's house for a dinner party before heading out to the flower market near China Town.  Everyone says that the best time to go to the market is around midnight, so that's exactly what we did.  It was SO beautiful!  And SO cheap!  We got bundles of roses and orchids for under $3 each and a her bouquet for $10!  I think the flower exporting business might not be a bad idea ;-)

On our way back to my house the police had set up a checkpoint along one of the major roads.  The taxi slowed down as police peered into our car with flashlights and pulled us over to the side of the road.  Rish and *Joshua (Moon's brother) haven't overstayed their visas quite yet, but Moon has so he could easily be arrested.  All of our hearts were beating fast as we screamed silent prayers.  All I could say was, "God you need to show up. God you need to show up." I know that there's a lot of corruption here, so I slipped the wedding budget into my back pocket (I've had police look through my wallet and count my money before. No joke).
One of the cops opened the door and asked, "What country are you from?" "America," I said.  "Pakistan," they said.  
"America fine. Pakistan get out of the car," demanded the police officer.  So naturally I got out with them.  "Where are your passports?" said the cop.  Moon pulled out Rish and Joshua's passports, but not his own.  "Where is your passport?" screamed the officer.  "I left it at home. I'm so sorry," was all that he could say.  Everything kind of hung in the balance at that moment.  The officer was not happy but by the grace of God he let us get back into the taxi and go home.  Oh my gosh we were all shaking. That was a really close call.

My friend Chris gave me the idea of starting an online journal to let people know what my days look like here.  While I already have a blog, I tend to make sure that those posts have a purpose or overlying theme.  Maybe that's why blog posts have been so few and far between.  I've been struggling to gather my thoughts into one place and organize them into something worth reading.  So my friends, this journal section is not so much for developed thoughts or deep reflection.  It's a record of the raw in's and out's of our journey together.